A final post here. A part of me (and probably most people) is a little disappointed that the hurricane missed us. We were very well prepared for it, and worked hard to be prepared. We can't even say we made it through a hurricane, really. I get past that pretty quickly, though, when I see pictures of the places that did get the direct hit. It would have been terrible for Houston, and us, and everyone we know here (both financially and emotionally) if the storm had hit here or just west of here as a category 4 or 5 hurricane, as was predicted. Much of our preparation was for loss of power, and we didn't even get that. We are having record breaking heat here, so that would have been almost unbearable. Many people still don't have power.
Ed and I are very tired from the stress, physical labor, and sleepless nights, but things are just about back to normal here. We have some regrets about missing the Austin City Limits Festival, but at least Erica found a way to sneak in last night (we had her paid three-day pass here, so it wasn't really cheating). It was about 105° there yesterday, which is rather unpleasant for an outdoor event anyway. The real sigh of relief, though, came when Ed's air conditioning gave out yesterday. That would have happened on the road to Austin, and would have made for a very miserable escape attempt, especially with pets.
The question a lot of people are asking themselves is "Next time, would I evacuate?". I guess for us, we made a dozen or so separate decisions that led us not to go. Obviously we made the right decision given the miss, but I do think that next time we would make the same decision. Many people in this area have to evacuate because they are in the path of storm surge. We knew early in the season that we were not in an evacuation zone. Houston can not possibly evacuate its entire population in a few days. Ed made a comment earlier (don't know where he got this) that you "run from water, hide from wind". Even though the wind can be utterly devastating too, I think we can prepare well enough to reduce that risk to the point that we can allow the people at very high risk to leave first. We were getting our information from local sources, not national sensationalistic sources, and it proved to be the right information.
One last P.S.: one thing we learned is that we have a very strong neighborhood as far as helping each other before and
after a disaster, and that is good to know.
Now it is windier than earlier, with some very strong gusts. I think the last bands are close to moving
through, though. We just saw on the local news that the Chase and Shell building downtown have some
windows blown out. If the wind dies down, we may get on the bikes or in the car to see what's happening
around town.
We just got back from walking around the neigborhood. On our street there are just leaves and small
branches down. We saw a few larger branches on other streets, but no house damage. Our front porch isn't
even wet, nor is the grill in the back which we have under the eaves. It is still sprinkling, but if it
doesn't rain more I might have to water! It did get quite windy after 2:30, but no thunder or lightning.
The wind really spooked Lizzie. She
growled and hissed all night, but is fine now. Ed is a little disappointed in the storm, which he slept
through, but I am just glad our hackberry tree stood up.
Okay, our power was off, I went to bed, and now it's on. It's raining and windy, but I just went and
stood out on the porch and I didn't blow away. A police car went by while I was out there. It sounds like
a blizzard, but it looks like Houston dodged a bullet. We could probably still make the last two days of
the music festival.
If this storm turns out to be much ado about nothing, here are some positive things that happened because of it:
- We now have pre-cut plywood ready for the next storm
- We need to paint, and now we won't procrastinate
- We know where all of our important papers are
- We've cleaned out the freezer and refrigerator
- We've cleaned the gutter
- We've trimmed the hackberry tree
- We've backed up our computer data, and now have a long-term backup plan
- The cats have nice collars with tags that they can wear whenever they like
- Ed knows the difference between a circular saw and a jig saw
- WE HAVE A PLAN
One thing about hurricanes is that you have plenty of time to plan. Earthquakes, fires, blizzards, even the
tropical storm we got four years ago, involve a fair bit of rushing around within a period of a few hours
to prepare, if you're lucky. Not hurricanes. At the beginning of this year's season
we were warned that it would be more active than usual. Right away I bought an extra pet cage so we could
cart both cats easily. I told Ed how to get the cats out in an emergency in pillowcases, and quizzed him
about it. I told him we would be practicing, and he said he didn't think the cats would like that, but I
explained that we wouldn't be practicing with cats, only with him (how do you get the cats out in an
emergency? he finally knows the answer). We also made sure they had collars and tags. I printed the evacuation
zone map back in June. After Katrina, we
stocked up on collapsible water containers. We always have batteries, paper products and first aid supplies,
but we got them all in one place a few weeks ago. I've labeled all of the audio / video component cables,
which will be useful any time we want to make a change. We knew to fill up on gas on Tuesday, and got cash.
