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I recently moved to Houston from Surrey 4 weeks ago, two weeks into my stay,
My husband came home from work one evening informing me that I will need to prepare for the upcoming hurricane Ike. I had heard of hurricanes and flash backs of what I had seen on TV about Katrina. Stunned momentarily, emotionally unprepared I had no idea what to expect nor was I aware that we were in Hurricane Season which runs from July 15th –November 30th in the Gulf Coast Area.

The following morning I switched on the news channel and saw the beast of the hurricane which had just entered the coast causing havoc to the Caribbean islands including Cuba. The Weather man described the hurricane entering the Gulf of Mexico as a Category 2. Over the next couple of days, every channel I switched too was focused on the Hurricane and where it was heading to make land fall. Different computer models predicted Landfall anywhere between New Orleans and the Houston area. All the Houston emergency’s and management services were working 24/7 watching and observing the movement of the Hurricane as was I.

The Gulf was deserted, Iron structures (oil rigs and platforms) standing at the mercy of the hurricane. Houston and surrounding areas has the highest concentration of Oil Refineries in the United States. They were all preparing for the Hurricane by shutting down their Units. This meant that the Gasoline supply to the country would be shut down till the Hurricane passed.

As it came over the warm waters of the Gulf, the meteorologists were worried that this could turn into a monster of a Category 5 Hurricane but Thank God it did not! It was expected that there would be a huge storm surge reaching as high as 20 feet and the Island of Galveston would be under water. The Authorities announced Mandatory Evacuation of the Island. The locals took this very seriously and evacuated the Island in an orderly fashion. The main interstate High way (I45) was unlike Katrina were it was packed like sardines with hardly any room for maneuver. People were able to get to their destinations quicker.

Hospital Patients and Elderly people were evacuated with the help of the emergency services. As this was going on simultaneously we were busy preparing to “hunker down” in our apartment as we were not in the Mandatory Evacuation zone. Finally we heard the bad news, “it was coming directly towards Houston”.
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As the hurricane was approaching closer, we were informed about provisions we would need and things we should have to ensure we were all protected. Areas/ counties were identified and public made conscious through emergency messages/alerts in all media forms. To ensure all those that needed to be evacuated, were made aware, to guarantee their safety. Minimizing, prioritizing and ensure those people who needed to evacuate could do so with minimum chaos.  Refugee camps were in place. I was really impressed with the way that it was handled.
Two days prior to the arrival of Ike (Wednesday), my husband took the initiative to ensure that we had the basic provisions to withhold our time during and after the hurricane. On the Thurday he arrived home early from work, like many other companies he was also given time off. This is to ensure that people who needed to evacuate were able to and opportunity to prepare for the forthcoming event. Luckily for us, the night before we had managed to buy and prepare for everything before the Thursday mad rush. The streets of Houston and most stores and petrol pumps had large queues of people waiting for hours before their turn, it was absolute Chaos, there was so much hustle and bustle on Thursday and Friday during the day, the main roads were packed with people trying to either evacuate or get to Walmart/ DIY stores. Inorder to board their windows etc. Roads were chock-a-blocked almost jammed to a point!.
For us it was cooking time, ensuring we had enough food to last us through and filling buckets with water etc. (good common sense on my hubbies part). Charging mobile phone, esp for emergency (i.e. reassurance phone call to my dearest mum, which is high on the priority list) Come Friday evening it was more of a waiting game, by the evening the streets were empty and no activity noise could be heard outside. Pin drop silence, a vast comparison to the last couple of days. We were all in the same boat...Waiting...
The first rustles and winds could be heard outside at 35mph steadily increasing. Everyone going through different types of emotions from one extreme trepidation to the other of excitement.  I had spoken with a few friends that evening to ensure that they were fine and prepared for what was to come and the feelings varied.
 We had an elderly gentlemen in his late 60’s who lives in our complex by himself. (whom I will call Uncle). It was his first encounter, just like mine. He was very nervous and anxious and worried about what would happen, in particular, his apartment flooding. Shabs (my husband) reassured him and requested he came to stay with us but he declined. On the other extreme end we have an Aunty in her mid 40’s who lives on her own who was outside her home lapping up the first gusts of wind, carefree to what was to happen, taking it in her stride, living for that moment, i sensed a quietly confident trust in her faith. On another extreme we had a young newly married couple (just like us, they got married a month after us) who sounded so excited and could not wait, wanting for adventure, naïve and totally oblivious to the consequences.
 It was now beginning to get late Friday night ( around 11.30pm) and the winds were coming in faster, there were moments when the lights flickered, this happened a couple of times, not knowing when they were going to go out. This continued the winds were coming in faster and much stronger each and every time; eventually the lights did go out!
 Outside you could hear the sound of the storm and lots of movement, rain was gushing down and the winds blowing faster then a 120mph. There were moments when I felt that our windows were going to break; the sounds and noises were so fierce constantly coming relentlessly. Tapping and scratching the surfaces louder and intensely, this went on throughout the night.
It seemed forever before the day was to break and during this time I was thinking of the time and story of, our prophet Noah (peace be upon him) and the ark. When he gathered two kinds of animals and gathered all the believers to go into the ark. It felt like we were doing the same getting all our provisions together to withhold the storm. What it must have been like when they were inside the ark in darkness waiting for the storm to come? like that we were in our homes in darkness waiting and praying quietly for it to go with least damage and loss to anyone. But without motion!
The following morning!
At this point I realized we were not the only ones not asleep. 
People came out to see the damage, With Allah’s grace, and all your dua’s …
Our cars were fine. However, there was damage to all the roofs and most of the fences were blown down causing some damage to cars, trees blown to the ground, including roofs flying out from the garage ports and damaging some vehicles, unfortunately the Uncle’s car was one of them. Badly damaged. He came over to the house devastated and shabs helped to take pictures,make a phone call as he had not charged his phone. I felt sad for him, so pray that the insurance covers his loss. 
We did not have any water or electricity and
was glad that shabs had filled two 18 gal buckets of water to use. This really came in handy!
 It was not over yet, the eye of hurricane Ick had passed but we still had the latter gusts to surpass, so we all went back in (in the morning) again, waiting for the rest of the storm to come to an end, it rained hard and gusts of winds could be heard. Periodically we would have rainfall shoot down like pellets feeling like as if they were thundering down a million miles a second. This continued till late afternoon and the last and final phase had finally passed us.
 At this point, we were still without water and electricity, It neared Magrib (sunset) time and with Allah’s Grace, our water works were back on, what a relief! However the electricity did not come back for a further 3 days. Which meant no light, AIR Conditiong, Cooking facilities etc?
 For three days at Magrib time and onwards whilst without electricity, I was continuously reminded of our prophet Noah, like being inside the Ark. We had candles lit and on the first night we ate marshmallows cooked on the heat of the candle, and fruit salad that I had pre- made earlier and remembered that we had whipped frozen cream ( no longer frozen) in the freezer. It felt real luxurious. Shabs would heat a cup of tea over the candle (ok we did this only once as it took a long time and arm ached) ( For future everyone should have steel mugs at home as water can be heated much faster that way over a candle flame, I had left ours in UK) but it was a sensational experience.

