Texas Members; Hurricane Rita...Your Preparations

Well, here in Houston, this storm was completely anti-climactic. For some weird reason, the area that my place is in was continually shielded by bands of "no-rain". It's hard to describe, but everytime the hurricaine cycled in a circular movement, it would project a band of absolute dryness with no wind right at my place, though I was between walls of wind and rain.

Anyway, I'm okay, and my sister downtown is cool too - no damage at all.

Zipdot

Hi everybody. Well, I survived. We ended up having to dig in. Leaving was impossible. Let me explain;

At 10pm central on September 21st (2005), this was the forecast (not a direct quote so.....):

Winds 175mph. Gusting to 215. Eye will pass over....., Fort Bend County, ....., ect. The storm will decrease in strength but may increase slightly beforehand. It may also stall over the Houston metro area for up to 72 hours.



Again, thats my summary, not a direct quote. Now, I live in Fort Bend county. Its touches a county that touches the gulf. That night, the order went out to do a voluntary evacuation of the county. That morning, Missouri City (in Fort Bend county) also suggested everyone evacuate. Missouri City lieks to flood. I lived there many years. We deal with it, like an earthquake in California.

Never in their history have evacuations been suggested for these areas. But this thing in its form at that time was going to destroy Fort Bend county.

Meanwhile, the highways were already gridlocked. Gas stations were already running out of gas. Grocery stores and lumber yards were already out of EVERY FREAKING THING!

To drive from east Houston to west Houston or north Houston to south Houston in non-rush hour traffic is a very healthy hour. Doing so during that stretch of time was:

Galveston to south Houston.....4 to 8 hours
south Houston to north Houston....4 to 8 hours
Houston to Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Courpus Christi, or New Orleans....not soon enough. And New Orleans is not an option.

Cars dont hold enough gas for a trip like that. They run out of gas, they overheat. The gas stations were running out.

It simply wasnt possible to evacuate unless I wanted to sit this monster out while Im a refugee in my own city. Given the option of dying in my car or dying at home, I choose to die at home.

Not only did the storm fizzle out, it trended eastward. Where I was, we had three power surges, loss of DirecTV for afew hours, and more limbs and leaves on the ground then anyone could imagine.

We are rationing our food and arent driving anywhere until Houston can be resupplied. Grocery stores get deliveries almost every day so we just need to sit tight for afew days.

All in all, Im okay. Houston Mayor Bill White needs to hold a training seminar in New Orleans. He was supurb.

The city is pretty much shut down until Monday. Most schools dont start up again until Wednesday but that fluxes depending on how close or far your school district is from Hurricane Rita's landfall.

Mayor White wants the 2-3 million people that evacuated to sit tight and come back over a three day period. I understand the logic but he can dream on.

All in all, given the situation at the time, I dont think anyone over reacted.

I dont think I under reacted before the hurricane went into apocalypse mode. Not many hurricanes go that berserk. And I dont think I made the wrong decision to stay when it looked like fly or die because of what the situation was at the time.

This was a very good fire drill. The evacuation was a failure but its a start.

Let me explain something, this nation is NOT ready for a WMD attack. Go to the stores right now and get enough non-perishables to last you 14 days. Get enough freeze dried food that tastes like cardboard to last a year. Get enough plywood to board up your house. Get enough tape to tape the windows. Get a first aid kit. Two way radios. Batteries. Ect, ect. Firearms and ammo may be needed to. And fuel. Lots of it.

The sky is the limit to what you should get. Your wallet is the limit.

Cities have NO PLAN to evacuate. Houston didnt know how to put a contra-flow plan in process fast enough so residents could drive out in both directions. I dont think they tried hard enough. In stead of trying to lay countless numbers of orange pilons, they should have posted a cop, fireman, military soldier, or local volunteer at the entry and exit ramps of the direction you want to shut down. If the people disobey the unarmed traffic cops, simply have a Humvee pull them over by pointing their gun terret at them, their M16s, or ram them off the road. You dont have to shut them; just stop them before they cause a head on collision.

Anyway, it will be a real sport watching this city get repopulated.

