Home Sweet Home

We drove back to Houston today. It took a little bit longer than normal, but it wasn't bad at all. We did not run into any traffic jams and the flow of traffic was very smooth. Looks like Houston dodged most of the damage. Other than some tattered flags and blown off awnings, southwest Houston came out almost unscathed.

There is a gas shortage in the city and hopefully that'll get resolved in the next 3 days. I think everyone in the city is pretty relieved and pretty happy over how lucky Houston was the last 2 days.

We relocated to Austin

After all the talk about not leaving Houston and staying put for the storm, 3 things happened. A friend offered a place to stay in Austin, traffic out town got much better, and Rita started woobling to the west. Our safety margin was 30-50 miles. That was a bit too close for comfort. So we packed up and drove out to Austin last night. We are now safe and out of harms way.

The trip took 6 hours, about 3 hours longer than it normally would. But considering the circumstances, we were very lucky. I-10 reminded me of the road taken by a retreating army. There were cars parked on the shoulders every 100 yards or so. And with the 2 streams of red taillights (contra flow on I-10), it was a scene that I won't soon forget. Yet, despite the hardship and tough conditions, it was quite orderly and quiet. No one honked, no one yelled, there was just the orderly flow of traffic. Now I wonder how are they going to get all these people back into town.
I'm already looking at all the backroads to get us back to Houston (thank you google maps)

It's looking like Rita is weakening a bit and staying east, so that's good news for Houston.

Why we didn't leave Houston

There are a number of reasons why we decided to stay in Houston.

-The forecast changed. The storm path shifted eastward, so we are no longer on the dirty (stronger) side of the storm. As long as the storm makes landfall east of Galveston Bay, we should be fine. We would then be 100+ miles from the center and would barely see hurricane strength winds (74 mph winds). Furthermore, our house is well shielded by other houses on the north side, so we should not experience most of the wind..

-This is a fast moving storm, so right now, the flood possibilities are low. All the forecasts state 5"-12" of rain. That should not flood where we live.

So other than a few days without power, it shouldn't be dangerous where we are with one caveat - if the storm stays on the current path or east of it.

Also all the roads are so congested that it would be more dangerous to run out of gas along the road than it would be to stay where we are. Furthermore, gas has become a scarce resource, we couldn't waste it sitting in traffic. I guess the smart thing would have been to drive out on Tuesday.

I hope we made the right choice. I guess we'll know in a few days, but so far the drive away today option seemed like the bad one.

Still got power

Power went out briefly at 7pm tonight. That was scary as we didn't have everything prepared yet. If someone blew out a transformer or something, I doubt the energy company will come out to fix it before the storm... That would have been really bad. Luckily, the circuit reset itself and we have power. Let's see how long this will last tomorrow.

Rita traffic

I'm looking at I-45. It's a freaking parking lot. It's like 100 degrees today in Houston and people are "driving" at 5 mph on the freeway with no AC (to conserve gas), and minimum food and water..

At this point, it is difficult, near impossible to leave Houston I'd go drive southwest or NW. But I'd rather ride out the storm in a house rather than a car.

Other Rita notes

-Almost everyone is off work today and tomorrow

-Galveston is a ghost town right now

-All the local channels are on hurricane coverage

-The cell phone networks are overloaded intermittently already

-Looks like the govt response so far is better. They are prepositioning assets already.

Rita Rita, go away

A quick post to keep everyone updated on our status. We are doing okay and getting ready for the storm. First, I'll try to keep posting until we lose power and/or lose phone service.

We have bought our food, our water, our gas. We are doing all the yardwork, taking down satellite dishes, taping our windows, to get ready for the storm. From the forecast, we are probably going to worry more about wind than the water. Also we are not in the flood plains so that should be okay. Our house is somewhat shielded, so hopefully we don't get any damage.

The storm path has shifted overnight. If Rita continues to move eastward and/or continue to weaken, we should be okay... Thank god for that Texas heat (thought I'd never say that).

The traffic is horrible in Houston right now. A lot of gas stations are out of gas but the stores still have plenty of food. In the north part of the town, it's basically a parking lot on all the major freeways. I'm wondering if we will evacuate to Spring. It really depends on whether Rita goes eastward or not.. If it heads to Houston directly, we'll be driving north locally.

Gotta go back to work on the house. Will keep posting