It has been a time in which we both have enjoyed thoroughly the intimate connection and shared good companionship every evening. For me in particular, also a time of deep reflection, the true essence of Ramadan (month of fasting) has come alive for me. (There were moments when I felt I was alone in the cave, with my candles lit and in pray and complete solace).
 We ate chana (chick peas) which I had cooked in advance to last us through the storm and we did this in a variety of ways. We ate them with paratha’s pre-cooked and foiled for sehri (start of fasting) for the morning of the storm, we ate them in bread with chilli sauce for Iftari (breaking of the fast). We ate them on its own with Chura the following day, and then it was long live Kelloggs Cornflakes with milk. No shops were open and when they were there was no provision. On the third day, we found some people who opened up a barbecue and were cooking tandoori chicken, Like the rest of the millions queued up before iftari to buy some ( I think shabs was sick of my chana at that point, I still wonder why?) since we were paying outright over priced dollars for the tandoori chicken!.Any opportunity to make a buck...
 The following morning shabs comes back into the apartment after sitting in the car listening to the radio (Which he did everyday, we were insulated, this was the only source of information we had, our phone had died) to see what is happening. Curfews were in place, no one was allowed to go out between the hrs of 9pm-6am to try and minimize crime, in particular theft. 2.1 Million People did not have electricity. No shops were open and provisions were limited.
 He came back to the apartment to give me the news that we are not going to be having electricity for a further week! At this point my fridge freezer is beginning to smell and I am really worried that all our produce is going to go to waste. We have nearly run out of drinking water and the candles are in their final stages. I don’t think we could go with no light for one more night, as there are no shops open to pick up candles from. With Allah’s Grace that evening at around 5pm as I am getting ready to go with our laptops and phones on the ready to be charged to our newly married couples house, as they managed to inform us the night before, that they had electricity. We get electricity! Alhumdolillah, it’s true he only gives as much as you can handle.
 After my 2 rakahs shukran namaz( thank you pray)  I first call my mum and then check my mail ;-) before I go to our newly married couples home to open our fast. There we find out, that our adventure hungry couple had got water and electricity the very same day! ( They live on the outskirts of greater houston)They did not even go without for one day. Our Aunty friend managed to get out of the city after the hurricane passed to stay with her friend till the electricity gets back!
 We are lucky that we have electricity now, there are still over half a million people who still didn’t have electricity. Its been two weeks and there are still areas that are waiting!
As far as my knowledge goes I have also heard on the news that approx 60 people died inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi raji un (Surely we are Allah’s and to Him we shall surely return) due to hurricane Ike. This number is rising as the Cadaver Dogs are searching for bodies in the wreckage. There are approx 300 or more people still missing.