Sarah and Winnie visit Bermuda Beach.

The sand on John Reynolds was plowed just like snow to give access to home owners.
Looking west you can see a newer front-row house or two which survived the storm and now stand in the Gulf of Mexico. These 2nd-row houses are on the beach (if that is what you want to call the piles of rock, asphalt, concrete, and debris.)
Sarah's house looks pretty good in this picture. The debris wedged underneath in what were first-floor rooms hides the broken and missing pilings.
Looking east from Sarah's house.
Two severely damaged pilings on the south side of Sarah's house. You are looking into what were once a bathroom, laundry room, and storage rooms. The debris wedged underneath includes telephone poles and parts of someone's roof among other things. Amazingly enough, most of the front row houses seem to have washed past the second row and lodged in large piles against the third-row houses. You could often tell which house by the color of the piles.

A view of Sarah's house from what was once the road. Three windows and the sliding glass door in the front bedroom were broken during the storm. The pile of debris begins where the stairs once stood. We decided the grey thing in front of Sarah was the business end of a port-a-potty.
Walking the road in front of Sarah's house requires jumping from rock to asphalt chunk and so on.
Another view of Sarah's house from the southeast.

All that is left of Sarah's front-row neighbor to the southwest. I can only guess at what is hidden beneath the relatively calm waters of the Gulf.

The northeast corner of the house.

A view of the back of the house. The bathtub is completely filled with sand, and other people's belongings are everywhere. The air conditioner is poised to come down at any moment.

Another view of Sarah's house from the back. The rear kitchen window was broken by flying debris, but fortunately the interior of the house was relatively intact. Hopefully the next months until repairs are made and power restored will be uneventful.

Another look at what was once "inside!"

Sarah sits on a large piece of Bermuda Beach Road which was pushed up against the house.

One of the broken windows in the front bedroom and the sliding glass door panel which popped out of its frame. Although the mattresses, bedding, and paneling walls were clearly damaged by water, the bedroom was in much better shape than I expected. The oddest thing was the little bits of paint peeled from other houses and plastered on the walls.

A view of Sarah and the water from the front bedroom window.

The broken kitchen window. The interior of the house was gritty, but it seemed like the broken windows actually created enough cross ventilation to keep the inside of the house fairly dry.

Looking east from Sarah's deck. Many neighbors also lost their stairs and had damage to decks and pilings.

Looking west from Sarah's deck. Ike rearranged the concrete driveways.

A third-row house seen from Sarah's side yard. Much of the debris piled up against it seemed to be from Sarah's friend Bernadine's house which once stood in the front row to the southeast.

A closer look at the debris under Sarah's house.

A telephone pole under the house.

More hurricane damage to the house.

A severly damaged piling surrounded by debris.

A broken piling.

More debris and a damaged piling and supports.

The bath tub is full of sand - the rest of the bathroom was nowhere to be found.

Water damage to the walls and broken glass and debris once the mattress had been removed.

Water-damaged walls and the broken sliding glass door.

Another view of John Reynolds. One of the oddest things about coming on the island was that everything seemed compressed - because the storm had flattened out dunes and saltwater and sand had killed almost all vegetation.

The view down Pabst road upon entering Bermuda Beach. Cat Alley used to stand beyond the people.

Home owners talk with contractors hired to remove the sand from the road and put it back on the beach.

Where Pabst Road now ends.

Ike leaves Sarah's beach house on the front row

Ike dropped by September 12 and he was a terrible house guest. He tossed the furniture, broke a few windows, ripped out some of the uprights from under the house and dumped a load of sand and debris on the front lawn. Great party but the hangover isn't going away any time soon.

There is an upside, on his way out Ike took the entire front row of houses so now we have a hell of a view. The picture above is looking down where Bermuda Drive used to be. The road is gone but if you look carefully you can see the cement manholes that were in the middle of the road. They are about three feet tall and tops were slightly lower than the roadway. All those cement chunks are the foundations from the front row houses.
















Note the marks on the uprights, you can see how high the water was by where the floating debris rubbed the paint off the stilts. We have a telephone pole under the house, I'm thinking of carving into a totem pole and mounting it in the front yard. I'll name it Ike.