Preparing for Hurricane Rita

[AGBF]

Please, Ann, tell him if he won''t go with you that you will go alone. And get moving quickly so there is no chance of getting caught on the road. If your husband cannot make you listen to him, maybe he will listen to you. If not, at least you can let him know you take this seriously so that maybe he will think twice once you have left. A husband is not like aged parents. You do not have an obligation to remain at his side and die. (And I am still hoping Ginger gets her stubborn parents out, by hook or by crook!)

Deb

 

[ame]

Take ANY route out of town Ann, go, and leave him if he is stubborn. I think Ginger B should just go without her parents.


I don''t understand why people think they are invincible and bigger than weather.

 

[jadeleaves]

I just saw footage of the storm on telly over here

Stay safe!

 

[jellybean]

Big {{{{hugs}}}} to all of you in Texas!

We have tornados, and while very scary, I don''t believe are quite as bad as hurricanes.

My cousins live in Florida and had to endure Andrew. Lost almost everything.

Now, my husband''s step-sister was called back to Houston. She was here for her dad''s birthday. She''s a paramedic.

I hope everyone is safe and sound.

 

[aljdewey]

Jamie, Ginger, Ann.....please, PLEASE leave. You can''t make others value their lives, but you can value your own.

It''s just not safe. You''re all smart, smart women. Please get yourselves out of Houston.

 

[icekid]

I''m so scared for you guys! Really glad to hear that you made it home to your parents'' place though, HMG!

 

[jcrow]

now they are mandatory evacuations in louisiana. in my city voluntary evacuations for mobile homes, low-lying areas and those with medical needs...

too scary!

 

[ame]

Yea the course seems to have kind of wobbled. Im just hoping this thing falls apart.

 

[jcrow]

lets all pray it does!

 

[appletini]

My BF left his place 5 hours ago to get from Houston to Richmond, TX to be with me. Its a 25 mile drive and he''s still not here yet. Two hours ago he was 7 miles away.

Now that the storm is moving further North, we might have to stay here just because of the traffic, but at least we will be on the "clean" side of the storm if thats the case.

Thanks for all of your prayers!

 

[youngster]

I don''t know if anyone has posted this earlier on this thread (as I haven''t had time to read the 3 pages ) but if you''re down in the Houston area, get to an ATM machine or to your bank and withdraw some cash. Once the power goes down, ATM cards won''t be working.

 

[AGBF]

Date: 9/22/2005 11:53:14 AM
Author: appletini
My BF left his place 5 hours ago to get from Houston to Richmond, TX to be with me. Its a 25 mile drive and he's still not here yet. Two hours ago he was 7 miles away.

This is what I was afraid of as I watched the cars moving ever so slowly last night. Now, "The New York Times" on-line shows pictures of people stuck in traffic, getting out of their cars to walk around. One photo has the caption, "Traffic came to a standstill today as hundreds of thousands of people in the Houston metropolitan area rushed to get out of the path of Hurricane Rita, a monster storm with 170 mph winds."

Great. So people cannot get out this time, even with cars! What reason will we find to blame the people who failed to get out of Rita's way the way we blamed those who were too "dumb" to get out of Katrina's way?

And I still want to know how the area around Indian Point (described as, "thirty-five miles upwind from midtown Manhattan") will be evacuated when there is a nuclear disaster there!

Deborah

 

[Kaleigh]

Please Ann, Ginger and Jaime get out of there!!!!! I am soooo worried about you guys and everyone else there.

 

[AGBF]

Date: 9/22/2005 1:10:09 PM
Author: kaleigh
Please Ann, Ginger and Jaime get out of there!!!!! I am soooo worried about you guys and everyone else there.

Lisa,

I truly don't know if anyone can go anywhere given the traffic situation. There is also no gasoline. People in Galveston were being warned to get gasoline before leaving the island because it was so hard to get on the mainland. The 'net has photos of people in long lines waiting to buy Premium gas because that is all that is available at any price (and with any wait).

Deb

 

[HOUMedGal]

Thanks for all the good wishes everyone!!!

