As some people know, I grew up in Houston. Not a bad town. Growing up, I wanted nothing more then to get the hell out of there. Now looking back, I have no clue why. I don't think it was the town itself. I think it was just being young and wanting to go away and see the rest of the world.
I grew up with hurricanes. They were a way of life for us. We were always watching the Gulf. I submitted Victoria a number of times to the National Weather Service. I just though it would be cool to hear about the "destructive power of Victoria".
1983 was Alicia. WHAT A STORM. I slept on my parents floor. Actually, I "slept". Dad snored so loud I couldn't get any real sleep. At about 6 am, dad, me and my two brothers were up. We were listening to a battery radio. They said that the eye was coming right over us. And not 10 minutes later, everything died down outside. It was amazing. My dad took us out. You couldn't hear anything. There was absolutely no white noise. The sky was still that green murky color, but the rain and wind were gone. It just felt like a whole other world. My mind didn't grasp at the time what I was doing. I was standing in the middle of a hurricane. How many people can say that?
The wind picked up and dad ran us inside. We finally came out again a couple of hours later and took in the destruction. Whole trees were ripped up over the neighborhood. You couldn't use the streets. Everyone's power was gone. We were trapped. Luckily for us, no flooding.
The crews came by and finally cleaned up the streets over 3 or 4 days, but we didn't have electricity for a good two weeks. Imagine August in Houston with no electricity. My parents tried to put up a good front, but after the first week, even they couldn't take it anymore. So, they packed all five kids into the Cadillac and drove us all to the only place nearby with a generator. SWENSENS.
FYI, if you don't know, Swensens was the most fantastic ice cream store ever. And I, the lucky little girl I was, got to spend every night for a week there trying out different kinds of Sundays. It was heaven. Eventually, life went back to normal. The power came back and we had no more candle light chinese take out dinners or flash light ghost stories.
I hope Ike doesn't hit Houston too hard. Neither of the parents would ever even consider evacuating. That word is not in their vocabulary. Mom has her flashlight and a cell phone. So, I guess we are all good.
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I remember Alicia as being a lot of wind...it came in hypnotic waves. And then, because the power was out, I got put on a power diet of Spam that would be cooked with our little Coleman propane camping stove. I really liked the whole camping aspect to the whole time after, which is probably why there will always be a comfort aspect to Spam. It probably has a lot to do with why I like Spam still.
That's what I remember specifically. There are other things that I think are associated with that storm...like how weird the sky was before and after, how hard Galveston was hit, how someone's tree fort got blown out into the street, but for the most part we got really lucky.
Yeh, I hope Houston doesn't get hit too hard either.
Ok Tim. You are the only person I know, besides my mom, who likes Spam. I'm officially taking you to Sushiyama to try the Spam onigiri. Its been intriguing me, but I can't eat it alone.
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