I rode it out in east Pearland. My home survived well, but most of my fence is down. All of my trees survived, but quite a few little branches and probably half the leaves are stripped out. Many old, beautiful oaks and pines are either down completely or broken in half all around the area.
It was definitely an experience. I boarded up yesterday just as the wind came up when I found myself with some spare time between prep at work and the storm arriving. I really, really take my hat off to Home Depot. They staffed their Pearland store the day of the storm selling people like me (and about 75 other locals) the last of their sheeting. Without covered windows I had decided to head to a friend's place. After covering the windows, I feld good staying home.
The best way to describe what it was like the movie Poltergeist. Strange, loud noises, odd wind and pressure sensations, lightning flashing. Once I opened the front door, knowing it was blowing like heck so I held tightly, and the door was pulled out of my hand. It swung closed, but before latching it swung open just as hard, then with the same speed swung back shut. Another time I heard some odd pressure/sound pulsations at about 1 second frequency that lasted a minute or two. The entire time was a dull roar that increased every couple of munites. It was a very surreal thing.
Now at work in the Texas Medical Center. It's one of the few places that power stayed on and we have lots of wonderful AC! We lost 12-14 windows, lots of trees, some roof mounted equipment, one burned up pump motor, lots of signs, quite a bit of water damage. One impressive thing was the wind swung the front end of a (filled) 6,000 gallon/55,000 lb water trailer about 2 feet! And it was on skid type landing gear - not wheels.
I feel pretty lucky. After this, I'm really not sure I'd hang around for a Cat 3.