What a weird feeling

For family we have not talked to, Yes we survived the storm. We camped out in our living room with plans to stay in our bathroom if we had to, it was our safe spot with no exterior walls. We did not lose our power until about 12:45 early Saturday morning. Wind, rain and all that good stuff. We tuned in the radio and rode out the rest of the night by candlelight. On a quick peek out the window I saw "green lightning", transformers blowing. I saw they sky light up several times from that. At 2:10 Ike made landfall in Galveston. The last thing I remember hearing on the radio was that it was a little after 4am, and the eye would soon be in our area. I remember hearing a loud bang sometime after that, and then talking out in our breezeway of our apartment. Justin had been awake since about 6, but I slept until 9am- thru the worst part of the storm. We walked out to see some of our neighbors under the breezeway surveying the damage in the still wind and rain. The main thing I saw was sections of the fence around our complex knocked down, shingles everywhere and of course branches. We all swapped stories and then I decided to try to make phone calls to see how everyone was. As I walked back to our apartment I noticed a big 8x8 square piece of metal about 4 feet outside our door, against a wall. That shocked me. Then I saw another a little further off. I called Justin down, and we figured out that they came off the top of another building, in the complex, and were like the covers for the screens on the chimneys- scary! That is probably the big bang I heard. Also, right outside our bedroom window the tree had fallen down, but in the opposite direction of our windows. Of course phone service was nonexistant at this point. A few hours later we decided to drive down and see how Justin's uncle had faired just a couple miles down the road. We drove by my school first- which looked fine, except for large sections of the fence around it being knocked down. Justin's uncle and family were fine, without power like us, and had part of their fence knocked down, along with large branches. We stayed there for a few hours- what else was there to do- and then headed back to our place to take a nap. Surprisingly, it wasn't too warm in the apartment yet, and we were able to take a 1 long nap- or longer for Justin since he didn't sleep as much the night before. In the spance of this time I had been able to get in touch with family and swap stories. I called Ann back at Mom and Dads and a light bulb went off in my head- what good is it for us to sit here in our now getting hot apartment and just wait for the power to come back on. No mention had been made on the radio yet about any power being recovered, so when Justin woke up I conviced him that we should head for higher ground- or powered ground you could say! Ann was at mom and dad's so we decided to come out to Justin's parents. Our drive out of town was a bit interesting until we got to I10, because here and there some power was back on, but for the most part traffic lights were still out because of power and they had to be treated as four way stops, which it seemed alot of STUPID drivers did not know. Once we did get on I10, we met part of the convoy coming from San Antonio with supplies and help and that was pretty cool. Also saw LOTS of generator trucks parked at Katy Mills. Once we got into town we stopped by mom and dads for hugs and showing pictures. We got out to Lissie about 9 last night followed soon after by Jeromy, Kristen, and Jayden, since their power is out too. We all swapped stories and I was glued to the TV. Finally got to bed about midnight, and up today and just feeling weird.
I know school is out until Thursday. Areas around us still do not have power, we have been calling friends and neighbors. This is all just so surreal. I know people have been affected by this so much more horrifficly than we have, but I just want things to be normal again. I'd rather be going to school tomorrow! I didn't think I'd ever say that. I left my cord for downloading pics at the apartment, so as soon as things are CLOSER to normal, and we are back at our place, I'll post pictures- everyone take care and BE SAFE!