Hurricane Ike - first pictures!

Ike is getting closer, and we have just driven to the coast (not to Galveston, don't worry!) to see the premises of the hurricane... it's already very impressive (and a bit scary), and the storm isn't even here yet. What you'll see in the photos below is the tidal surge preceding the storm (it's going to get a lot worse than this during the storm), with very high waters; some homes and streets are already flooded. We also saw rats running away, lots of cockroaches and even a locust-type beast at the yacht club... Many houses are boarded up, people have fled. The freeways are eerily empty... We're now back home and ready!