Personal updates from before the storm
By John David Powell (09/23/05)
Friends and colleagues: The transfer of the flag is fast upon me. It is 12:45
p.m. Tuesday as Hurricane Rita slips between Florida and Cuba into the warm and welcoming waters of the
Gulf. It is too early to tell when or where she will come ashore like a steriod-drunk Ursula Andress
emerging from the blue and tranquil Caribbean waters in "Dr. No."
The ghosts of bottled water and potato chips haunt
store shelves thanks to stupid people who will soon be
begging through parched and swollen lips for a drop of
liquid to quench their agonizing thirst. And, they'll
pay gladly for it with unopened bags of brine-soaked
chips. Indeed.
Unable to find water and chips last night, I drove to
the nearest filling station, a Murphy's next to the
Wal-Mart across the street from the Target that had no
snacks and very few containers. About 20 vehicles
waited in lines that snaked crazily across the parking
lot. The pumps worked slowly, at the just the right
pace to keep waiting drivers edgy and cranky as they
watched other drivers with Grinch-like sneers fill
their 50-gallon tanks that will run dry before they
make it across the bridge.
Plastic bags adorn the gaspump nozzels at stations up
and down the streets of my city. And I just burned two
gallons of gas driving into Houston.
I am sitting in my office, which is in the middle of a
fortress, surrounded by brick walls and cement blocks.
A fine example of Depression-era construction. My
office is more than 20 feet above ground and should
survive anything short of a small nuclear blast from
the parking lot below. Or so I hope, because I have
finished tranferring 5 crates of prints and pictures
taken from the walls of my house, which is less than a
mile as the egret flies from Galveston Bay, an
inviting target for Rita's evil vagaries.
Tonight and tomorrow I will begin to place clothing
and other items into garbage bags, all the while
keeping one eye on the Weather Channel and the other
eye on various computer models available on the Web.
The latest prediction calls for Rita to crash ashore
late Friday, instead of early Saturday, which alters
my evacuation plans. My older daughter Hill and her
husband will make their way to the Texas Hill Country
to stay at his folks' place, assuming she can tear
herself away from her law classes. My wife remains
safely sheltered in place in Utah, home to Katrina
evacuees.
Yesterday, I planned to escape sometime Wednesday.
This morning's predictions allowed me to think about
hitting the road Thursday with my 16-year old daughter
and our two-car-and-a-cat caravan. Now, forecasters
show Rita striking farther south along the Texas
coast, but earlier than first thought. So, I still
don't have a departure date.
But I will think about that later. Right now, I have
to wade through the final draft of the Annual Report,
due back tomorrow, and in which I found four errors in
the first sentence. This will not be pretty.
And neither will Rita.
Must sign off for now. Sporadic updates coming.
Friends and Colleagues:
5:30 a.m.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Mandatory evacuation of Galveston Island begins in a
few minutes, with the rolling evacuation of the county
to follow and continue through tomorrow, our scheduled
evacuation time.
Weird scenes last night. I had to return some DVDs at
Blockbuster and pick up a prescription at Kroger.
Sitting at the Kroger interesection, I counted more
than 100 vehicles going north, south, east, and west.
As I said, weird considering north is the way out of
danger.
There is no gasoline. Water sometimes does not make it
to the shelves, going straight from the stocker to the
evacuee's shopping cart.
We finished loading the cars around 11 p.m. Taking
clothes, toiletries, photographs and other items
collected over the years. The magnitude of what we are
about to do did not sink in until a few minutes ago as
I watched the morning weather. Hurricane Rita is now a
Catagory 3 and expected to be at least a Cat 4 by the
time it hits Texas. The lastest prediction has her
coming ashore down the coast, but not far enough to
keep us out of trouble.
She comes like the invading army of the Dark Lord.
Citizens who can, flee before the onslaught. First
comes a tidal surge that could cover this entire area
with 20 feet of sea water, in the worst-case scenario.
Three to five feet more likely for us. Next comes the
wind to soften up those left behind, including their
homes and shelters. And then the body of the assault,
accompanied by tornadoes. That's where our dangers
come from. The dirty side of the storm. Floods, wind,
twisters.
I went to sleep last night with the sounds of
neighbors boarding their doors and windows. We did not
do this. We did not have measurements, nor the means
to cut, transport, and hang the plywood, particularly
over the second-story windows. It's a roll of the
dice.
My luck has not been so good over the last 12 months,
and this is just the latest example. At least my
daughter Shade and I had the chance to take with us
what we could stuff into our vehicles.
I can only remember one other occasion when I have
felt as powerless and in such a state of dispair,
moving through the fog blindly. And that was about six
months ago when Sharon told me she was getting a
divorce and moving to Utah. Well, she didn't get the
divorce, but she did move to Utah, so there is hope
with Rita, although I'm not sure how much longer I can
count on the generosity of females.
School buses from the district's bus barn lined up
with a police escort last night, heading to Galveston.
Those buses are ready this morning to take about 2,500
residents off of the island and to shelters in
untsville. New Orleans' mayor may have helped a
populace after all.
