Hurricane Ike Update

Well, we made it thru our first disaster. Although we had mandatory evacuation orders for both Hurricane Gustav and Ike it was Ike that really came thru and wrecked havoc for the area. We live just 80 miles as the crow flies north east of Galveston. Basically a straight shot north from Port Arthur. Strange, because we were just in Port Arthur for stake conference a few weeks ago. In fact Roman just received the Melchizedek Priesthood at the Conference. The very next week we had to evacuate because of Hurricane Gustav and come to find out it barely drizzled here and there was little or no wind. We had evacuated with Liz and Devin to San Angelo where we stayed at the Goodfellow Air Force Base for two days and then went down to San Antonio to visit our friends Donna and Patrick Elliott. Wonderful people with wonderful hearts.
No such luck with Hurricane Ike. Ike came thru with a vengeance. Orange County which is the county just south of us on Highway 87 was devastated. As was Bridge City. From what I have heard from a friend whose daughter is married to a Marshall in Bridge City they have found many bodies in the aftermath of the storm. They are also having major problems with all the alligators and snakes. Now those two alone would keep me from ever going into Orange again. Much less the destruction from the Hurricane. Beaumont, which is where we have to go for anything really like Best Buy and any bookstores, sporting goods, movies, restaurants and such has also been hit very hard. This weekend Paul and Dylan are going down at 5am with the Church to do service in Beaumont.
We were fortunate although we had no power for 4 days and the HUGE pecan tree in the front yard fell on the house it did no major damage. We had a small generator and that helped tremendously. Totally blew out the freezer. We had trouble with the Refrigerator/Freezer but got that fixed.
The best part was that for some reason I had a very calm feeling through both Hurricanes that all would be well. I was at peace and knew the Lord would protect us. Was true too because the tree didn’t hit the ground until 5 minutes after we pulled out of the driveway. Otherwise it would have hit the car with all our stuff packed in it. And that was after the Major part of the hurricane had come thru when the ground was water logged.
We have been truly blessed, we are safe, no major damage, and we were together thru it all. We also had the opportunity to use what the church has urged us to do and that is the food storage. We found what we were lacking and what we had plenty of. Great learning experience. Hope you all got that email I sent on what I had learned from it.
Love you all and God Bless!!