Mara, what timing on that TV show, hahaha....was it any good?

To all my fellow Houstonians who are evacuating today...gooooooood luck, it''s gonna suck big time (I can''t image what today is like after how long it took me yesterday!) and be prepared to pull over on the side of the highway and go pee in the woods behind trees!!! Yes, I had to, because I really had to go during a stretch where there were NO stores or anything, and yes, I got tree bark in my undies! haha!

Ginger, Ann, Appletini, Jamie: best of luck, I hope you guys make it to a safe place!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[ame]

Date: 9/22/2005 12:59:03 PM
Author: AGBF


And I still want to know how the area around Indian Point (described as, ''thirty-five miles upwind from midtown Manhattan'') will be evacuated when there is a nuclear disaster there!


Deborah

Won''t likely happen. They''ll pretty much be quarantined.

I have heard now from a couple folks that it''s possible they will open up the opposite direction to traffic and make one lane going back towards the storm and let the rest get out of town. GOD I hope so. Tear a hole in the damn median if it needs to be done.

 

[AGBF]

Date: 9/22/2005 1:19:14 PM
Author: ame
I have heard now from a couple folks that it's possible they will open up the opposite direction to traffic and make one lane going back towards the storm and let the rest get out of town. GOD I hope so. Tear a hole in the damn median if it needs to be done.

It's been done.

"Highways leading inland out of Houston were clogged with bumper-to-bumper traffic for up to 100 miles north of the city. Gas stations were reported to be running out of gas. Shoppers emptied grocery store shelves of spaghetti, tuna and other nonperishable items. Hotels hundreds of miles inland filled up. Police officers along the highways carried gasoline to help motorists who ran out.

To speed the evacuation out of the nation's fourth-largest city, Gov. Rick Perry ordered a halt to all southbound traffic into Houston along Interstate 45 and took the unprecedented stop of directing the opening all eight lanes to northbound traffic out of the city for 125 miles. I-45 is the primary evacuation route north from Houston and Galveston."

The article then mentions someone who turned back to return to Houston after being stuck in traffic trying to make the 225 mile trip to Dallas.


"'We ended up going six miles in two hours and 45 minutes,' said Moreno, whose neighborhood is not expected to flood. 'It could be that if we ended up stranded in the middle of nowhere that we'd be in a worse position in a car dealing with hurricane-force winds than we would in our house.'

With traffic at a dead halt, fathers and sons got out of their cars and played catch on freeway medians. Others stood next to their cars, videotaping the scene, or walked between vehicles, chatting with people along the way. Tow trucks tried to wend their way along the shoulders, pulling stalled cars out of the way."

 

[youngster]

Date: 9/22/2005 12:59:03 PM
Author: AGBF

Date: 9/22/2005 11:53:14 AM
Author: appletini
My BF left his place 5 hours ago to get from Houston to Richmond, TX to be with me. Its a 25 mile drive and he''s still not here yet. Two hours ago he was 7 miles away.

This is what I was afraid of as I watched the cars moving ever so slowly last night. Now, ''The New York Times'' on-line shows pictures of people stuck in traffic, getting out of their cars to walk around. One photo has the caption, ''Traffic came to a standstill today as hundreds of thousands of people in the Houston metropolitan area rushed to get out of the path of Hurricane Rita, a monster storm with 170 mph winds.''

Great. So people cannot get out this time, even with cars! What reason will we find to blame the people who failed to get out of Rita''s way the way we blamed those who were too ''dumb'' to get out of Katrina''s way?

And I still want to know how the area around Indian Point (described as, ''thirty-five miles upwind from midtown Manhattan'') will be evacuated when there is a nuclear disaster there!

Deborah

There is still 40 or so hours before this storm comes ashore. That is quite a bit of time for people to make their way (albeit very slowly) out of the area. It''s just that most cities, no matter what the size, do not have enough roads to evacuate their entire population within 2-3 days. You''d probably have to double to number of roads or double the capacity of the existing roads to accomplish something like that. Even in small towns it can be a problem. We have friends of friends who were burned out in So. California wild fires. These were homes in hilly areas, small population. People were overcome with smoke inhalation in their vehicles since everyone was on the roads at the same exact time and jammed things up. I just don''t know if its physically possible to entirely evacuate a major metropolitan area in such a short time, unless the road capacity of each city is doubled or tripled.

