Pam:

Baytown is in bad shape too. No one in this area was "spared".

Val: Bolivar, Crystal Beach, and High Island and Oak Island residents (the ones who survived) are fussing because "Galveston" is getting most of the news coverage locally. Good LORD - everyone in this area was hit and hit hard. Like I said, no one was spared. I guess Galveston is getting the most coverage because they are the most 'known' City of all the rest. I don't know. I just know that it is really bad around here.

One of the elementary schools here in my town had its roof ripped off and the rain water destroyed everything in the school.

My daughter, who is in Spring still does not have electricity, nor does the school my g-girls attend. They are still home. It's just a big mess all around.

LINDA: How are you doing in Lufkin? You guys weren't spared either, I understand. Did ya'll have schools destroyed? I pray we never see the likes of IKE ever again!!!!!!!!! I figured that kind of storm would hit Galveston one of these days, but I never thought it would be in my lifetime. I was wrong!!!!!!

The entire year before my F-I-L died, he talked a lot about one of these days a big storm would come and wipe Galveston out, and he even said Bolivar would be under water. He said, "watch what I'm tellin' you, baby, it's gonna happen". Well, he didn't live to see it, but it sure happened!!!!!!

Cathy,

That's probably why Galveston's getting most of the coverage...everybody's heard of Galveston and know where it's at. I know that until they started the coverage on the Houston website, I didn't know where Crystal Beach, High Island, Bolivar or Oak Island were.

As for a hurricane taking out Galveston, well, one of these days a hurricane is going to take out Miami Beach...they've been dodging the hurricane bullet for years now, but you know that it's going to happen sooner or later. And if you think of all the lives that might have been lost in Ike, well, I think you'd probably have to at least double that, because of all the high rises on Miami Beach...not sure, but I don't think Galveston and the surrounding islands had as many high rise apartment buildings as Miami Beach does, especially around North Miami Beach which has a large elderly Jewish population. People in the evacuation areas of Miami/Miami Beach just don't want to believe that it'll happen to them...and not only do you have North Miami Beach, Miami Beach and South Beach, there are a lot of smaller islands in Biscayne Bay like Key Biscayne, Watson Island, Star Island, etc., that have large populations...and Key Biscayne has a lot of high rise apartment buildings. Watson Island and Star Island are more of your "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" areas with all the star mansions.

Well, the hurricane was much more real to me this time - our granddaughter and her husband had just bought a house in League City and their house is about 5 miles from the Gulf. Their windows and doors all had water pouring in and their fence blown down and the roof damaged but they had a generator and kept in touch by email and to their mom up here also by cell phone. It was very harrowing for our granddaughter - she works in a hospital nearby and it was evacuated but she went back to work on Monday after the storm but they have a lot of damage and no one can get out yet to survey or worry about fixing. Her parents are going down to visit in a couple of weeks. She sent us pictures of the damage around them. I was raised in Houston but it's been many years ago and glad we don't still live there. I stayed up till we knew they had survived that night - many prayers.

Frieda:

I am about 10 minutes from League City. YES, damage was bad in our areas of Galveston County, but thankfully your grand-daughter and all of my family were far enough inland, that we still have our homes. THANK GOD.

I just heard that the League City area ALL now has power. That's good news.

Glad everything is as well as is with your family. Does your g-daughter work at Clear Lake Regional? My Mom was in ICU there just the week before IKE. She is out and fine now - but THAT would have put me and my family over the edge if she had still been in ICU during all of that! I couldn't have handled that!

My granddaughter isn't good about answering specific questions so I still don't know the name of hospital where she works except it is about 5 minutes from their house. I'm dreading our son and his wife selling their house up here (her parents) because then they are moving to be near Jackie (granddaughter) in that area of Texas. Glad your mom is out of hospital and fine. Guess I'll get to visit that part of the world again once our son and wife get moved there but it will probably be a while since real estate market is so bad now and they don't have to sell anytime soon so will wait out the market till things start to move again.