Time to leave. Time to take a walk through the house
to see if there is anything that needs to be stuffed
into the back of our vehicles. Time to take what may
be a last look of my home. Time to stop at the altar,
whose icons I could not pack, and try to reconnect,
ask forgiveness, and plead for protection for my home
and my family and those joining our flight. And those
staying behind, guarding our backs.
It is said there are no atheists in a foxhole. It is
also true for those who flee an unstoppable,
destructive force.
Now I know what our writers feel like when they submit
their work for a final edit. My copy of the Annual
Report is on the front floor of my vehicle. I'll get
to it later today, but there may not be anyone to take
my notes.
Vaya con queso, mis amigos.
Friends and Colleagues:
2:30 p.m., Friday, Hurricane Rita minus 1
Surreal is the word that keeps passing through my
mind.
Yesterday at 5 p.m., rush hour in Houston. No traffic
on the highways south of the city. The live, camera
images from Houston Transtar (www.houstontranstar.org)
reminded me of a Twilight Zone episode without the
overwhelming urge to find a good book and lock myself
away in a vault.
I checked a few minutes ago and the same empty scenes
from Katy to Galveston showed up on my computer
screen. Thanks to modern technology, I can sit in
relative safety here in Ruston and see, in real time,
the water when it covers Harborside Drive in
Galveston, the flooding along Highway 146 at the split
with the Gulf Freeway, and the conditions up I-45 past
my neck of the woods.
My family remains safely displaced along with the six
million souls of the Great Twenty-first Century Gulf
Coast Diaspora. And that’s a good thing. I would
prefer we be together, but God or the Fates did not
deem it necessary at this time. Another time with
fewer anxieties and dangers, maybe.
I am writing this in real time, as opposed to sitting
and contemplating pacing and the placement of words,
so forgive me if I appear to be rambling, because I
am.
I heard from my friend Oscar a few minutes ago. He
decided to stick it out in Houston. I do not
necessarily agree with his reasons, but he didn’t ask
me. But he will know when he reads this. Assuming he
can read it. Assuming he has electricity or assuming
floods did not force him to seek higher ground or
alternate shelter.
Surreal. He joined several other stubborn Houstonians
last night to participate in some Tibetan sand ritual.
Best as I can determine, this was part of an event
that honored the Dalai Lama's visit to Rice
University. The Menil Collection
(www.menil.org/home.html) recruited two Tibetan monks
to build a Buddhist mandala
(http//outofbalance.org/days/2004/day041106a.html.)
The monks worked on their dyed-sand mandala this past
week. They used Buddhist texts to determine the
shapes and colors that were supposed to remind folks
of life's transience. And then, last night, the monks
and the Houston stay-behinds, dismantled the sand and
cast the grains into the wind as a blessing to Houston
and the world. Indeed.
My younger daughter’s boyfriend spoke with his parents
today. They’re in a motel north of Dallas. They
walked outside this morning and saw the head of a
horse sticking out of one of the ground floor windows.
An evacuee moved his horse into the room and left his
mule outside. He’ll move the mule in with the horse
when the weather turns bad. Now you know why I love
Texas.
The northbound traffic through Ruston is fairly bad.
It took me 45 minutes to go about five miles this
afternoon. I’m supposed to meet some folks at the
Huddle House in about an hour, but I don’t want to
mess with the traffic. If I had my druthers, I’d curl
up in a corner and cry.
The long, slow line of vehicles told of Rita’s
assiduous approach. The license plates on the cars
and trucks coming up the highway connecting the two
ends of the state revealed the homes of the evacuees:
Abbeville, Lafayette, Alexandria and other south
Louisiana towns and cities. Thousands of vehicles
moving slowly and steadily through the middle of this
north Louisiana town. A Chamber of Commerce dream
under normal conditions. But these folks do not stop
and shop. They drive with determination, seeking
shelter from an unpredictable storm.
Jack Colley, director of the Texas Division of
Emergency Management, estimates Rita will affect 5.2
million Texans, destroy 6,000 homes, and add 16,000
Texans to the list of hurricane-related homeless. My
family could easily be among these mind-numbing
numbers.
My wife’s brother and brother-in-law are preparing to
come to our aid. Brother Ben is a general contractor
in Arkansas and brother-in-law Randy does flood and
water restoration in the same city. They have
gathered generators, dehumidifiers, food, and other
essentials and are ready to head to our homes. Come
to think of it, they seem pretty eager. Maybe
business is slow and they think they can price-gouge
their victimized relatives. Hmmm. Let me think about
this a little more.
That’s all I have for now. The latest prediction
consensus brings Rita ashore well east of our homes,
but straight up the east side of Texas, with
hurricane-force winds as far inland as Lufkin and
tropical-storm winds to Shreveport. Waiting on Rita
is a slow and agonizing process.
I told Shade and Chad that we have three priorities
right now. First, Shade gets her stuff out of the
guest bathroom. Second, we consolidate our dirty
clothes. Third, we fill up our tank. We have control
over these things. The rest will come regardless.
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