What is it like to ride out a hurricane? SCARY! Houston experienced a direct hit from Hurricane Ike yesterday. You might think that since we live in an at risk city, that we would be old pros at this, but Houston has not experienced a direct hit in 25 years. So it’s a risk, not something that we view as a real possibility.
So what do we do when there is an imminent threat? We secure our 34” sailboat as well as we can. We make sure we have lots of bottled water, batteries, and non perishable foods, move absolutely everything out of our yard, fill the bathtubs with water and wait. We call our friends, especially the single ones, to make sure no one is weathering the storm alone.

Ike came ashore in the middle of the night, really creepy timing. We turned out the lights at 10:00. Our phone lines went out at 11:59, our power went our at 12:35, and at 1:15 the alarm on our house started beeping every 17 seconds, driving me over the edge until I figure out how to disarm it. Once the power was out, we could hear the frightening power of the wind in all its tortured fury as it tore around our house. This caused our thunder phobic rescue dog, Cody, to try to climb in bed with us. At 70 lbs of slobbering, shedding terror, that is a very unwelcome idea. Off to the workout room he was escorted, where he could safely huddle in the closet among the athletic shoes. It’s very hard to sleep with that howling wind, so we tossed and turned the rest of the night, wondering which of the 90-100 year old oak trees in the neighborhood would go down, and trying not to think about flying projectiles shattering our gorgeous floor to ceiling windows.

I tried not to think too much about Sea Breeze, our poor boat, tied up in Seabrook, on the edge of Galveston Bay, or about Give Simple. You have to separate your possessions from what you really cannot afford to lose, your family and your friends.

Give Simple is housed in a 1930’s printing factory building that was converted to lofts in the 80’s. It’s a very cool old building that we love having out fulfillment center and office in. But when you’re thinking about protecting your inventory from a hurricane, the sky lights and big industrial windows lose their charm. In the end, you pick your server and all of your other computer equipment up off of the floor, say a little prayer, and lock the doors.

Saturday morning, getting the dogs to go outside in torrential rain with sporadic wind gusts was a challenge, but we could see the storm was abating. Our pool was barely over the top, and out front the curb was underwater. We lost an ornamental tree in the backyard, and hundreds of small branches from the ancient oaks littered our yard and pool. Our neighbors were fine, just all without power. We daring drove the 1.3 miles to the office to find no damage, just a little water here and there, but also no power. All we could do was go home and clean up our property, and wait.

Sleeping without air conditioning in 85 degree weather is not pleasant. When it starts raining and you have to close the windows, the real perspiration begins. A sink bath does not really help all that much.

Later on Sunday, Charlotte, our intrepid customer service manager, who had regained power at her house, came over to bring us her battery powered TV. Then she went by the office where she found not only a bag of ice in the freezer, but power on!!

Give Simple was saved!! Our customers would feel barely a blip as we could fill orders and ship, although we are unclear on whether we’ll have normal USPS and UPS pick up and deliver tomorrow. Still, a big load off of our mind.

Now, we just need power back at home, and we need to drive the 40 minutes down to Seabrook to check on our boat. Not so bad, but I NEVER want to do it again!!