Mark in Houston…
My former coworker and chess buddy Mark lives in northwest Houston and plans to ride out Hurricane Rita, scheduled to hit overnight. He’s been sending updates. Here are some excerpts:
Thursday, September 22, 2005 9:54 PM
Authorities are advising no travel at this time unless you are in a storm surge area, have a full tank, a foolproof plan, and a shipload of patience. Hopefully, opening the counterflow lanes will alleviate the traffic nightmares for the desperate road warriors.
On the homefront, people in this subdivision seem to be rather cavalier. A bike tour around the neighborhood revealed that precious few homes have been boarded up. On a few homes, you can see that they tried to tape up the windows. There are a lot of people still here, most seem to be staying. Some evacuees may even have come here for shelter, as some homes have several cars in the driveway. People were walking around the neighborhood, and nobody seems too concerned. I talked to a neighbor who is staying. I asked him if he plans to board the house up (like we have done), and he responded "No, I'm just going to drain some water out of the pool. That's it." You could hear the grinding of some saws or the pounding of some nails or the buzzing of some drills, but less homes are boarded up than not.
I rode down to the nearby major street, which had light to normal traffic levels. I rode down to three gas stations. The stores were all closed, and two of them were out of gas. One store continued selling gas ($2.89/gallon) but did not allow patrons inside.
Here at home, the windows are boarded up, tree branches have been cut down, the garage has 2 of the 3 cars inside, and we have plenty of water, ice, food, and drinks. We will bring the animals in tomorrow and make sure the yard is cleaned up. Then, we will just wait it out.
Friday, September 23, 2005 4:11 PM
Locally, winds occasionally gust, and some trees in the neighborhood will probably be broken. We have boarded up all the windows we can, and are as ready as anyone can be. We will just wait for the storm to get here, ready to endure the pounding rain and relentless wind.
It started raining briefly, then stopped. The radio is set up with a battery if/when we lose power. There are 3 backup batteries ready to go. We have a flashlight ready to go with batteries. We have ample supplies of ice, water, food, and drinks. All three vehicles have full or near full gas tanks should we need to drive.
posted by Tom Cleland @ 9/23/2005 06:49:00 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
I gather everything turned out ok. My dad's friend's daughter drove back to Houston after being diverted in the direction the storm headed, but was ok. She checked up on their home and it was perfectly fine. So I guess Houston was lucky. :-)
Yes, no new updates from Mark, though. I just left him an email and a voicemail.
Heard from Mark!:
Sunday, September 25, 2005 5:25 PM
Up and running. Will send more detailed email later.
Spoke with Mark last night. They're doing fine. He's glad he stayed. They had some strong winds, not as much rain as I thought they would. Lost power, got it back, then lost it again, before getting back up and running. We talked about New Orleans. He's been there and was planning to visit there again this year.
Glad everything was ok. I think he was just lucky though. If the storm had had the whim to take a more direct route towards Houston and hadn't calmed down, then it would be a very different storey, eh?
I'm glad they did that horrible evacuation because if it had been bad, it would have saved a lot of lives.
From Mark:
Tuesday, September 27, 2005 2:24 AM
Final preparations were being made for a major hurricane set to hit the region. The winds became increasingly stronger through the afternoon as we scrambled to stow away two vehicles in the garage, put away loose items in the yard, cut branches from trees to prevent them from crashing into the house, and boarding up the windows.
The four o'clock hour began as the preparations were complete. The wind now was really too strong to be outside safely--it was time to go in. The winds weren't extremely strong, a bit gusty, but not to gutsy, but strong enough to head in and await our fate.
Fortunately, we were able to watch news coverage throughout the whole duration of the storm, as we were graced with electricity through the night. As we watched the storm shift eastward, pelting towns and cities such as Beaumont and Port Arthur, and crash heavy waves on shore in cities such as Kemah and Galveston, the wind quietly howled, really overshadowed by the din of the news on television.
A sense of relief grew as the weather forecasters and news reporters gradually began to indicate that Houston was, for the most part, a safe place to be. Even the grimmest of the weather persons, apparently disappointed that the hurricane weakened to a category three and avoided hitting Houston, began to indicate we would be okay here.
Other areas, however, were not so fortunate. At 2:38 am, Saturday, September 24, 2005, the eye of Hurricane Rita made landfall east of the Sabine River, which makes up the border between Texas and Louisiana. Hardest hit were the Louisiana cities of Cameron and Lake Charles, and the Texas cities of Orange, Beaumont, and Port Arthur, among others. Some of these cities may be without power for more than a month. Some cities have essentially been wiped off of the map.
Closer to home, most of Galveston Island was without power, heavy waves hit Galveston, Port Arthur, and Kemah, and authorities were forced to flood the trinity river through Liberty county, to the northeast of Houston's Harris county. What doesn't make sense is that the mayor of Galveston gave the all-clear for residents to return, while the governor strongly urged coastal residents to wait as he wanted to stagger the returns to avoid the chaos that ensued during the evacuation. Also, police at the causeway were turning away residents, forbidding entrance.
Some of those that had abandoned their vehicles during the evacuation returned to find that the cars were towed to one of several places, some of which are charging fees for the vehicles' return. There is even a story of a lady who can not locate her car, her only means of transportation.
At about 6:15 on Saturday morning, we lost power. It came on briefly a couple of hours later, then went out again until just before noon on Sunday, allowing me to watch football. A walking tour of the neighborhood showed several downed branches in yards and streets. Several residents were raking or bagging up wood and leaves. No major damage was apparent. The worst we saw was that the neighbors at the end of the street had their mail box uprooted. Although the storm had moved northeastward, the wind was still rather brisk, which gave us a very refreshing and well needed breezy day. We were graced by the fortune of having no property damage, and making it out alive without injury.
God, what kind of government tows cars in the aftermath of a hurricane? Don't they have better thingsto do?
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