Hurricane Rita AudioBlog

AudioBlog

Hurricane Rita AudioBlog

Hurricane Rita AudioBlog

Hurricane Rita AudioBlog

10:05 -- Where's the [Veggie] Beef?

There is no rain. There is no wind. There are plants in the house and canned meat in the pantry. I guess life is pretty good.

The little girls are asleep downstairs in our room in case the storm worsens. We plan on turning on the neighborhood walkie-talkies around midnight so we can help each other out if needed.

I'm hoping (sorta) that all our planning and work was good practice.

I feel badly for the folks in LA but I;m glad that my family should end up here at home; safe.

6:27: Here comes the (Rita) rain

We have had our first light sprinkles of rain. No big whoop. Just one more reminder. We also had an internet hiccup. Again, no big whoop.

Dinner is over. More waiting. But now we have cookies. Susan got in a mood, inventoried what we had in the pantry and came up with chocolate-chip oatmeal cookies. They are very yummy. Susan is in negotiations with the Oakleys across the street to trade cookies for chili.

Marion down the street had her minister come over and the block had a prayer service. Every house on the block had someone represent. Very cool.

The news is reporting that the storm is moving much farther north than expected. We are looking more at Louisiana around Lafayette than Houston (Kingwood). We may get as little as 3" of rain. [Insert "Praise God" here.]

We still have hours to go. We'll have to see.

5:22 PM: Enter Wind, stage left

The skies are darkening and the wind is starting to pick up. We were a little concerned about the van sitting in the Mormon parking lot. It was possible that the gas could be siphoned. So we moved it back to the house. I think now it's time to put it back. I'm going to drive over and unicycle back. I'd hate to do that in the rain.

The Calm before the Storm: Rita Approaches

It's Friday morning and there is still stuff to do. But lot's has been done already.

Thnigs to do: Load the van and move it to a parking lot away from all the trees. Pick up a percolator to make coffee with from Deborah Vaughn, an angel.

Things we have done: Moved in all the plants. Laundered clothes and dishes. Filled every receptacle we have with clean water. Picked up yard again for more loose stuff. Went to Kingwwod Bagel to get something nice for breakfast. Props to KW Bagel for being open when no one else is. There was a 1/2 dozen limit but that's OK. They rock.

My Sister and her family made it College Station last night so that's all good. My daughter Sarah is in Denton, TX and should be fine. My Daughter Michelle is in Conroe with her dad so that's all good too.

The wind is starting to pick up a bit. We will have hours before the storm. It makes a nice reminder though that time is passing and the storm is driving in.

We are all good here. We expect to stay good.

If you need to contact us during the storm, you can try to text page my phone. We learned in Katrina that text pages go through when voice calls fail. 832.372.2390.

Twelve hours and bread: Hurricane Rita

We now know the parameters for the 12 hour rule. That means that if you don't evacuate 12 hours before the storm hits, don't go.
9:00 AM is the magic hour. If we don't leave by then it is unsafe to leave. We are still planning on staying. We'll get by.

Things to do tomorrow: Pack a few bags and put them in the van. Load batteries into the flashlights. Get the walkie-talkies from the neighbors. Walk the yard again for anything that might get thrown.

When we went to the store yesterday we were unable to find any bread. So last night and tonight my very wonderful wife baked a total of four loaves of bread, two white and two oatmeal. They are delicious.

Susan has been great during this whole thing. I know she is scared. But she trusts my judgment and has been the logistical expert to make sure that everything has gone smoothly.

She is the best and is more than I deserve. I love her with all my heart.

Shout outs to my friends out there across Texas and the nation. Especially:

• All the Tredennicks and the Shipp connection
• The Sister, Jason, Thaddeus (Hope you catch your flight. Take care and don't die, OK?)
• the 'rents, and 'rent-in-laws (I'll take care of her)
• The Walters clan
• Cox and birds
• DrunkenBatman (It's cool buddy. Trust me.)
• Getronics eServices
• The good folks at wincustomize.com
• Melissa (Out in Plano I think. I appreciate your thoughts)
• Minny's girl scout troop
• The 'hood on Glade Springs
• The Mighty Squirrels

I want to give props to the Houston and Texas government. There have been issues with outgoing traffic, huge issues. But everyone here is doing an awesome job of keeping it local. I agree that the feds have a place but it's not their time yet. Great job Mayor White and Gov. Perry.

Rita Must be a Republican . . . She's moving to the Right

Thursday night brings good news to Houston. It looks like Rita is moving to the east heading towards the Texas-Louisiana border. That puts us on the "clean" side of the storm. Less wind and rain.

But we are still 36 hours out and no one knows what's going to happen.

