I was just trying to edit my previous post but I got this error

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just so ya know.

Anyways, I wanted to add that I hope everything went well for ya.

we got a good bit of wind and a little rain, but things weren't bad at all.. thank you

Hurrah!

City officials just announced the official Houston 2005 Hurricane Evacuation Plan:

• Hispanics use I-10 West to San Antonio
• Cajuns use I-10 East to Lafayette
• Rednecks use 59 North to East Texas
• Republicans fly Continental to Washington DC
• Yankees use 45 South to Galveston
• Longhorns use 290 West to Austin
• Aggies use 610 Loop

Hurricane Rita has reached Cat5 status and we may be directly in her path - we'll know more in the next 24-48 hours. Currently they are pointing it southwest of us, meaning we'll be getting the bad side of it with rain and wind. We may be heading north sometime tomorrow if they call for a mandatory evacuation.





If something happens to me, I'm bequeathing the site to gizzy this time - he has time to work on it

Sweet! I win! lol... Wait, I'm not even an admin yet.. ...

But on a serious note, I do have nothing but time

HURRICANE RITA BECOMES THE 3rd MOST INTENSE HURRICANE
The pressure in dangerous hurricane Rita fell to 898 mb making Rita the 3rd most intense hurricane in the Atlantic basin. Katrina is now the 5th most intense at 902 mb behind Allen. Gilbert at 888 mb and the 1935 storm at 892 mb are the top two storms.


www.accuweather.com



The angle has been adjusted a bit our direction

If you where closer I'd offer you my guest room lol...

thank you.

Looks like it has angled even more our direction, they've called for a mandatory evacuation. We'll be putting plywood on the the windows today and heading out - not sure where yet.

You're still welcome to use my guest room :-x

Total Est. Time: 34 hours, 26 minutes
Total Est. Distance: 2370.88 miles

Long drive, hope you get good gas mileage lol...

So you're trying to tell us that you're the 4th most intense hurricane in the Atlantic basin?

---Jamin

yeh man, allen is just that hardcore...

Spent the day boarding up windows at 3 homes - temperature 100+ all day - I musta drank 2-3 gallons of fluid and still cramp everywhere.

Rita has turned a bit more north and looks to be heading straight here now. We'll be headed out shortly as soon as I get a shower. Traffic on the highway is a parking lot and has been all day. We're hoping it will thin out a bit tonight, but if nothing else at least it will be about 20-25 degrees cooler.

I think we'll plan on coming back if they let us Sunday night.

Good luck!

Good luck and stay safe!

Stay safe Allen!

Thank you guys. We went to my bro-in-law's home in pensacola florida - smooth light traffic the whole way. Hurrican Katrina has done a job on the landscape in Mississippi tho My wife's family headed north towards dallas and traffic is gridlocked there, no gas to be had and people are being stuck out on the highway.

Rita is headed straight for my hometown now, should be there tonight. Good timing on the escape, tho we drove all night. I'm headed to bed :zzz:

They keep showing video all around my house, but stay 2 blocks away Pretty good amount of damage, but it looks like places that never boarded up their windows. I imagine if something happened to the house they'd have it on there by now, you got to go down my street to get to some of the places they are showing.

Very thankful we headed to Pensacola when we did o/

They're not letting anyone back in yet, maybe tomorrow, probably Monday or Tuesday - lots of powerlines down across streets, windows blown out, awnings out in the street, trees everywhere, emergency services are down to barebones while trying to dig out, etc.

Here's some cool satellite (and other) pictures of Rita:

http://www.brianrobak.com/rita.html

They're talking now like it might be 2 weeks before power is back on in the city So much was supposed to have started on Monday with work, now we're put off until who knows when.

At least Geraldo is pronouncing the area locations right now

Glad to hear you guys made it out ok. Hopefully all your stuff is in good shape.

Thank you, there's some minor damage to the house, major to all the trees. I can see why they're saying 3-4 weeks + before they can let people back in the city - *every* block of *every* street has power lines down, trees ripped up and dropped everywhere, some homes have trees through them, etc.

