OT: Blowin in the wind......

Post by **MovieStuff** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 12:22 pm

Okay, so I tied everything down and batten'd the hatches, etc, of my Houston location. Gave all my shop employees the rest of the week off to get the hell out of Dodge. Figured I would do the same and duck the hurricane for the dusty-dry safety of my home in the foothills of Utopia, 300 miles outside of ground zero Houston. Had the bright idea of waiting until 3:00 in the frikin' A.M. to leave, figuring that traffic would surely thin out by then. Got in my truck and oozed onto I-10 headed west only to find total surface gridlock. Guess everyone else had the same bright idea. A ga-zillion people with trailers all coming from Galveston Island and passing through, I guess. Took me over an hour to go about a mile or so.

Okay, time to reassess the plan:

A) Seeing as I still had 299 miles to go

and

B) my SUV was already jonesing for gas, threating to suck the life out of my wallet

and

C) the tail lights pretty much stretched to the horizon,

I decided to abort and headed back.

New plan: Went by the grocery store but found the cupboard bare in the wee hours of the morning. No loaves of bread. Nothing. Bought some Sara Lee hotdog buns and a jar of peanut butter. Oh, and some cookies, just to kick it up a notch. (Emeril's got nothin' on me, boy)

Unless the roads clear up or they open the inbound lanes of I-10 to outbound traffic, looks like I'll be riding out the storm here in Houston. The only other option is to risk running out of gas somewhere between here and Utopia. From the number of cars on the road, it is a sure bet that virtually all the gas stations will be drained dry along the way. The storm should hit here with 75-90 mph winds in about 24 hours or so from now. This should be interesting, to say the least (and I rarely say the least). We'll see how long the power lets me keep posting..... 8O

Roger
(dry, for now, on Thursday at 5:10 AM CST)

Post by **mathis** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 12:41 pm

I wish you best of luck!

Post by **Patrick** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 12:55 pm

Good luck Roger. I hope your business will be okay during and after the storm. Make sure those snipers and computer equipment are safe and secure. Though most importantly, I hope you will be safe too.

Post by **MovieMaker** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 12:59 pm

Just the best to you and your family, Roger!

Hopefully Rita is not becoming the third worst hurricane in history as mentioned today in the news...

Good luck,

MovieMaker

Post by **MovieStuff** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 1:09 pm

Okay. My worried wife thinks she has found a path of least resistance along old highway 90 via some backroads. Heading out again.

Roger

sleepy at 6:10 AM on Thursday.

Post by **Alex_W** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 1:11 pm

Scary stuff. From below sealevel Amsterdam i wish you good luck

Post by **ccortez** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 4:09 pm

Good luck!

My wife and babies were in Houston so I could pack the house all week for our move. By yesterday afternoon most everything was packed, but she decided to leave Houston and head home before the evacuation routes got too heavy. She arrived back in Austin about 1 pm yesterday afternoon.

Her parents left a few hours later and arrived at about 6 pm. Her sister, her husband, and their 2 kids left Beaumont around 4 pm -- arrived Austin 3 AM! It's getting damn difficult to travel in any direction around Texas, as Roger's post shows.

I hope all y'all down Houston way are safe and sound and that the storm passes you (and your houses, stuff, etc.) unscathed. As for us, we're 12 people in a small house packed full of boxes. I have another house people could sleep in and it's totally empty, but uninhabitable due to the polyurethane smell from having the floors refinished...

Post by **S8 Booster** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 4:19 pm

the best of luck to u all.

tip: (guess it is no time now but...) take a look at an iQue M5 from Garmin - will take you anywhere at any time if need be.
http://www.garmin.com/products/iQueM5/

absolutely fab tool.

anyway, take care.

s/hoot

Post by **MovieStuff** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 4:47 pm

Okay. That didn't work.

9:45 AM on Thursday, back in front of the keyboards, where it looks like I'll be for the duration. Been up since about 2:00 AM. Nap time now....

Roger
ZZZZZZZ

Post by **VideoFred** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 5:13 pm

To our American friends:

I wish you all the luck you can get!

From Belgium,

Fred.

Post by **tlatosmd** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 2:17 am

Roger's situation reminds me a lot of Groundhog day starring Bill Murray who can't get out of Punxatawney either. Tell me, do you really *need* roads in an emergency case like this?

Post by **chachi** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 2:46 am

I wish you both the best....

Please remember to keep all the important stuff packed high off the ground

Post by **MovieStuff** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 2:50 am

Well, it looks like the worst is going to miss us as the hurricane has moved to the east a bit. That means we won't get hit with the wet, fast winds coming from the gulf. The counterclockwise rotation means that the winds will lose speed and moisture as they come around and back down toward Houston, west of the hurricane.

On a related note, I was in the hardware store and some guy was lamenting that he had spent the better part of two days, with the help of his buddies, (long since bugged out of town) to put wood over all his big windows on the south side of his house. Now he has to take them down (by his "damned self", as he put it) and move them to the north side since that is where the winds will now be coming from. He was pretty pissed. Not at anyone in particular, of course, but there is little to be happy about.

Speaking of being pissed, the parents of my best friend finally made a second attempt to go out I-10 after officials opened the incoming lanes to outbound traffic. They got on the highway and started zooming along, making their way out of town in minutes past people that had spent the better part of 24 hours to reach that same point, inching along a few feet at at time in the regular outbound lanes. Those still trapped in the outbound lanes have no way to cross over to the contraflow lanes! If I saw people zipping past me like that, after all the time invested, I think I would go quietly mad. Talk about the height of frustration!

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

Roger
Thursday evening, 9:48 PM (not that anyone really cares)

Post by **reflex** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 3:34 am

MovieStuff wrote:Well, it looks like the worst is going to miss us as the hurricane has moved to the east a bit.

Glad to hear that you guys are no longer set for a direct hit by a cat-5!

The front page of the Globe & Mail in Canada has a photo of a guy pushing a yellow jeep with the caption, "A man pushes his vehicle to save gas as he and thousand of Houstonians move slowly west on Interstate 10 to escape the path of hurricane Rita on Thursday."

Just think of the workout you could have had.

Post by **lastcoyote** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 4:05 am

Good to hear that you guys escaped from the worst.

Take care all of you

Philip