35% have power back after Hurricane Ike

Hurricanes and Weather

This is taking a long time! The good news is that more help for the electric folks is arriving every day. Now, the outage percentage is 65%. See the latest graphic to the right. Maybe someone could shed some light on this...is it a linear relationship or does it get become exponentially more difficult to restore energy as you get into more populated areas? Just wondering.

The weather sure was pleasant today. We had some friends (without electricity) stay overnight and watched their kids all day while they did some work at their home. We had such a great time at the park and hanging out with the neighbor's kids outside. We even opened our windows even though we are lucky enough to have power.

Groceries are still sometimes hard to come by. We go through milk like water. So my neighbor volunteered to pick us up a gallon...no luck where they tried. Gas lines are long in most places. Everyone should try to conserve.

Another pleasant day on the way for Wednesday. Checked on this morning's lows...Huntsville had 56 and Sugar Land had 62. But I couldn't check too many spots because many of the weather stations were knocked out of commission by Ike.

Humidity levels begin rising on Thursday. Please try to help out a neighbor or friend by offering your home for a/c and power. We all need to reach out to help each other right now.

SPANISH FOR THE DAY
Let's do electricity...electricidad -- pronounced eh-lehc-tree-see-dahd. I can't wait for the return of the electricidad.

AND MORE
Round of appreciative applause for the garbage collection folks...they looked like they were running half staff and picking up 3 to 4 times as much trash. I gave our's a big thank you today!!!

Be safe and hang in there everyone!
Cecilia Sinclair
Wonder Weather Woman

Recovering from Hurricane Ike

HURRICANES AND WEATHER

Been busy all day just trying to get back to normal. On the right, you'll see the 12 pm 9/15 restoration graphic from Centerpoint. The red is where there are still outages. As of 12 pm, 27% of customers had had power restored. I am also posting a couple pictures of my husband and neighbor trying to fix the fence. And, a view of my neighbors yard and some of our garbage. I am really impressed at how quickly folks in our neighborhood have been cleaning up.

Needless to say folks, if you are waiting to come back in, you might want to wait a little longer. You can't buy groceries if the grocery stores don't have power.

Here in the Sugar Land/Missouri City area, there are still many neighborhoods without power. Went to the store and there was a limit of 1 gallon of milk per family. I thought they had run out, but a worker was handing out 1/2 gallons from a box. There were no eggs left. There was butter. There was some large volume packages of meat and cold cuts, but no hamburger. There were a few packages of hot dogs. There was some produce and bread, but in limited quantities. Potatoes were available but just as individual potatoes.

Hey, here's a bright note, Starbuck's was open in the store.

Also, gas lines are long. So gas up before you get back into town. And if you're already here, try to conserve gas.

Ice was going fast as many still without power. Thank goodness it is cooler and less humid.

More restaurants opened today.

The forecast for the next few days...pleasant, cool mornings in the low 60s (some upper 50s outlying areas) and highs in the low to middle 80s...lots of sunshine. More humidity returns on the weekend with a few showers.

In the tropics, nice and quiet.

SPANISH WORD(S) FOR THE DAY
I thought it would be helpful to have these 2 words (well one is a short sentence)...to help which is ayudar (pronounced eye-you-dar) and help me which is ayúdame (pronounced ah-ju-dah-may). It is kind of hard to explain but the y has kind of a soft j sound. We should try to help (ayudar) each other and when we need help, we should say help me (ayúdame).

AND MORE
I am really impressed at how quickly folks in our neighborhood have been cleaning up. And for the most part, everyone is being very nice and very patient.

Be kind and be safe.

Cecilia Sinclair
Wonder Weather Woman