I hate Hurricanes!

[TooManyWheels]

A friend in my neighborhood left on 1-10 headed West at 2:30 this morning. We are on the West side of town. By 10:30 he had reached Katy, roughly 20-25 miles. 480 minutes, call it 24 miles - do the math.

At noon, we saw people from the freeway abandoning their cars and walking into one of the few open roadside restaurants. It is one thing to think that if things get bad you can get in your car and go, but when you have to figure whether you will be able to find gas and food it takes on a new feel.

I wonder how my friend's oil is with 8 hours of idling?

 

[Tim]

We have an interior walk-in closet on the first floor ready to go...4 people, a cat and a bird.

If we can't get out in the next 24 hours, we'll be riding this bull trying to make 8!

I am still holding out hope that I-10 will clear enough in the next 24 hours to allow a retreat to the West. These storms move pretty slowly, so even if we only averge 15mph we'll be ok. Trouble is right now, 15mph would be considered warp speed!

Tim

 

[JeepZJ4.0]

Now I am in trouble. It's getting closer to Baton Rouge. Nice. Great. I live in a first floor apartment.

 

[pmwalter]

Gotta love Oregon. Nothing ever happens here.

 

[Al]

Wow..that highway going north looks like the Highway of Death (at the end of the Iraq War). Its a Train wreck in progress

 

[Mud]

I'm sending this post from inside of our boarded up home. We live out in the country about 10 miles northwest of Katy, TX. We've spent the last couple of days preparing as best we can for the storm. Everything is locked down, gassed up, we should be OK, but our faith is in a higher power.
Even our backroads out here have seen bumper to bumper traffic since yesterday. Very weird to see this.
IMO that it's criminal to send folks out to sit on the roads without fuel support. What did they think when several million people were going to leave at the same time? Too many stories of folks running out of gas, with little kids, hot, tired, nowhere to go. I would rather take my chances here at home.
The construction company that I work for did a really good thing for us. On Monday they shipped 3 pallets of 1/2" exterior plywood to our warehouse. We all went home and took measurements of doors/windows, then came back on Tuesday and got together to cut plywood for all of our homes. Very nice to come home with pre-cut panels that fit right into the openings.
Our office is in La Porte, so we've opened our home to any employees that live in that area and need a place to stay but cannot get out of town.
Hope that anyone else in the storm's path stays safe.

 

[michaelc80]

It really is amazing that we are seeing 2 of the biggest hurricanes ever to hit the Gulf Coast-all in 3 weeks or so. It will be interesting to see how history records these events and how we as a nation deal with the aftermath.

We're keeping the people in the affected areas in our thoughts and hope that all are safe.

 

[ToyotaNSaturn]

quote:

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Originally posted by pmwalter:
Gotta love Oregon. Nothing ever happens here.

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http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/states/oregon/last_event.html

 

[sprintman]

Glad I live in ***'s country. I don't need that kind of stuff in my everyday life. If any BITOG friends stay in Rita's path I hope you and your families/friends keep safe...s

 

[wavinwayne]

Hurricane Rita weakens slightly as it targets Houston

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N22306540.htm

 

[JeepZJ4.0]

LSU didn't cancel classes... i just walked home from work (on campus) and I'm soaked... and i have an umbrella too.

 

[kenw]

well, Saturday morning at 2.30am we lost electricity, by 1.30pm it was back.

never lost water, nat'l gas.

pics of the house saturday morning:
http://www.railroadforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9239

we're NW of Houston, 70 miles or so from Galveston and well out of harm's way as it turned out. As of Thursday however it loked like the eye would go right over us. Hence the shutters.....

Many friends in Beaumont have no home to go back to.

 

[JeepZJ4.0]

Ken, i'm glad to hear everything is alright. I have pictures of the ditch behind my apartment complex. It is almost full. I'll post them once i transfer them.

 

[kenw]

Jeep, we did pretty good on this side of the river, my best to you and your fellow students there in this near-term craziness. I also hope that your home in Katy did fair pretty good, we're just up in Cypress so it may look similar.

In the meantime, I'm sure you are using this down time to study.....

 

[JeepZJ4.0]

Study? As in studying the hole at the end of a bottle? Maybe....

Actually... all my friends made MargaRITAs... Or they are making Hurrcritas... Hurricanes and Margaritas in one drink...

 

[Tim]

quote:

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Originally posted by kenw:
I also hope that your home in Katy did fair pretty good, we're just up in Cypress so it may look similar.

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We made it back today...our lawn was burned-out because we turned off the water when we left!

Crazy.....

 

[JeepZJ4.0]

Tim and Kenw, thanks for the kind words and I too hope your families are fine. Things in Baton Rouge got scary. Just look at the pics i posted in the other thread. I have about 5 more to post. I drove around campus today to collect pictures to show ya'll.

 

[LubeOiler]

OH, DO YOU WANT TO BUY MY HOUSE? I'M SURE IT WILL BE CHEAP AFTER THE HURRICANE COMES THROUGH. Did you hear that Scott P a cheap one. I looked at the people during Andrew in Miami who sold out and said they will never live in Miami again. Thats why we have Insurance yes its bad but when things get bad people sometimes make irrational decisions. My dad bought a brand new car that was all dented up from a Hail storm and got a good deal on it. Was it any less a car other than the looks. Thats all I say is this will pass when time goes by prices will skyrocket again,they always do.Look at Tokyo or San francisco.