Overnight, what was left of Hurricane Ike stomped through the midwest, hitting The Lou around 3am this morning. By the time the rain and winds were gone nine hours later, we’d had almost six inches of rain, and a bunch of limbs downed in the yard. Nothing serious at the Deauxmayne, but once again, the city came under the focus of the national media due to flooding. If you looked at the video of folks being rescued in boats from their homes, you would’ve though you were looking at something from Texas rather than Missouri. There are still folks without power — we were down for 2.5 hours — but nonetheless, things are getting back to normal.

Like most of the country, we’ve seen gas prices spike up this week. As Ike bore down on Texas, local crystal ball readers were predicting gas in $4.50 range out of this. Mom tells me that the prognosticators are reading prices above $5 in their tea leaves. With promises of ready supply, there’s been no rationing like Mom has reported in Chattanooga. However, I did see something I haven’t seen in a lot of years…. a gas station with no gas available. In fact, there were almost a score of stations reported without gas this morning. I’m betting that’ll be more widespread before the next week or so is done, and I’m not gonna be surprised to see gas climb well above $4.

Call me a pessimist.

However, the silver lining is that the weather has changed, feeling more like fall than summer, with the promise of a couple of rain free days, which means the doors come off, and the roof is dropped.

I can’t wait.