Hurricane Ike was an awesome storm... wiping out entire communities... turning peninsulas into islands .... stranding animals and people in strange and bizarre situations....

Today over 1000 head of Texas longhorns were rounded up and driven miles the old way.... with horses and cowboys....down a Texas highway to pastureland from a newly created salt marsh where they had been trapped by Ike... with no food and only salt water.... They were weak... but are expected to recover.... In Chambers county another 20,000 head of beef cattle are stranded and hungry and ranchers and agricultural experts are trying to find a way to round them up and rescue them.... either moving them somewhere else or finding a way to care for them where they are.... Many thousands of head of cattle are stranded here and there... in some places water is still high.. in others the water washed them into strange places and places they can not easily leave... many have no food or water... rescue operations are underway.

NASA is scheduled to reopen... damage was minimal thanks to a storm ride out crew of 60 dedicated individuals who rode out the storm there and minimized damage.....

The Houston Independent School District took all their school buses and parked them as close together as they could get them in on of their stadiums.... a solid block of school buses.... why? well.... they figured that if the wind started blowing debris around it would only mess up the ones on the outside of the mass... the ones on the inside would be protected by the buses that surrounded them so closely.... and it worked... damage to the buses was minimal.

The oil refineries are almost back to speed and only about 20 oil rigs were lost in the Gulf.... One of the estuary lakes suffered a fish kill.... testing is underway to determine the cause... It could have been worse...

Moody Gardens on Galveston Island has fared well.... loosing only a few cold water fish when one of the aquariums got too hot.... and saving the penguins with generater power keeping their enclosure cool enough for their survival. Twenty dedicated people rode out the storm there with the animals.... risking their lives to save the animals in the exhibits.

And the big cats from the small zoo at Crystal Beach on Bolivar have been saved.... And that is quite a story.

It seems that the owner packed the African lioness in to her travel cage and tried to drive her out of harms way.... He made it as far as Crystal Beach where the road was washed out... He saw a church with people holed up to sit out the storm and the water was rising... When his truck started floating, the people helped him get the lion out of the cage and helped the lioness swim and wade to the church... They coaxed her into the doors of the sanctuary and spent the night of the storm there together.... the water only rose to three feet and they all survived. The survivors felt that the lion had little interest in eating anyone while swimming around in the flood waters.... During the night three people swam to the church fro the lumber yard next door. They had been on the roof and the water was rising and they felt that they would be safer in the church. They had been texting to voice to a local TV station reporting their progress and hoping for rescue... The last message received seemed to say they had made it to the church and that the people and the lion were fine and needed rescue.... Commentators at the station were puzzled and the message was hard to understand.... and everyone thought it must be garbled... and hoped for the best for the folks in the church....not realizing that in reality... the lioness lay down with the lambs that night and all were saved.

Soon the waters went down and lion made herself quite at home on the altar in the sanctuary.... The people left her there and put signs on all the doors warning folks that there was an African lion locked in the sanctuary.... Eventually, in a day or two, the people were spotted by helicopters and rescued.

Meanwhile, back at the zoo, the storm washed the tiger out of his enclosure..... he too survived the storm and roved the beaches and streets for several days... First responders and rescue workers were warned that a tiger roamed the streets and advised to keep their distance from him.... it seems that no one told them about the lion in the church.... Monday the authorities looked for experts to come and trap the tiger.... by Wednesday the tiger has been trapped and is safely rescued and housed in an appropriate facility.... Also on Wednesday media was interviewing one of the survivors of the church. They took a camera crew back to the church for the interview. No one mentioned the lion. The interview was progressing well when the photographer noticed a lion in the sanctuary.... a lion that was very attentively listening to the interview..... creeping up on the people talking.... creeping up on the camera and photographer holding the camera.... Pictures were taken....AP has published them.... all except the last one that was just a blur as the photographer dodged the last advance of the lion. The lion seems quite comfortable on the altar in the sanctuary and has made herself quite at home.

There are still little yellow signs on all the doors warning folk that there is an African lion in the sanctuary.

Texans...... ya gotta love em.....

Angel