Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Rita's Coming

…And she’s got a 165-mph chip on her shoulder. Some of my out-of-town readers don’t actually realize what’s in store for us down here, even in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and its considerable news coverage. Evacuees are not taking any chances...they are getting away before this turns ugly.

I was at the HEB supermarket on the corner of Gessner and Kempwood early this morning, about 8AM. It was already crowded, but everyone was polite and patient. HEB has a distribution center about a mile north, on Clay Road. So stockers were refilling the shelves as quickly as possible. Bottled water, tuna, and diapers were top o' the pops this AM.


Now that the storm has been upclassed to 5, more and more people will leave the area. The Interstate highways to the west and north are bumper-to-bumper, and the Sam Houston Tollway (a portion of which I can see out my back window) is abnormally congested.

Barbara and I will discuss Rita’s impending arrival this evening, and plan from there. My normally reliable cell phone is hobbled by Cingular's circuits being busy right now. It's a bit of a mess - but it's an early mess.

More on this later – I’ll try to keep you up to date on our whereabouts…we may decide to depart early for Minnesota. Be safe: Rita doesn’t look like she’s worth the wait.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Houston is soon to be a mess, I'm afraid. So, being a Yankee who has never been through a hurricane, I am not about to start now. With family, I am escaping to a little town in east Texas called Carthage, where, hopefully, we'll spend a calm 4-day weekend, pray our home isn't trashed by Rita, and come back Sunday/Monday.

I love Houston and it's been home for 22 years, but I can't say I like this at all.

Mary Jo, the Philadelphia coward.