Pleased to hear Roger that the Storm in not moving directly towards your way. Just watch the afternoon TV news here, what chaos on the highways with everyone trying to leave at the same time, moving only a few feet every hour, running out of gas, engines over heat.
MovieStuff wrote:
It is the transit equivalent of standing in line at the bank forever with one slow teller and then a second teller suddenly appears and says, "I can take someone over here" and a bunch of people from behind you in line suddenly jump ahead and finish their banking while you're still stuck. 8O
This happened to me a quite few times queueing in line, now all of a sudden I feel so angry and frustrated recalling my past experiences.
Okay, it is now going on 1:00 PM on Friday and Galveston (about 60 miles south) is beginning to get some rain from the outer bands of the hurricane. The rain should start arriving here in a few hours. The winds apparently are going to drop down to about 70mph, which is a good thing, because there are thousands of people stranded on the open highway with kids and pets and old folks, etc. I feel really bad for them.
On a more important note: There seems to be only one resturante staying open during all this and the guy's staff apparently bugged out so he is cooking and waiting tables and everything himself. I tried to help him as much as I knew how. (I'm a pitiful cook so I filled the ice machine) He says that even after he boards up the windows, he'll stay open and has a generator and will keep serving until there's no more food to hand around. It's near my shop and I had breakfast and dinner there and it was just terrific. Due to the lack of wait staff, he said that if we wanted breakfast, it was going to be whatever he wanted to serve. Fortunately, he is a gourmet cook so I had to "make do" with eggs, cheese grits, crispy bacon and home made biscuits. What squalor. How will I survive.... My wife was concerned that I would starve but I think I've actually gained about 5 pounds. :oops:
Hang in there Roger, my family is from Houston but they are all up in Austin with me now. We lived through Alicia back in the 80's and lost some things but survived. I bet you will be fine but watch for fallen powerlines and stuff like that after the storm.
A note on the drive from Houston to Austin. My dad left Southeast Houston (Clearlake) around 3 am Thursday and got here in Austin at about 12 noon today. He called me once to say he was fine but when he got in he took a shower and passed out. He's totally exhausted and dehydrated. To those who don't know, that drive is usually about 3 hours.
Stay safe Roger. After what Hurricane Andrew did to us in Homestead, Florida back in 1992 I can understand your concerns. We had a few trees knocked down here with Katrina and Rita (kept my Workprinter safe) but obviously nothing like what happened to the Gulf Coast......
I have a sister who lives in Etoile up by Lake Sam Rayburn, not far from Nacodoches. She is staying with her inlaws in Lufkin right now. I think she will be OK there, but it is right on the path of the storm, as I understand it.
Around Houston I have family in Galena Park, Pasadena, down by Hobby, and up in the northwestern part of Houston. I emailed them, but didn't get responses so I hope they left.
At this point, I think it is best to stay put with the way the evacuation has been going. Better than being stuck out in the open with no gas and no place seek shelter. Hope all is well for those that do end up staying in the path of the hurricane. I was visiting my grandfather this summer when a hurricane was heading up the east coast from florida. He was watching the news. There was a reporter strapped into a wind tunnel to demonstrate what the winds would be like during the storm. My grandfather let out a hoot and shouted "fraud" at the reporter on the TV. My grandfather has been through hurricanes as bad as what has and is hitting the gulf states. He has been at sea during WW2, Korea, and Veitnam until his retirement before 1970. I can understand his attitude, as he has stories of how the hurricane winds and water ripped fittings and people from the ships in his fleet. He's been in a category 5 at sea. His ship and crew survived, but many of the smaller ships in the fleet did not make it. There is an amazing weather tracking system available these days giving advanced notice for days, a technology not present during the start of his navy career. Having him talk about how they navigated in such high winds to determine their position at sea during such storms is something I wished he'd allow me to film or record. It's difficult to imagine and something I would never wish to experience. Anyway, hope all goes well for those in the storms path.
really impressed that they filteres the reporters mike so his report was no less than very audible - despite his helium voice ;-). really heavy winds where the reporter (Andersson?) is.
I left Houston at about 2:00 AM and got into Utopia about 6:00 this morning. Passed hundreds of abandoned cars and noticed that every motel/hotel along the 300 mile route was jammed with guests. I had the highway totally to myself. I felt like Charleton Heston in the Omega man. It was a missed opportunity as I could have driven realllllllly fast but I was too sleepy. Left what little rain there was behind about 60 miles outside of Houston and then it was clear skies and stars.
Much ado about nothing, apparently. Boy, what an anti-climax. But I'm not complaining.
Gonna relax out by the river for a few days and then try to get back to Houston before 2.8 million people decided to all return at once. 8O
I'm going to relay your tales to my wife who keeps whinging about the "poor" weather we have here in Manchester, UK - compared to what you guys have been getting of late, we don't have any weather!
MovieStuff wrote:I felt like Charleton Heston in the Omega man. It was a missed opportunity as I could have driven realllllllly fast
I've actually written about the film The Omega Man in the context of apocalyptic visions of the urban landscape. I was very interested in how filmmakers could get shots of "emptied" and "abandoned" cities. There are great stories of how they got the empty street shots of Los Angeles in Omega Man.
You should have taken the opportunity to get some really creepy film footage of all of the abandoned cars, empty streets, etc. You couldn't buy, much less pull-off logistically, that kind of production cooperation these days.
But I suppose you have other concerns on your mind...like, staying alive.
MovieStuff wrote:I felt like Charleton Heston in the Omega man. It was a missed opportunity as I could have driven realllllllly fast
I've actually written about the film The Omega Man in the context of apocalyptic visions of the urban landscape. I was very interested in how filmmakers could get shots of "emptied" and "abandoned" cities. There are great stories of how they got the empty street shots of Los Angeles in Omega Man.
You should have taken the opportunity to get some really creepy film footage of all of the abandoned cars, empty streets, etc. You couldn't buy, much less pull-off logistically, that kind of production cooperation these days.
But I suppose you have other concerns on your mind...like, staying alive.
Tim
Roger Corman took film crews to San Francisco after the Earthquake there about 10-15 years ago specifically to get shots of the wreckage. Most definitely Roger you had a view that hopefully won't be repeated anytme soon.