There's convoys of huge tree service trucks going out every day to begin clearing streets so that EMS can get through if needed, huge tractors, back hoes and bulldozers are pushing them to the side for now. They're starting in the cities south of here to remove the trees, trash, etc so that the power people can get in to work on the electricity lines. Then they'll work northward towards us. It'll easily be a month before we have power back to everyone. School has been canceled during that time, plus the time it takes to put them back right once they get clearance to start. All businesses except for a couple gas stations and a couple stores running off generators are shut down. Crazy what one hurricane can do to hundreds of square miles - and we didn't even get the flooding like they did south of us and over into Louisiana.

I'm at my parents, working during the day at my dad's business to cleanup and repair (the roof was blown off) during the day (100+ degree heat now and no electricity). In the evenings I'm working on my notebook pc to get forms and orientation manuals typed up for the new hospice we were supposed to start this week. Everything is on hold. We're running the house off a large generator my dad has, so at least the nights are bearable. Got to boil water to make sure it's clean for the foreseeable future - sometimes it just stops while they are working on it somewhere.

My brother is in the fire department - he's working everyday all day (sleeps at headquarters) until further notice - he works as a fireman and also goes door to door making sure people are ok and asking them to leave the city and go to shelters if possible. The city picks anyone who wants to go up and sends them to the staging shelter, then to san antonio to a shelter at Kelly AFB with shelter, food and water until the city is opened back up. Yesterday he spen most of the afternoon removing the steaks, chicken, and fish (a couple tons worth) from Cheddars (a local restaurant) and bringing it to the local shelters, at least what could be saved.

Talk soon, headed to www.fema.gov to fill out disaster relief forms.

Note to self: stay away from oceans

We have the Pacific Ocean here in the NW USA but we don't get tornado's, or hurricanes... Crazy southeners...

Progress is being made, there's a rumor that some electricity may be rolled out to a couple neighborhoods by this weekend Got to have power to pump out the flooded underpasses

Finally back home, our electricity was turned on some time in the last 24 hours or so

Now now allen, haven't you seen the PeoplePC commercials? hehe

I've kept it around for sentimental reasons, mostly mental

Broadband came back up this morning

You can keep your email/im name and ditch the shotty isp service!

Just register on aim.com with that sn and sign up for "AIM Mail" when you cancel ...

cool, thanks

internet connection (cable) is still down half the time - I'm interested in seeing what they bill this next time

Spent the last 2 nights cutting downed trees in my backyard (there's 6-8 back there from my neighbor's yard) with a chain saw - my wife calls it the texas chain saw massacre

Hurricane Humberto is passing through town right now - wind is pretty strong - up to 89 mph gusts and lots of rain.

I'd put on a poncho and go try and fly a kite... But that's just my crazy self and morbid curiosity...

Trees and water are everywhere today - most places are closed, a lot of places are without power (we're one of the lucky ones still with power), I've got a cold and am going back to bed.

haha... "We had a hurricane, I survived with no problems, other than the sniffles"

It was crazy - we didn't even know a storm was coming until last night and even then it was just supposed to be a tropicl storm. It was the fastest storm on record going from a tropical depression to a hurricane. At 4am the trees were bending to the ground and rain was dropping in sheets sideways.

There's still hundreds of roofs with blue tarps from hurricane rita 2 years ago - you just couldn't get people to even bid on your roof because thousands of homes needed them. People's FEMA trailer turned over from the wind.

I want a hurricane soooo bad

Ooooooooh no you don't.

Andrew


Katrina



Are you really sure you wish this upon yourself and your neighbors? Hurricanes are deadly terrifying things that no sane or sensible person hopes for.

Dave, she lives in Orlando, i'm sure she knows what a hurricane is :X

And if she wants a hurricane soooooooo bad she needs some reminding.

Lol didn't one just go through down there?

