This week

This week's challenge from Art-it does a body good, was Hurricane- "include the category measurement, wind speed; play with straws, compressed air or any other method of blowing paint or ink around on your page. "


On September 13, 2008 Hurricane Ike hit Galveston Island, Texas. It was a direct landfall on Port Bolivar. Estimates ranged from 75 foot to 20 foot waves. By the time Ike hit our shore the winds had died down from 255 MPH to 110, hence its category 2 rating. Which as far as hurricanes go was not too bad. I have seen worse, but it was the sheer size of the storm that was really the bad part, it made the storm surge totally devastating. From the center (the eye) of the storm out the hurricane was 275 miles by 120 miles. Ike was the 3rd most destructive storm ever to hit the United States.

You may view Here, an image of the Hurricane as he entered the Gulf of Mexico on September 10.

And this is a photo of Gilchrist . The single house you see had just been rebuilt after taking a beating from Hurricane Rita, they were lucky to have a structure remaining as you can see.

We visited Galveston Island and Port Bolivar in January of 2009 (4 months after): Galveston still had boats lying aground where they did not belong and pickups where they shouldn't have been.

Crystal Beach, Port Bolivar, Rollover Pass, Gilchrist and other townships will never be the same. In fact I understand that they still have not found all the missing. From time to time I hear about search and recovery missions out on Mustang Island, where some of the bodies were found. It is speculated that the remainder will never be found.

This is my journal page I blew runny red paint through a straw, needless to say it represents the loss of life. When a hurricane comes in everything is gray, the sky, the water the rain, the clouds get darker and swirl tossing up tornadoes like gray-green whipped cream. If it is daytime when the eye passes over those that are lucky see a brilliant blue sky offering hope that the storm is half way over. By the way Ike continued on his destructive tour north-north east to howl, rain and flood all the way up to the Great Lakes.

For other photos of Hurricane Ike you may look here.