Category 4 - No, Category 2 - No, Category...

The news folks and the politicians will just try to scare you to death. They even make me nervous. But we are hearing from less sensational sources that Ike is again a category 2. We can handle that, no problem. There were a lot of people on the streets (something I'll talk about later), and the City has opened Ball High School as a shelter. I guess somebody will tell the homeless guys hanging out at the Salvation Army. The bay has flooded the downtown area and is marching toward us. It's gotten as far as the street on our back side. We still have power, which surprises us. But of course, landfall is still several hours away.

I've stopped watching the media news, because even when you know they're hyping things up, it's hard not to get caught in the hype. Which is not to say that there isn't going to be a lot of damage on Galveston Island, because there is. To what extent, I don't know. The administrative office manager has a home on the West end of the island, and I'm pretty sure that's going to take a bad hit. She and her husband evacuated to Pasadena (a Houston suburb), but I wouldn't want to be in Houston for this thing either.

Perhaps we should have gone ourselves, but by the time we got spooked enough to do it, we were separated from our automobiles by thigh high water. It flash-flooded the downtown, but has been holding in place for some time now.

The talking screeching heads were saying 35 foot surges, and there's never been another with such high surge waters. Well, I don't know about that, but we figure we have a good 45 feet clearance if we're on the topmost floor of the building, and we are hearing now that Ike has downshifted a bit in intensity, so we are feeling good enough to put on a movie if the power holds. I will say this: I've always liked stormy weather, but I might not opt to stick around for another one like this. The uncertainty is too rich for my old blood.

My cousin called me from Springfield, Missouri, where he's at a conference and said they were flooding seriously up there, and he didn't know if he was going to get out. So, toast us a drink and stay dry out there yourselves.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.