Colwell Family: Ike's damage

For the past week I've driven around looking at all of the damage Ike did in our area. There are still 1.4 million people without power and you can tell by just driving around. There are down power lines, Power poles broken on the ground, and if you drive through a neighborhood-you see windows open and kids outside playing. There are many people that aren't as lucky as we are and are still sitting in the dark. I tried to take a few pictures as I drove around the other day--now keep in mind I was the driver and the photographer so some of these aren't that great, but you can see a lot of damage.
This is at the corner of 2920 & 45--I think this might be a fuel truck hub. The last couple of days there have been several fuel trucks parked here--I'm assuming they are waiting for stations that are open to run out of gas. I know around us even though the power isn't restored to so many people around us the lines for gas are gone.

This house sits right off of Spring Cypress-its not the only one that lost their privacy.

lots and lots of down power lines

This picture was taken in front of my parents house. Every house has 10-15 bags of trash including mounds of tree limbs. Our trash was finally picked up today, but I've been told that FEMA is actually responsible for picking up the storm debris--I'm not sure how long that will take

This is the office building that is directly across the street from my parents street--they had a large tree just crack in half, but I don't' think they had any damage-Firewood anyone?!?

This is the neighbor down the street-you can see the HUGE pine tree that fell from the neighbors yard onto her garage and over to the living room. A HUGE crane came yesterday to get the tree off the house. Anyone who would want pine firewood-come on over and drive down our street. You'll easily fill a truck! I thought before that there were only 3 houses with trees on them, but while I was outside talking to the neighbors the other night I was told that there are actually 4 just on my street. I know of one on the other street in our neighborhood, but I don't know if there are any more. As you drive around town you notice TONS of blue tarps over peoples houses. Several of them with trees on them still and a lot of them where their shingles just riped right off the roof exposing the wood.

a further view of our neighbors house

If you look closely in their garage you'll notice 6 or so 5 gal. gas cans lining their garage wall. This is a normal sight at many houses in the area

This morning he got on top of the train table, but because of the lip on the table he couldn't get off.

Today Zach didn't want to take a nap. I tried for about 45 minutes and I decided to give up for a while and I was going to try again later. David Miller & his dad were coming over to load our generator up so they could borrow it. While we were waiting for them to come over I went in the office to check email for a second and Zach all the sudden was being very quiet--I stepped into the living room and this is what I found. Apparently he finally wore himself out! When the guys got there he woke up a little, but I just loaded him into the truck and he slept for 2 hours!