We are very glad that we stayed. After seeing some of the pictures of folks trying to get out . . . it wasn't worth it before and it seems more so now.

Kingwood was closed by 5 PM. Nothing was open. All the gas stations were closed.

On another note, don't loot our neighborhood. Our block is loaded for bear. Lots of guns. No one sympathetic to looters.

Flickr photo set

Rita back to Cat 4

Not that it's going to make a huge amount of difference when it hits the house. We are still looking at 75 miles of hurricane winds away from the eye of Rita and tropical force winds for 160 miles.

That's the good news.

The bad news:

Category 4

• Winds of 131-155 mph
• Shrubs and trees down, all signs down
• Extensive damage to roofing, windows and doors
• Roof collapse
• Complete destruction of mobile homes
• Storm surge 13 to 18 feet above normal
• Flat terrain 10 feet or less above sea level flooded inland as far as six miles
• Major damage to lower floors of structure near shore due to flooding, waves and floating debris
• Low lying water three to five hours before hurricane center arrives
• Major erosion of beaches
• Massive evacuation of all residences within 500 yards of shore possibly required, and of single-story residences on low ground within two miles of shore

Once the storm hits the coast it's going to take a huge hit. If we are lucky we may only get hit with a Cat 1. At times like this . . . lucky is redefined.

Idiots on the road

The radio (Live on the web: 740 KTRH) is reporting that morons are driving north on the south-bound side of US 59. The state has NOT put contra-flow in effect on this highway.

I understand the desire . . . but how many more people are at risk because of this?

Idiots

So now we wait

So we think we are prepared. We have batteries, flashlights, matches, food, water.

It's odd. The day is so nice. Last night we went to the YMCA to swim with the little kids. I just sent Gwendolyn out to ride her bike. I think I'll take them to the park later.

Tomorrow should be a nice day too. (As long as you define nice as 100+ degrees.)

We are hearing stories from friends on the road that they are going single digit MPH trying to get out. Many are returning home. It may get better when the Man opens the highways to contra-flow traffic but I'm not holding my breath. The news is reporting that traffic is stopped for 125 miles outside of Houston.

I'm glad so many people learned some lessons from the tragedy in Katrina. Folks are leaving. Lots of them. And the government is taking a tough love approach to the stragglers; "Here are 100 ways to get out of Galveston/Houston. Call 311 if you need any help. And if you are in an evacuation zone and choose to stay behind, you are already dead and shouldn't expect rescue or support." [Most of the previous statement was paraphrased except the "already dead" line.]

Second Rita post

So I got gas for the van in case we need to bug out. It took four gas stations before I found one with anythnig and I ended up getting the Super. $2.89/gallon.

We would head towards my Mother's in San Antonio. The route would be 290 to 21E to San Marcos and then south on 35 to S. A.

Traffic on 290 is averaging 7.3 MPH right now. Not a fun drive.

Most of the neighbors are staying behind too. We'll bond over chainsaws.

I haven't heard from my sister. She was trying to get a flight out of town but I heard that it is going to be wicked tough.

My friends Owen and Lucie (late from New Orleans) are splitting town too. They are headed for family back in LA. The way storms follow them you have to wonder who they hate there.

So we have water, food, and each other. We need batteries, propane, matches, prayers, and gas for my car. Thank God we have time to prepare.

Hurricane Rita

It appears that my friends Owen and Lucie have brought their accursed luck with them from New Orleans. Hurricane Rita is bearing straight for us.

I took the day off to hang out with Susan but it looks like we may be doing prep work instead.

Last night I walked to the local grocery store with the little kids and saw gas lines and near-hysteria at the store.

Most indicators show that we shouldn't have to evacuate but there will be high winds and lots of rain. Flooding around us may be an issue. The house should be fine but we will very likely not be able to leave Kingwood.

Keep us in your thoughts.

Drunkenbatman Speaks

If you interested in things Macintosh but have not drank all the Apple Kool-ade you should look into going to Chicago to attend a roundtable with a good friend of mine and a host of Macintosh luminaries (at least cool developers).

Drunkenbatman (not his real name) has a gift for communicating that spans Mac newbies like myself and techies that speak a language all their own. He's funny, passionate, drunk . . . What more can you ask?

"We never conversate"

A while back, my eldest daughter complained that her mother, she, and I never conversated. The situation (conversation) was important enough that I didn't pursue the entomology of the word with her then. Truth is though, it gnawed at me.

Susan felt the same way(to a degree) as I did. We even conversed about it a few times with a wink and a nudge.

So . . . off to the internets!

