Ike Ike go away!

Prayer, petitioning for the devolution of Gustav... The storm weekend to a category 2 rather than growing to a category4. Katrina, if you'll remember was roaring into New Orleans as a strong category5, but deteriorated to a category 3 by landfall. Rita had the lowest barometric pressure ever recorded while in the gulf, but deteriorated, against predictions, before making landfall and missed the metropolis of Houston/Galveston, also against predictions.

Ike is the last storm on our scopes of this menacing train of storms this past month. It is projected to make landfall near Houston tomorrow night. The trend in course predictions from the National Weather Service is moving it closer to that highly vulnerable area overnight.

Responding to Houston, like we did New Orleans, is more difficult because of the added distance. Nonetheless, if called, we will go.

Let's do our best to avoid that necessity, though with prayer and petition to our Lord to quiet the storm as he has the others. As bad as they have been, we know this one can be even more devestating to more than 2 million people living there.

John McGuire