 

[AGBF]

Date: 9/22/2005 1:22:02 PM
Author: youngster
There is still 40 or so hours before this storm comes ashore. That is quite a bit of time for people to make their way (albeit very slowly) out of the area.

I am not telling anyone not to evacuate! One would hope (all experience to the contrary in Katrina) that local officials know best and that people should follow the advice of those officials. I am merely registering acute distress!

Deb

 

[Mara]

Date: 9/22/2005 1:22:02 PM
Author: youngster

Date: 9/22/2005 12:59:03 PM
Author: AGBF

Date: 9/22/2005 11:53:14 AM
Author: appletini
My BF left his place 5 hours ago to get from Houston to Richmond, TX to be with me. Its a 25 mile drive and he''s still not here yet. Two hours ago he was 7 miles away.

This is what I was afraid of as I watched the cars moving ever so slowly last night. Now, ''The New York Times'' on-line shows pictures of people stuck in traffic, getting out of their cars to walk around. One photo has the caption, ''Traffic came to a standstill today as hundreds of thousands of people in the Houston metropolitan area rushed to get out of the path of Hurricane Rita, a monster storm with 170 mph winds.''

Great. So people cannot get out this time, even with cars! What reason will we find to blame the people who failed to get out of Rita''s way the way we blamed those who were too ''dumb'' to get out of Katrina''s way?

And I still want to know how the area around Indian Point (described as, ''thirty-five miles upwind from midtown Manhattan'') will be evacuated when there is a nuclear disaster there!

Deborah

There is still 40 or so hours before this storm comes ashore. That is quite a bit of time for people to make their way (albeit very slowly) out of the area. It''s just that most cities, no matter what the size, do not have enough roads to evacuate their entire population within 2-3 days. You''d probably have to double to number of roads or double the capacity of the existing roads to accomplish something like that. Even in small towns it can be a problem. We have friends of friends who were burned out in So. California wild fires. These were homes in hilly areas, small population. People were overcome with smoke inhalation in their vehicles since everyone was on the roads at the same exact time and jammed things up. I just don''t know if its physically possible to entirely evacuate a major metropolitan area in such a short time, unless the road capacity of each city is doubled or tripled.

Thanks for the reality check, youngster!!! It''s true that as dire as it all sounds now that there still is time to try to get out. I just can''t believe how long it''s taking, but hey, 20 hours on the route to safety is worth it as well as paying exhorbitant premium gas prices. The whole thing just is unbelievable to me, having to evacuate your city and home to get away from Mother Nature. People say ''Oh I could never live in CA because of the scary earthquakes'' but in reality all this evacuation and prep is what freaks me out more than being caught actually IN it...and at least the earthquakes only last 15-20 seconds and they don''t cause as much damage as some of these hurricanes we''ve seen recently. Of course knock on wood, I don''t want to cause any bad earthquake karma.

But, this 3-day hurricane/evacuation prep is much more stressful for me and I''m not even involved!

Good luck everyone and please stay safe. If you can still leave, DO IT!!!!

 

[appletini]

My BF finally got here 15 minutes ago after being in the car for 5.5 hours! He''s drinking a beer to try to relax. There is no gas in Richmond/Rosenberg, I have a full tank about 300 miles, and he has a little under 3/4 tank, about 250 miles, but with iddling in traffic the gas we have isn''t going to last that long. So we are trying to decide if we should to leave, but what happens if we run out of gas. We called an Exxon in Hempstead and they are all out of gas there too, so we couldn''t fill up even if we wanted to (that''s about 50 miles away). We''re crossing our fingers in hopes the storm moves NE incase we have to "hunker" down.

