Surviving My First Hurricane

When I woke up this morning it was incredibly dark. In fact, I went back to bed hoping for a little more sleep and it was so dark GraceAnne didn't get up until 9am. She wakes up as soon as the sun comes up. We had a lot of wind, and the big old pecan trees looked like their tops were going to be twisted off. We had some rain. We were scheduled to get a pretty good beating this evening but then Hurricane Ike decided to turn further eastward. I think Allan was slightly disappointed that we weren't blown off the porch, but I'm cool with that.

The one really awful thing that happened today and I feel so bad about is that a friend of ours, (actually, the daughter of a friend of ours...who is also our friend), goes to school in Nacadoches, TX. She didn't want to come home last night. I guess she didn't think it would be so bad, (same thing so many thought!), and so she stayed. Today she was scared and wanted to come back. Allan said that we could go get her, so we were trying to work it all out. GraceAnne was going to stay with the neighbors and Vi was sleepy so she'd sleep most of the way there. We were looking for directions and all...but we couldn't go. Because everything was too flooded there, (they got hit HARD!), because roads were shut down so there could be 4 lanes for evacuation, because because because. She sounded so disappointed when I called her to tell her we couldn't come. She was very understanding and said she had felt bad that we were going to come, but I feel awful that we couldn't help her when she was scared and needed us. What are friends for? The only thing I can say that makes me feel slightly better, (although it's completely disturbing), is that GraceAnne can't lose her mom, dad and sister. I trust that God helped us make the decision we had to make and kept our friend safe, too. I only wish I felt better about that.

Please pray for everyone on the coast...looks like they'll be without for a while.