We asked all
of the locals for advice. Few have been so ready for a hurricane. Katrina helped, and the danger now is that
next time people will dismiss the warnings. Anyway, we are going to bed. If we go offline, it may not be
for long, and that is only a good thing.
Conditions have not changed much since my last post. It is still barely sprinkling and hardly windy. In
fact, if we still had furniture on the front post, it would be fine porch-sitting weather. The porch is not
even wet. We will probably go to sleep soon.
Winds are picking up, but nothing too bad yet. I've felt one drop of rain a few times now, but that's
it. As the winds increase, we could lose power at any time if a tree branch hits a wire, so at that point
you will know more than we will. We do have several battery-powered radios, including one that receives
short wave radio, although I don't know how that works. I am going to make some risotto now.
It's cloudy now, and starting to get windy, but just usual pre-rain winds. It's started to rain in Galveston, but not here. I went for another short walk, and there are so many kids outside playing and walking with their families. I guess they want to let them get their exercise before they have to hunker down.
Erica called this morning to see if there was any way for us to send her our Austin City Limits
Festival tickets. It started today. Now she is going shopping for togas for a party tomorrow given
by the swimmers.
Now we are just cleaning and organizing so we can find what we need. I just labeled all the stereo
component cables so we can break that down and move it away from the windows, then put it back together
easily. It is still only partly cloudy here, although getting breezier. I am hearing from a lot of friends
via IM. Most are still here, but a few have evacuated. Peter went to Abilene; he left early enough that
it only took him 13 hours.
All circuits are busy whether we try cell phones or home phone.
Everybody is cleaning out their freezers of things that may spoil. We got some popsicles from the little girls three doors down, and Becky brought over some halibut and salmon that one of her friends had caught in Alaska. Before grilling that, we went for a walk through the neighborhood, which was eerily quiet. I wanted to go back and get my rollerblades and skate right down Heights Boulevard. I found a lime in the street, which prompted us to make margaritas when we got home so we could toast Rita. Don't worry, we are not taking the storm lightly, but you have to have some fun, right?
Now we are doing the final preparations: everything that needs to be charged is charged, we are filling the tubs, getting everything together, bringing in the last of the plants, doing the last laundry, etc. I had already backed up all of our data onto an external hard drive and stored that in a safe place (Erica's closet). We'll move other valuables in there as well during the day. I ground a bunch of coffee Wednesday so we can use the French press. At some point we will have to bring in the "Don't Give Up the Ship" flag.
As soon as we got one window boarded up, I started to feel better. By the time we were finished, the
weather report had also improved, so my anxiety was pretty much gone. We heard from a few friends caught
in traffic who had turned back to Houston after eight or more hours trying to get out of town. Since most
of our neighbors are staying, I was glad we had decided not to leave. Our next door neighbors are even
hosting evacuees: her parents drove up from Seabrook because we are in a safe zone.
I couldn't sleep at all last night. I got up at 2:30AM and turned on the TV. I saw the traffic and
the reports that most gas stations had run out of gas, as well as that the hurricane might hit us directly,
and was scared for the first time. I felt trapped. We finally just got up and talked to a few neighbors.
Sammy had gone to the lumber store at 6:30AM and they still had plywood, so we decided to try to find some
more (we only had five pieces). By the time we got there, it was all spoken for. The lines at Home Depot
and Lowe's were 5-6 hours long, so we gave up and went home. Just getting caught in lines of traffic there
made me feel claustrophobic about getting on a freeway.
Hurricane Rita coverage from the Houston Chronicle.
They have an RSS feed also.
This morning we turned on the local news right away to see what was happening with the hurricane. The
weather guy gave his report, then made the comment "Houston will rebuild, we are a great city!".
I don't think that was in the script.
We decided we should eat out tonight in case we are stuck with canned food and snacks for the next week.
Luckily, our handy sushi delivery place was still delivering. They are closed tomorrow, so we got lots.
Even though we have a lot of work to do tomorrow (boarding up the house, moving valuables to the middle of
the house), we are well supplied and have the car loaded with the basics. Tonight we are doing all of the
laundry in case we stay here, and making ice, taking freezer inventory, moving outdoor furniture and pots
into the garage.