Ike
So Ike is supposedly coming near to Houston, and we're currently scheduled to get the dirty side of it.
We don't live in a surge zone, even for a Cat 5 storm (which Ike is not supposed to be), so emergency planners, the city, etc. are all telling us to stay put and shelter in place. We evacuated for Rita because we were afraid of wind damage from what was at the time a Cat 5 storm tracking to head pretty much directly over our house. We were late Rita evacuees (we were actually on our way out of town when the radio announced that the hurricane was likely going elsewhere and evacuation was no longer necessary. But the car was all packed, the house was boarded up and we were already to Katy, so we kept going. And even so it took us 9 hours to get to Austin.
We have an 18-month old now. The idea of sitting in the car in stop-and-go traffic for 9 hours (and that was a short Rita commute) with Corwin in the car sounds like even less fun than it was when it was just Andrew and me. The idea of being stuck in our house without power doesn't sound terribly fun either, (not to mention being stuck in our house during a hurricane) but I don't think it's worth sitting in that kind of traffic to go to Austin now. If we could have left yesterday, I would have gone ahead and taken Corwin and me off to Austin for an unscheduled vacation, but the university where I work only an hour so ago announced that it is going to be closed this weekend. So we couldn't go yesterday....in case I needed to be back here to work at 9 a.m. Saturday and wouldn't have known in time.
Instead, we'll likely board up this afternoon or evening and plan to stay put unless things start to look really bad. If that's the case, we'll probably just "evacuate" up to Andrew's parents' house, which is a bit further north and has a generator (which is hopefully working by now....I know they were trying to get it fixed a few weeks ago). Likewise, if we ride out the storm and find ourselves without power afterwards, we'll likely go somewhere else then. I am of course assuming that roads will be passable and our cars will be in working condition...which are big if's. *shrug* I can only overthink so much.
Making me feel a bit better is http://www.houstonhidefromthewind.org/ which shows the "Forecasted Maximum Sustained Wind Data for the City of Houston by Zip Code." Currently for our zip code, that's 83 mph (Category 1 hurricane force). According to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, Cat 1 winds will likely cause "no real damage to building structures. Damage primarily to unanchored mobile homes, shrubbery, and trees. Some damage to poorly constructed signs."
Andrew's employer is closing at noon today, so he should be home reasonably soon.
We don't live in a surge zone, even for a Cat 5 storm (which Ike is not supposed to be), so emergency planners, the city, etc. are all telling us to stay put and shelter in place. We evacuated for Rita because we were afraid of wind damage from what was at the time a Cat 5 storm tracking to head pretty much directly over our house. We were late Rita evacuees (we were actually on our way out of town when the radio announced that the hurricane was likely going elsewhere and evacuation was no longer necessary. But the car was all packed, the house was boarded up and we were already to Katy, so we kept going. And even so it took us 9 hours to get to Austin.
We have an 18-month old now. The idea of sitting in the car in stop-and-go traffic for 9 hours (and that was a short Rita commute) with Corwin in the car sounds like even less fun than it was when it was just Andrew and me. The idea of being stuck in our house without power doesn't sound terribly fun either, (not to mention being stuck in our house during a hurricane) but I don't think it's worth sitting in that kind of traffic to go to Austin now. If we could have left yesterday, I would have gone ahead and taken Corwin and me off to Austin for an unscheduled vacation, but the university where I work only an hour so ago announced that it is going to be closed this weekend. So we couldn't go yesterday....in case I needed to be back here to work at 9 a.m. Saturday and wouldn't have known in time.
Instead, we'll likely board up this afternoon or evening and plan to stay put unless things start to look really bad. If that's the case, we'll probably just "evacuate" up to Andrew's parents' house, which is a bit further north and has a generator (which is hopefully working by now....I know they were trying to get it fixed a few weeks ago). Likewise, if we ride out the storm and find ourselves without power afterwards, we'll likely go somewhere else then. I am of course assuming that roads will be passable and our cars will be in working condition...which are big if's. *shrug* I can only overthink so much.
Making me feel a bit better is http://www.houstonhidefromthewind.org/ which shows the "Forecasted Maximum Sustained Wind Data for the City of Houston by Zip Code." Currently for our zip code, that's 83 mph (Category 1 hurricane force). According to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, Cat 1 winds will likely cause "no real damage to building structures. Damage primarily to unanchored mobile homes, shrubbery, and trees. Some damage to poorly constructed signs."
Andrew's employer is closing at noon today, so he should be home reasonably soon.