 

[AGBF]

Date: 9/22/2005 1:32:51 PM
Author: appletini
My BF finally got here 15 minutes ago after being in the car for 5.5 hours! He''s drinking a beer to try to relax. There is no gas in Richmond/Rosenberg, I have a full tank about 300 miles, and he has a little under 3/4 tank, about 250 miles, but with iddling in traffic the gas we have isn''t going to last that long. So we are trying to decide if we should to leave, but what happens if we run out of gas. We called an Exxon in Hempstead and they are all out of gas there too, so we couldn''t fill up even if we wanted to (that''s about 50 miles away). We''re crossing our fingers in hopes the storm moves NE incase we have to ''hunker'' down.

Back from a few minutes in front of the television. Governor Blanco of Louisiana (whom I saw and heard speaking) and officials in Texas (according to the news) are urging people to evacuate the area near the Gulf, but to use back roads. Governor Blanco said, "Go North". So that''s the official position.

 

[hopefulheidi]

Living 19 miles to the East of Austin I can assure you that a HUGE group of people have already headed to the safety of the west. A quick 30 minute commute took me almost 2 hours this morning!

While many here in the Austin area believe we''ll simply see some wind gusts and rain, a large portion of people are already freaking out, emptying grocery stores of water and bread and gas stations of fuel. My boyfriend headed to the store last night to do our normal weekly grocery shopping and he said the store shelves were already practically emptied.

While normally I''d advise evacuees to drive over to Austin and enjoy all this great city has to offer, at this time unless they''ve already got a place to stay in the area, it would probably be best to head elsewhere. The annual Austin City Limits music fest is scheduled for this weekend which already made hotel rooms scarce, but pairing that with the Rita evacuations has made it basically impossible to find a hotel room. New shelters are popping up left and right but with the current speed of traffic I imagine heading west of houston only to stay in a public shelter may not be the best option. There was some talk of changing the direction of highway 290 east (the major highway between Austin and Houston and the road we live off from) so that all 290 traffic flows westbound but the governor of TX is asking emergency crews and personnel to use 290 to enter Houston meaning chances are slim that they''ll shut off the only major route for emergency workers to enter the city. Austinites are an incredibly hospitable group of people but spending SO many hours trying to evacuate to this area is probably more stress than it''s worth.

I''m originally from NY so I''m quite unfamiliar with all of this hurricane hullabaloo. It seems we''re far enough inland to be safe but with panic rising all around it''s difficult not to get worked up and worried. All day I''ve been thinking of my neighbors to the West and Southwest and hoping that they are coping well with all of this crazy stress and strain. There is still time for this storm to downgrade a bit and at this point the southwest deserves a bit of a break so maybe we''ll get lucky.

As during Hurricane Katrina...I was asked to create a website to provide info for the higher ed students here in TX if anyone wants to keep up with college/university closings and whatnot: www.ritacollegestudents.org

~Heidi

 

[youngster]

Date: 9/22/2005 1:26:32 PM
Author: AGBF

Date: 9/22/2005 1:22:02 PM
Author: youngster
There is still 40 or so hours before this storm comes ashore. That is quite a bit of time for people to make their way (albeit very slowly) out of the area.

I am not telling anyone not to evacuate! One would hope (all experience to the contrary in Katrina) that local officials know best and that people should follow the advice of those officials. I am merely registering acute distress!

Deb

Oh, please believe me, I know you were not telling people that it''s hopeless to try. I just wanted to point out that there is still time. I remember seeing similar photos when New Orleans, etc were evacuating a few weeks back. It will certainly take a long time to get out of some of these more heavily populated areas and, hopefully, people can use the back roads as well.

 

[MissAva]

This is just nutty, my sister went to the store to buy somethings today, there are signs up at gas stations letting people know they dont have any and there stores are basically empty...she is really worried about her puppy he is just at three months old and 70lbs, she is not sure how the storm will affect him.

 

[gingerBcookie]

my parents refused to leave last night. refused to leave this morning. then it became too late. two of my aunts left and had to turn around to come back and take their chances here because they simply ran out of gas. we''ve boarded up as best we can with the spare wood we had and are simply going to wait it out. my FI is with his family traveling slowly southwest and i am terrified if they run out of gas without relief or they haven''t made it to a shelter before the storm hits. its 100 degrees out there, stand still traffic, no A/C as everyone is trying to save as much gas as possible. i am going out of my mind.

