So here I am in Austin, waiting for Hurricane Rita to show up and watching the dance of madness going on all around me. No one knows quite where the hurricane is headed, and we're not being evacuated, but the evacuees are coming this way, and they seem to be carrying infective madness rather like plague rats, and it's getting into all of our heads.
Push Your Car 300 Miles to Safety
They've closed most of the local schools because the traffic from the coast is so bad that no one can actually drive their kids to school and the buses can't reach anyone to pick them up. People are driving 300 miles from the coast to here at speeds of 2 miles an hour, running out of gas on the highway - where all the stations are tapped out - and having to be rescued by state troopers who are cruising the shoulders in giant tanker trucks full of gas. On the advice of radio DJs people on I-10 who were moving at less than 2 miles an hour turned their cars off and began pushing them in the direction of San Antonio because they couldn't possibly carry enough gas to keep the cars running at that speed for the distance they needed to cover, and they could push them as fast as they could drive them - not much fun in 105 degrees or more. In Houston Wednesday night people went out to get gas so they'd have enough in their cars to drive to Austin today and used up what little gas they already had spending hours looking for an open station, and ended up having to stay in Houston as Rita approaches with no way to get out of town. The most horrible story so far from the jammed roads is of a bus full of elderly evacuees where a fire broke out igniting their oxygen tanks and causing a number of explosions. so far resulting in 24 deaths.
Storm Surge, Storm Surge, Who's Got the Storm Surge?
So where exactly is Rita going to hit land and where is it going from there. We sit watching the TV and browsing the NOAA website trying to figure out where the storm is actually going and whether we need to put a tarp on the dog and tie the picnic table to a tree. Yesterday the storm was doing a wicked curve up the coast and heading for Arkansas and we breathed a sigh of relief, but today it decided to do a 'jog to the west' and we're waiting to see if it's staggering, drunkard course resolves into a westward trend and really nails us, or if the 'jog' is just an irrelevant anomaly. Of course, if it doesn't head west, the results may be worst of all, because after it hits the Texas coast it's then expected to go straight up into the lower Mississippi valley sending enormous amounts of water down the river at the already weakened levees around New Orleans.
Article comments
1 - Dave Nalle
The insanity continues even though the storm seems like less and less of a threat. I've just updated this article with some recent developments.
Dave
2 - Bennett
Good stuff Dave. Who's up for target practice? Yeeeeeeeee HAW!
3 - Dave Nalle
You'll have to wait for my coverage of our local Turkey Shoot to find out what gets shot and who ought to be, Bennett.
Dave
4 - Scott
Aren't hurricanes fun?
5 - Dave Nalle
They are when they miss you, as this one seems to be doing. Not so fun for all the already beleaguered folks in Louisiana.
As for the ammo issue, I actually take the wide availability as a good sign. It means that people aren't so scared that they're arming up. Hoarding water and gas is one thing, but when you start hoarding ammo you're really worried.
Dave
6 - Bennett
"You'll have to wait for my coverage of our local Turkey Shoot"
Yeah, I'd like to read that! I did enjoy this post, Dave. You really captured several truisms of marriage...
:]
I'm glad Houston isn't getting pounded by Rita. The storm would have really nailed Johnson Space Center too, and NASA simply can't afford that right now.
Good luck.
7 - Cerulean
I hate to say this, but this is very well-observed and well-written. 99.5% hate free too. You should do stuff like.
8 - Cerulean
this.
9 - Dave Nalle
I do this sort of stuff most of the time, Cerulean - but so few pay attention it's kind of discouraging.
BTW, just to wrap it up, we got not one drop of rain or one gust over 20mph, despite all the warnings. Worst of all, we didn't even get the 20 degree temperature drop they promised us. It's going to be 103 tomorrow. Very disappointing.
Dave
10 - Scott Butki
I'm glad it missed you even if you found it disappointing.
11 - Dave Nalle
I feel like I paid for a hurricane and got ripped off by god!
Dave
12 - Scott
Well, take heart Dave...when talking about hurricanes it's not a question of "if" but "when."
13 - Dave Nalle
200 miles inland we look forward to hurricanes to break the unbearable heat of the summer and this year they really haven't come through for us.
Dave
14 - Cerulean
You should write more about this. Anything going on with the evacuees or the stores?
15 - Scott Butki
I can see it now:
"I blogged about the coming hurricane and all I got was this lousy thread"
Maybe you should do a trackback to God (surely she has a blog) to see about a refund.
16 - Dave Nalle
>>You should write more about this. Anything going on with the evacuees or the stores?<<
It's actually kind of bizarre. Like they disappeared into thin air. There's less traffic than usual on the roads today, all the stations have gas, and the stores are restocked. I expected them all to at least put some strain on the gas supply and clog up the roads when they headed out, but they seem to have just faded away like mist.
Dave