I like Ike, you like Ike, everybody likes Ike For President (but not for an extended visit)

Family Mojo is hunkering down in place in the face of the biggest storm to hit this part of the Gulf of Mexico (in terms of sheer surge) since Hurricanes Carla and Ivan. We are well out of even the 500-year flood plain, so no worries there. Our location is slated (as of this writing) to experience winds around 70mph but probably not much higher. There is a distinct possibility that we will lose power for at least 24 hours once the storm makes landfall.

I have put a brisket on the smoker overnight, and we are well-stocked on all other provisions, including canned baby formula. We have less than $500 in groceries in the fridge, so even in the event of an extended outage, I'm not all that worried. Plenty of hard liquor, too. The Cap'n has a generator, so if we lose A/C for more than two days, we will likely go camp over there.

UPDATE: We lost power at 8:30 Friday night, just as we were bathing the Wee One. The weather wasn't even bad yet, save for some wind. What we now think happened was that Centerpoint Entergy shut down our grid as a pre-emptive against blown transformers. A long and scary night with howling wind ensued, punctuated by Mrs. waking me at 3:30 ( we were downstairs on the air mattress) with "Omigod the roof's leaking!" Sure enough, I went into the attic while the 70+ m.p.h. wind blew just the other side of my roofing, and there was water coming in. A few pots and pans later, I went back to bed.

The morning: shingles shingles everywhere, some of them are mine! We lost a handful of shingles, but not many, though there is an exposed patch of roofing plywood visible. The water did damage the ceiling, but most of that was wind-blown rain coming in via the soffit. We lost water pressure around noon, and we were contemplating leaving on Monday. HOWEVER, after a recon trip to soak up some vehicle-induced A/C, we arrived back at the homestead and the instant we walked in the door, the power came back on. Centerpoint's gambit apparently worked: once the main transmission lines to our vicinity were proven sound, they re-initiated service.

And I've even managed to already finish my online registration for FEMA! God Bless America!!!

UPDATE II: Mrs.'s Parents came to spend the night to take advantage of the A/C. As we were debating breakfast this morning, everything went dark again. This on top of a new round of rain that (while the power was on) allowed me to take a really good look at the leaks in the roof. It's not super-bad outside today, so I spent a lot of time reading Scottish history. And then, just as Mrs. and I were debating what time to head down to her folks's place (irony: theirs came back on as ours went out), the lights returned. I'm staying here to guard against mischief while she and the Wee One go down there to spend the night.