Alicia and Ike, no friends of Houston!!

Twenty five years ago I graduated from college and loaded up the Chevette and moved to Houston, Texas as I waited to start my new job as an equipment manager for the Houston Gamblers USFL football team. I was living at my parents home for a couple of weeks at most when in August a storm named Alicia was in the gulf and close by. When I woke up early the next morning all heck was breaking loose outside as the hurricane decided to turn at the last second and come right up thru west Houston.

The power went out pretty quickly after sunrise and the winds picked up, and up, and up until they were probably 60-90 mph. The big pine trees were leaning into the wind, snapping and falling on homes. I remember garbage cans, little plastic pools and other items flying up the street all morning. The eye of the storm arrived so we went outside to pull the fallen limbs out of the way, basically storing them between houses. When the storm returned the wind was blowing the other way and more trees came crashing down.

I don't remember a lot of what happened after that other than with no power and it being August in Houston it was pretty bad. I think the water was out a few days and power about a week. Thankfully I could go to work at Oshman's (no longer around) Sporting goods as they had power and A/C. I really didn't like Houston all that much yet and this didn't help AT ALL.

After all was said and done Houston picked up the pieces and moved on. It is still a little bit of a frontier town that doesn't let things get them down. I think with this latest storm it will do the same.

FOOTNOTES:

- I worked at Oshman's a couple of long and terrible retail store months.
- A local hospital offered me a full time job as an HR representative, I accepted.
- Never worked for the Houston Gamblers, and they were only around for 2 years anyway.
- Everything worked out great!