From Langmaker:

Word: conversate
Part of Speech: v.
Other Forms: conversating
Etymology: [Backformation: The -ion suffix is removed from standard English conversation.]
Definition: To converse with another: We conversated about our plan, then decided to take the steamroller anyway.
Submitted By: Gracie
Date Submitted: Wednesday, August 18, 2004

So I guess this falls into the same category as irregardles and literally. Misused words that will migrate into use and become "real." No extreme harm. Communication remains possible. We just have one more instance of English being one crazy language.

Choose your own Adventure: Hamlet edition

There is a guy names Robin Johnson who has written a text adventure a la' Zork for Hamlet.

I have started it a few time and will someday finish. {Something I also said about Zork in 1981 or so . . . but this time I mean it.}.

From the game's opening:

It's so unfair! You're in trouble again, just because you called your uncle
- or rather, your new stepfather, Claudius - a usurping git. It's true, though.
Your real dad was SO much better than that guy. Too bad he was found
mysteriously dead in the orchard a couple of weeks back. Anyway, your mother
(who was, incidentally, looking quite something today in a sparse leather
number, er...) sent you to your room, and here you are. [game]

I used to really like the "Choose your own adventure" books. Although after playing one path I would usually read them cover to cover and try to guess the paths to and from each page. I had a few that you had to roll die for. They were like D&D for readers with no friends. That was me. :-)

I played D&D as a young teen but never had a good enough dungeon master to make me stick. I was too intellectual for them anyway . . . The guys I played with wanted to fight ogres, I was more interested in being a character different from myself. It never worked out.

A few months ago I ran into the designer of Adventure, Scott Adams online via chat. We were both trying to get an application called Multiplicity to work. He was looking to use it with EverQuest2 and I wanted it for my tablet PC . It was very cool just talking to a guy who had killed hours of my life reading and thinking and playing; all at the same time.

Who knew the levee would break?

I have a correction and some updates to the audio blog. Blame the mistakes on hearing the story in the car with Houston traffic distracting me. [should I admit that? Should it be reversed?].

The point of the blog is the same and I'm leaving it as it was originally recorded. It's not the federal government's job to fix problems at the state level. And before we talk about what the feds didn't do, let's look at the pork in Louisiana.

Correction: The person testifying was not the governor of LA, it was the Senior senator of same, Mary L. Landrieu (D).

Testimony: (mp3); text (I need to state here that the audio feed provided by the senator is significantly different from the Senate transcript. Take it for what it is worth.)
Mr. Bill skit referred to by Sen. Landrieu

WSJ: Blame Amid the Tragedy

My mother passed this opinion piece from the Wall Street Journal on to me. While it specifically discusses the failures of local government during Katrina and the flooding that followed, it also speaks to the role of the federal government in situations like this.

Blame Amid the Tragedy by Bob Williams

As the devastation of Hurricane Katrina continues to shock and sadden the nation, the question on many lips is, Who is to blame for the inadequate response?

As a former state legislator who represented the legislative district most impacted by the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980, I can fully understand and empathize with the people and public officials over the loss of life and property.

Many in the media are turning their eyes toward the federal government, rather than considering the culpability of city and state officials. I am fully aware of the challenges of having a quick and responsive emergency response to a major disaster. And there is definitely a time for accountability; but what isn't fair is to dump on the federal officials and avoid those most responsible--local and state officials who failed to do their job as the first responders. The plain fact is, lives were needlessly lost in New Orleans due to the failure of Louisiana's governor, Kathleen Blanco, and the city's mayor, Ray Nagin.

The primary responsibility for dealing with emergencies does not belong to the federal government. It belongs to local and state officials who are charged by law with the management of the crucial first response to disasters. First response should be carried out by local and state emergency personnel under the supervision of the state governor and his emergency operations center. The actions and inactions of Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin are a national disgrace due to their failure to implement the previously established evacuation plans of the state and city. Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin cannot claim that they were surprised by the extent of the damage and the need to evacuate so many people. Detailed written plans were already in place to evacuate more than a million people. The plans projected that 300,000 people would need transportation in the event of a hurricane like Katrina. If the plans had been implemented, thousands of lives would likely have been saved. [more]

I'm a federalist at heart weighted towards the local levels. In fact, I think the feds should be as far away from my life as possible. It's job is to

". . . establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense,
promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves
and our Posterity. . ."

Government should work from the bottom up. It should start from my community association (rat bastards!), to mayor and city council, to Governor and state legislators, an THEN to the Federal government.
In fact, government should start at he family level . . . but then we'd have to define more than I want to define. (A co-dictatorship with my wife and I?)

Could FEMA have done better? Yes.
Should it have? Yes.
Do I have any faith that the Department of Homeland Security? No.
Is there enough blame to go around? Yes.
Will anything really change? That depends on how people vote at the local level and up from there.