Hurricane Rita
By now you know I live in Houston and in a couple of hours I should start getting the beginnings of hurricane Rita. I'm in the NW part of town and am not part of a mandatory evacuation. Instead, my family and I hunkered down to man the fort right here at home.
Monday, when my friend called telling me to evacuate NOW, I laughed because the storm wasn't anywhere near the Gulf of Mexico. It seemed silly to evacuate when we didn't know if it was even heading towards us. But the outlying areas and Galveston Island started evacuating on Monday, heading north right into Houston.
Tuesday, parents at the school where I work had started asking if we would close for Friday. We had no answers at that time, but were hoping to be able to close in order to avoid having to shelter children at the school whose parents might not be able to get back to them. I decided to stop at the grocery at 9:30 that night to get water and batteries, "just in case". I was stunned to find the parking lot totally full a half hour before the store should have closed. My aunt in Tyler called to invite us to come to her house, but we've never had to evacuate and chose to reserve that option for a worst case scenario. 72 hours before the hurricane's expected arrival the freeways were clogged with evacuees, gas stations were running low, and emergency supplies, ice, bread, milk, eggs, water, and batteries could not be found. I bought canned and boxed goods and began to wonder how bad things were going to be.
Wednesday, my birthday, I hit a discount store for a few more food items, candles and such. Still no bread, batteries or flashlights. When I got to the school, my boss told me we had a bunch to do because we were closing for the rest of the week. WHAT?? I've worked for the company 16 years and have dutifully opened in floods, snow and ice storms. It is unprecedented for my company to close all locations in a city the size of Houston. We secured what we could, backed up the computers, taped windows, turned the fridges to the coldest settings, took pictures of all the office equipment (polaroids with the serial numbers written at the bottom), and wrapped them all in trash bags in an attempt to keep them dry. The kids mostly went home early, driving and catching planes to Austin, Dallas, San Antonio and even Shreveport and Arkansas.
As of 4 a.m. late late late Wednesday night or early Thursday if you'd already gone to bed, Rita was expected to roar straight up the port of Houston.
Monday, when my friend called telling me to evacuate NOW, I laughed because the storm wasn't anywhere near the Gulf of Mexico. It seemed silly to evacuate when we didn't know if it was even heading towards us. But the outlying areas and Galveston Island started evacuating on Monday, heading north right into Houston.
Tuesday, parents at the school where I work had started asking if we would close for Friday. We had no answers at that time, but were hoping to be able to close in order to avoid having to shelter children at the school whose parents might not be able to get back to them. I decided to stop at the grocery at 9:30 that night to get water and batteries, "just in case". I was stunned to find the parking lot totally full a half hour before the store should have closed. My aunt in Tyler called to invite us to come to her house, but we've never had to evacuate and chose to reserve that option for a worst case scenario. 72 hours before the hurricane's expected arrival the freeways were clogged with evacuees, gas stations were running low, and emergency supplies, ice, bread, milk, eggs, water, and batteries could not be found. I bought canned and boxed goods and began to wonder how bad things were going to be.
Wednesday, my birthday, I hit a discount store for a few more food items, candles and such. Still no bread, batteries or flashlights. When I got to the school, my boss told me we had a bunch to do because we were closing for the rest of the week. WHAT?? I've worked for the company 16 years and have dutifully opened in floods, snow and ice storms. It is unprecedented for my company to close all locations in a city the size of Houston. We secured what we could, backed up the computers, taped windows, turned the fridges to the coldest settings, took pictures of all the office equipment (polaroids with the serial numbers written at the bottom), and wrapped them all in trash bags in an attempt to keep them dry. The kids mostly went home early, driving and catching planes to Austin, Dallas, San Antonio and even Shreveport and Arkansas.
As of 4 a.m. late late late Wednesday night or early Thursday if you'd already gone to bed, Rita was expected to roar straight up the port of Houston.
posted by TrisaTx at
12:08 PM
2 Comments:
Our thoughts and prayers are with you.
Take care and know someone out there cares. :-)
By
Anonymous, at 2:54 PM
Looks like your good wishes were heard. Thank you.
By
TrisaTx, at 5:05 PM
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