Last year, Hurricane Katrina legendarily hit New Orleans, destroying thousands of homes. We were all watching on our television, seeing the hurricane hit Louisiana, being happy that it had not affected the Houston area (where I live), but at the same time, understanding that our happiness was New Orleans’s despair.

When Rita hit, we were of course scared that what had happened to New Orleans would happen to us. Once again, massive evacuation took place. We had three families and a dog living in our house. I went to swimming practice, the road south being a breeze. There was, of course, no practice. Silly me. The same could not be said on the way back. It took the same length of time the practice would have been had it not been canceled.

This year, Hurricane Gustav scared us all to our wits. We were all scared. We fueled up our cars, we packed up all the water. Strangely, this area did not evacuate, because once again, it hit New Orleans, and it was simply an ironic coincidence that it happened at the same time that Katrina did.

Of course, a lot of people evacuated for Gustav, so when it was a false alarm, they became annoyed. So when Ike came along and the weatherman said it was a possible threat to the Houston area, a lot of people said phooey to that statement.

So when a mandatory evacuation was issued for Galveston, Pearland, and Clear Lake areas, it took people by surprise. Evacuation took place. People lived in our house.

We all fueled up our vehicles, and it was a good thing we did; the next day, there was no more gas. We kept a live map of the hurricane watched every hour the night before it hit. I eyed the radar maps, and I made sure we were on the “clean” side of the storm.

According to the map, the eye of the hurricane would pass through downtown Houston, so we were on the clean side. But that didn’t mean it would be like Gustav, when we didn’t even get rain.
The winds began picking up on Friday night. Among those who were living in our house were some friends: one high-schooler, one middle-schooler, one fifth-grader, one second-grader, and a bunch of adults that I didn’t care about (kids, right?).

We were on the computer the entire time. It turned out the computer room in our house had a marvelously dark view of the tree outside. As the afternoon turned to dusk, the wind blew more violently, and our tree swayed.

I would periodically step out to check, feeling the storm. Even our dog changed; he was much more wary of everything, flinching whenever I petted him.

I must say that I was much too worried. I am like that, and my parents would frequently stop to tell me to stop being so concerned. I checked all the computer backups over and again.

Around eleven at night, one hour from midnight, the power went out. But it didn’t just go out. There was a little wonky period.

First, the power flashed off for a second, then came back on. I could tell because a little hallway light flashed off, and then back on. When it came back on, my touch-lamp next to my bed went bezerk. It flew on and off super-fast. I was thinking of unplugging it when the power just got cut off.

This time it came on again for a second, and back off, but the touch-lamp didn’t do anything. Weird. So being the strange person I was, I walked around the house, making sure everything was okay. I wasn’t a very quiet person, so whenever people asked what the matter was, I would tell them, “The power’s just got cut off.”

Finally, somebody told me that nobody cared and for me to go to sleep. So I just lay in my bed. I thought about all the wonderful things in life, trying to get myself to go to sleep. And the whole time outside, the wind whistled, blew, and rustled the trees.

The next morning, I woke up to see my friend furiously trying to turn on his computer. “Power’s out, and so is the Internet,” I told him.

So that day was a very boring day. People get attached to things. For me, it was my computer. For my high-school friend, it was his XBOX gaming system. Every half hour at least, he mentioned how we could be playing XBOX, how he could be “powning” everyone.

I remember the experience when Rita went through and we lost power for a day. But this time, instead of blindly walking around, I was trying to have some fun. Together, we played some card games, and took out my exercise ball and ended up trying to play monkey-in-the-middle with the huge ball.

Outside our yard had been transformed into a twig and leaf dumpster. Everywhere, twigs, small branches, leaves, and all sorts of random things were dumped on our lawn. I spotted a few pieces of shingles.

In the afternoon, the power came back on. But the next few days, it seemed like people were just realizing the storm. I cheered non-stop for two minutes when I learned there wasn’t going to be school until my mom told me to be quiet.

My dad didn’t go to work the next day. There was a curfew in place. Schools weren’t open. Grocery stores were closed, and we could drive down the road and see a FEMA free ice area.
Some of our relatives were worse, and made my pains seem miniscule. They’re roof collapsed and water spilled into the second floor. Then the second floor was too heavy and it crashed, falling into the first floor.

I really should be thankful for what I have, and thankful I’m not lying in a pool of water, in the heat.