Stickin' Around

My family and I will be staying in Houston for the upcoming events surrounding Hurricane Rita, and I thought now would be as good a time as any to start using this blogspace.

I hope I can provide my friends who are not nearby with some information about what its like on the ground here and help to elucidate some of what you may be seeing on TV or the 'various internets'.

I would like for the blog to keep up on a few topics including:
-What its like in a city evacuating itself and bunkering down for category five hurricane
-The experiences of those who are leaving town
-The weather
-The way different people will be experiencing this hurricane, evacuation, and aftermath, especially the elderly, the poor, and Spanish and Vietnamese speakers

The law school closed yesterday at noon, so many of the other future attorneys and counselors and I went to El Pueblito for Margaritas. Some of us really overstayed their lunch hour and played guitar and sang Willie Nelson and Peter, Paul and Mary songs, but I don't want to name any names.

Many of my Montrose neighbors are staying put, and the opinion of the 'spit and whittle club' that has assembled down the block is that homes should be fine but that cars should be kept pretty high up.

Many of my friends have headed out of town for San Antonio, Austin, and the Metroplex. (Those of you not from Texas may have previously thought of the Metroplex as Dallas/Fort Worth. This is not the preferred name among those who live there, as many of a third of whom live in neither Dallas nor Fort Worth, while those two cities themselves are thirty miles apart and don't really watch each other's TV stations or read each other's newspapers.) Those who have headed for the countryside and towns as far away as 100 miles to the West or 200 miles to the North will probably not be far enough away to avoid the storm!

After our home was flooded during Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, we rebuilt it at the same location. To comply with building codes and federal flood insurance requirements, it was raised six feet from the ground level. This puts it out of the 100 year flood plain of Brays Bayou. Mom and Dad have a sloped driveway that goes up the six feet to the house, so many of our friends and neighbors are bringing their cars over to try and keep them out of the street.

I just spilled an entire cup of cold coffee on myself, so between that, the more than 45 minutes it is taking to get an english muffin here at Cafe Artiste, the fact that I went to four gas stations before I found one with any gas, and the third strongest hurricane ever recorded heading for me, almost all of my loved ones, and our homes, it's official:

***I'm having a bad day***

My grandparents live in a highrise. They will be staying on the information that the building was constructed to be able to stand up to this kind of storm and they have an emergency generator on the premises.

My Aunt and Uncle have two people staying with them. My Uncle went to Galveston earlier in the week to bring his mother in to town. Another aunt and uncle still have a family of six Katrina evacuees staying at their house.

Her are a few other local blogs that may help to flesh out the situation for you:

Houston's Clear Thinkers / Tom Kirkendall
Greg's Opinion / Greg Wythe
Houston Strategies / Tory Gattis

As of 8 this morning, the grocery stores still had plenty of food, but were rather low on bread. I suspect that this is because bread is supplied to them more frequently than the rest of their stock, but it was pretty wild to see so many empty shelves while everything else was basically full.

More posts coming soon. Everyone please post comments, ask questions, email the link around, and keep Southeast Texas in your prayers,

---Adam