 

[mrssalvo]

I just heard on the news that they are taking gas trucks to the interstates to help people who are running out. the lowered it to a cat. 4 and said it could go to a cat. 3 by the time it makes landfall. i keep praying it will drastically weaken the closer it gets..

 

[AGBF]

Date: 9/22/2005 3:43:38 PM
Author: gingerBcookie
my parents refused to leave last night. refused to leave this morning. then it became too late. two of my aunts left and had to turn around to come back and take their chances here because they simply ran out of gas. we've boarded up as best we can with the spare wood we had and are simply going to wait it out. my FI is with his family traveling slowly southwest and i am terrified if they run out of gas without relief or they haven't made it to a shelter before the storm hits. its 100 degrees out there, stand still traffic, no A/C as everyone is trying to save as much gas as possible. i am going out of my mind.

I am so sorry, Ginger. Do the best you can and know that we will all be thinking of you, praying for you, holding you in the light. Do you have bathtubs to fill with water? If not, clean and fill every large container you can find with clean, potable water. If you are a veteran of these storms you certainly know what to do.

And just maybe before the storm hits, you will be able to leave. Youngster reminded us that there is 40 hours left. Mrssalvo says that there is at least some emergency gasoline. Perhaps it is worth following the directions to evacuate and then waiting for that gasoline. On the other hand, perhaps that would be stupid and dangerous.

After the fact, R/A will say that those who didn't leave were "dumbasses". Storm will say you shouldn't have left your home with no gasoline, depending on the government. I wish they'd give your their sage advice right now!!!

Deb

 

[Strawdermangrl]

Date: 9/22/2005 1:44:59 AM
Author: HOUMedGal
OH MY GOSH

The drive to my parents'' house was RIDICULOUS. Just got here about 30 minutes ago...around midnight. Left Houston at 3pm. Yes, that''s 9 hours for a drive that normally takes 4.5....and we were cruising at 70 for the last 2.5 hours of it, so that tells you how awful the first 6 hours were! Zero to five mph, literally.

But I''m here now, about to go to bed. School closed today at 5 until next week...my exams for tomorrow and the one on Monday were moved. Now it looks like instead of having 3 exams in 5 days next week, we''ll be having 4 in 4 days...Tuesday through Friday. Ugh. But at least now I can settle down and study instead of worrying about packing and leaving!

Ginger, I hope you get your family out. I''m thinking about you!!!!

Tell me about it.

A usually 7 hour drive took us 12. I hate my car right now.

I cried on the way out- I think it is starting to really hit how it could turn out- but things are looking up it has dropped to a 4 but we shall keep our fingers crossed.

 

[Shay37]

Date: 9/22/2005 4:08:55 PM
Author: Strawdermangrl

Date: 9/22/2005 1:44:59 AM
Author: HOUMedGal
OH MY GOSH

The drive to my parents'' house was RIDICULOUS. Just got here about 30 minutes ago...around midnight. Left Houston at 3pm. Yes, that''s 9 hours for a drive that normally takes 4.5....and we were cruising at 70 for the last 2.5 hours of it, so that tells you how awful the first 6 hours were! Zero to five mph, literally.

But I''m here now, about to go to bed. School closed today at 5 until next week...my exams for tomorrow and the one on Monday were moved. Now it looks like instead of having 3 exams in 5 days next week, we''ll be having 4 in 4 days...Tuesday through Friday. Ugh. But at least now I can settle down and study instead of worrying about packing and leaving!

Ginger, I hope you get your family out. I''m thinking about you!!!!

Tell me about it.

A usually 7 hour drive took us 12. I hate my car right now.

I cried on the way out- I think it is starting to really hit how it could turn out- but things are looking up it has dropped to a 4 but we shall keep our fingers crossed.

So glad you made it safely. Keep up posted.

Shay