This was my beach house in Crystal Beach, Texas before Hurricane Ike. My younger sister, Renee, and her husband live there presently. My dad lives next door.
This is what it looks like now:
I had to get these images off of satellite today.
It will be weeks and weeks, if not months, before we will be allowed to step foot on Crystal Beach. It is fixing to have martial law declared, and the air space is currently a no-fly zone. The estimate is that 90% of the structures are completely destroyed. The death toll has yet to be announced, but it must be bad if they are restricting access entirely.
Many, many, many of my friends are missing. Thank God my own family evacuated in time. Crystal Beach (also known as the Bolivar Peninsula) is essentially an island, with a man-made cut in one end with a bridge, and a ferry service on the other end. It was that skinny sliver of land directly to the right of Galveston, and it took a direct hit by the eye of Hurricane Ike. Many people got trapped by the water that was rising two days before Ike even made landfall. There was little time to escape for many people.
Please take a moment to hug your family members and make that call to someone you have been meaning to ring up, but have been putting it off for a more convenient time.
You just never know when life is going to throw you a curve.
~Michelle
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