OT: Hurricane Rita

[Derf]

I'm just getting back from fleeing. I live in the Corpus Christi area, and when it looked like we might get it, I got my family and parents out of there. We were under mandatory evacuation Thursday (yesterday), so we drove up to my sister's house west of Austin. This morning, when it was obvious that God was chasing New Orleans folk only (first Katrina, and now Rita is wrecking New Orleans further and chasing the evacuees who were moved to Arkansas and Tennessee out of Houston), we came back home. I went through Celia in 1970 (120 mph winds; the eye passed over us), and I don't really relish the idea of going through another one.

I also don't recommend travelling with a skittish cat; ours was so scared she still hasn't gone to the bathroom (24+ hours). Talk about being scared s**tless...

[Rombles]

Gotta love pay-tv - I've been sitting down here in Australia, safe and sound, watching the Fox News coverage of Rita for the last 11 hours...  good luck to those affected. Luckily it sounds like it may not be as bad (in places) as it could have been - hopefully it will stay that way.

[dean]

Rombles wrote:

>I've been sitting down here in Australia,
> safe and sound, watching the Fox News coverage of Rita for the
> last 11 hours

I take it you are either a really big Hurricane fan, or you really hate AFL, to watch that for the last 11 hours.  

I keep hearing conflicting things about Rita.  I heard on one news channel that it's category will drop to a four, but another said it will pick up to a five. [or are they both right and I just flicked channels at the wrong time?]

[BoyScoutKevin]

Too late, raj. I've already been in Ohio, when i attended Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, for one summer.

He's alive! He's alive! No, the good news is that--apparently--the hurricane was downgraded, before it hit land, from a Category 5 to a Category 3.

If anything, this storm has taught him the four stages of concern.

Stage 1
Concern for oneself.

Stage 2
Acceptance

Stage 3
Relief

Stage 4
Concern for others

And, if anybody has seen the Texas-sized traffic jams that resulted from the evacuation, it is with the realization that our elected officials from local to county to state to regional to federal, have not yet learned how to deal with a disaster of any great magnitude.

[BoyScoutKevin]

How are you doing, Susan? Any rain, where you were? We didn't even get any rain from the storm. Yeah, I had forgotten about the dust storms in California, and the hail that hit, where I live now. Though, lightning is the one thing I have managed to avoid up to now. Though, lightning did strike the tree under which my parents, before they were married, were sheltering. That is just after they got to better cover. How different life would have been, if they had been under that tree, when lightning struck.