Had the hurricane did what they forecasted 3 nights ago, an awful lot of people would have died. In a situation like that, you really are on your own.

When a disaster is in the very beginning stages, thats all the time you have to get ready. By the time the situation goes warm, the local enviroment is already stressed. By the time its hot, your time to react has passed.

The first half of this decade has been a real learning experience. Has anybody learned anything?

I get to live another day. I learned alot from this episode. Now its time to take this to the next level. We in Houston need to form a disaster survival team. Any opinions?

Originally posted by garyo1954
Still looking for news from Gen, elf, or Dr. Love.

With all the insane traffic I thought I was going to be the only man left in Houston, kind of like Heston in The Omega Man.

My girlfriend and I are thankful to be alive. We experienced heavy damage to one of our hummingbird feeders.

God, why the hummingbird feeder???????

Garyo1954, thanks for the concern. Hope everyone else is doing well.

Peace

I left Slidell last night to avoid the traffic coming back into the coastal areas of Texas. I had a full tank of gas and 22 gals in cans in my jeep. There were NO gas stations open until I hit 77. I used all but 5 gals of the gas I brought with me and got home with less than 1/2 tank in my jeep.

I am in the process of rewriting my bug out plan. Although I feel that Texas over reacted, it was a learning experience for me. Rita never got close enough to us for tidal surge to affect Corpus.

I grew up in Jacksonville, FL so hurricanes are not new to me. This was my first evacuation and hopefully my last. If things go well, I'll be back up in the northwest by this spring.

Glad to hear everyone managed to stay safe.

Glad to see all of you tx guys made it out OK even though it hit sout west LA....

well the gulf coast of LA is in shambles now h o o r a y.

Okay guys! Breathing a sigh of relief here. I'll likely stay in Dallas until Jan runs out of honey dos. Talked the folks that beat me home, just as everyone said the shift helped us a lot.

Glad to see everybody doing okay!

Originally posted by Mizar
Glad to see all of you tx guys made it out OK even though it hit sout west LA....

well the gulf coast of LA is in shambles now h o o r a y.

Mizar, I evacuated TX and went to Slidell. Almost had to evacuate twice.

~heavy sigh~

We made it. Im very sorry about the fine people along the TX-LA border and I'll be even sorrier when the price of gas goes up, but Houston's metro area of 5 million is spared for the most part.

I wonder if any weather tampering technology played into any of this. Bah, thats for another thread most likely already started.

I want to personally thank everyone here that cared. Although it was all a false alarm, I feel like I have made some life or death decisions in the last 7 days.

I am lucky and grateful to not only be alive, but also that has house had zero damage outside of some trees pruned by nature.

Maybe it was pure luck, or maybe its the thanks we get for reaching out to New Orleans.

You know, somewhere out there, there is a family that evacuated from New Orleans to Houston after Hurricane K to be with people they knew, left Houston with their evac family to go to Slidell or Orange, only to.....only to.....

How do you suppose those people feel?

I now have a new understanding for the victims of New Orleans and NYC.

But I still dont fully understand because, lucky for me, Im not a victim like one of them.

Thanks again everyone for your support and concern.

In afew days, Houston will be fully repopulated, re supplied, and back to normal. The glorious days will be when the kids go back to school and Wednesday and the extra week they will have to go at the end of the year.

Sorry students. But one day, when your in YOUR 30's, you'll understand.

The next time we have another disaster, we'll see you here.

Some of us might be alittle nutty with our opinions but people that are perfectly normal are alittle to creepy for me.

so glad to see that you guys are all well..

Most of my family lives in and around Houston. This is how they did things.

Parents:
Left way in advance of storm and stayed with relatives in Indiana.
Oldest sister:
Here husband was "ordered" to stay at the chemical plant he works for right on the Gulf Coast. He said "bug off". They stayed free of charge at a hotel in San Antonio. The hotel treated them very nice. We were able to stay in touch via email.
Youngest sister:
Husband came home from work too late to get out before the big traffic jam. They tried, but couldn't even get on the freeway to get out of town.
Aunt and cousins:
They made it out to some evacuation area set up at a rest stop which had no food or running water. Sorry but I don't recall the rest of their story.