Not directly

Nobody wants a hurricane, you obviously haven't lived through one if you say that seriously.

I've been in florida since 1980, I love them because they cleanse the Earth. I guess I take a more pagan and naturalist point of view on it. Earth = Overpopulated and being destroyed by Chemicals. Hurricane = Cleansing Rain and refreshing forests.

Destruction sucks, I never said I want anyone to die, but destruction is a necessary evil and I happen to enjoy the hurricanes.

You haven't been through a direct hit from a major hurricane then - they don't 'refresh forests', they remove them. We lost more than 60% of our trees in Hurricane Rita - and we're surrounded by trees and forests.

Rita didn't affect population either... unless you are counting trees. Not sure where you're getting your simplistic view of hurricanes - they're not a nice breezy rain.

It's difficult to hug a tree as it passes you...

I live to be the other side of the fence post.

lol, unless you can jump really high lol

Other side of which fence post? The one that Hurricane Andrew flung though the side of a house 5 streets down, at 100 miles an hour?

I was in Andrew, which I've posted a picture of. How you can look at that picture and find something "Cleansing" in that debris is simply beyond my ability to comprehend.

I didn't quite understand the comment either, it didn't quite fit the conversation

Like I said earlier, people who haven't been in a direct hit from a major hurricane really have no idea what it's like. "Cleansing" is not a word anyone can attribute to the millions of tons of debris that get sent to landfills after a major hurricane; or to the destruction of millions of trees.

From a purely artistic stance, I'd love the chance to experience one (we only have earthquakes out here, it's rare to see a funnel cloud and it's even more rare that it touches ground) however at the same time I know and understand the destruction and find their wake horrifying...

You can only truely experience one, you have to live there, be part of the community, be part of the long term effects. There's no tv image that can even get close to getting the real feeling.

I am so happy we have no hurricanes, earthquakes and stuff here. We just have a fight with the water, but we're winning that fight for over 50 years now.

There's nothing 'artistic' about living through/after a hurricane - you lose your stuff, family, history... everything. Nav's pictures are good examples.

I got the chance to visit Amsterdam for a very short while between flights last year Yarp™ - beautiful country.

I've been involved in far too many hurricanes in my lifetime. Glad we don't have them out here.

I'm not saying that the wake is artistic, but nature itself is... You're telling me theres nothing beautiful or captivating about a tornado? nevermind what is actually happening, the pure awe of its power is beautiful...

What it does is horriffic, I will agree there, but nature is beautiful, even lightning, and lightning starts mass forrest fires; a dry summer and hot sun causes forest fires as well... yet fire is beautiful, trees are beautiful, lightning is beautiful...

Maybe artistic in a 'Twister' sort of way with Helen Hunt holding on to some pole, but in real life... if you are in the path of either a hurricane or tornado there's nothing artistic about it. My mother's best friend was ripped from inside her home and thrown against a tree by a tornado - they found her the next morning up against the trunk covered in ants. She died that evening from the injuries. She was in her fifties - spent her life raising her family and caring for cancer patients.

No, I don't see art in this. Those with personal experience don't. Those who do are a bit naive - nothing personal, but 'art' kind of comments... it's difficult to respond without getting very blunt.

So you see no beauty in this picture?

I see art in the photography, but that's all.

I knew you'd be a smarta.. about it lol

There's a difference between looking at a picture and wishing a tornado/hurricane on yourself because you think they're beautiful - that borders on insane with a definite touch of immaturity.

Did I ever wish a hurricane on anyone? I simply stated that I.. you know what, nevermind, my words will be missconstrued and i'll have people pissing and moaning about whatever i say.

And i point at the name while being yelled at for the statement lol

No, Gizzy, I see nothing beautiful about it. I've dodged a tornado and watched it rip a small town in upstate NY a new rear end. There was nothing artistic about it. Pretty picture? Maybe, but to me the picture represents a level of destruction that is entirely not pretty.

Ugh, had to evacuate again

We're driving back in now, but this is a pain.

And here comes another one