hurricane email
A hurricane update from my aunt in Texas:
Hello All
A Rita update - Lloyd, Joan and I are safe with Eddie in San Antonio - Eddie is doing an ESPN golf game and we are holed up at the OMNI with many many many Houstonians.
It took us 12 1/2 hours to get to San Antonio. We left around midnight thinking no one else would be on the road HA - to see the sea of humanity on 1-10 trying to desperately get out is an understatement.
No gas at the gas stations and if there was it was an 1-2 hour wait (I know I got caught up looking for gas) it took me an hour to get gas, once up to the pump the REGULAR gas was out forcing us to buy Premium at a higher cost (hmmmm...makes one wonder). People along the freeway, stranded out of gas with children and the elderly. Cars over heated...people giving up. At 4 a.m. I called my mom, hysterical, alone as Lloyd and Joan ahead of me in traffic were also overwhelmed with this calm desperate chaos. She told me not to give up to keep going - taking an hour to go 4 or 5 miles was so scary - but she told me not to give up at a point where I thought it would have been easier to pull over with the rest and just give up. I met a young man behind me in the gas line who had left Galveston 19 hours ago and still was no farther than I.
To send 4 million out of the city with no gas, food or water supplied along the way was insanity at it's finest moment. We all came into San Antonio with war stories.Many of my friends went north to Dallas or Oklahoma City now they are in the path of this monster called Rita. Although Houston MAY be out of her eye, we aren't out of her sight as she is the monster we all feared and knew would hit us one day, pictured it, but we were not prepared - we were NOT prepared. We can at this point, only pray for the best, we are all in shock and now I totally understand the stories I have heard from our friends in New Orleans and the feeling they had of "when I get home....what will I find?" I boarded the house best I can, grabbed those memories that can't be replaced - all of Dustin's pictures, pictures of family, my beloved books...but the bottom line is, the decision of what to take, what to put up and what nature will take - very sad indeed.
At this point we are all in a waiting pattern. I pray for those in New Orleans who were totally NOT prepared and now find themselves like us.
If I can update you I will. Please pray for us
Deb, Ed. Lloyd and Joan
Hello All
A Rita update - Lloyd, Joan and I are safe with Eddie in San Antonio - Eddie is doing an ESPN golf game and we are holed up at the OMNI with many many many Houstonians.
It took us 12 1/2 hours to get to San Antonio. We left around midnight thinking no one else would be on the road HA - to see the sea of humanity on 1-10 trying to desperately get out is an understatement.
No gas at the gas stations and if there was it was an 1-2 hour wait (I know I got caught up looking for gas) it took me an hour to get gas, once up to the pump the REGULAR gas was out forcing us to buy Premium at a higher cost (hmmmm...makes one wonder). People along the freeway, stranded out of gas with children and the elderly. Cars over heated...people giving up. At 4 a.m. I called my mom, hysterical, alone as Lloyd and Joan ahead of me in traffic were also overwhelmed with this calm desperate chaos. She told me not to give up to keep going - taking an hour to go 4 or 5 miles was so scary - but she told me not to give up at a point where I thought it would have been easier to pull over with the rest and just give up. I met a young man behind me in the gas line who had left Galveston 19 hours ago and still was no farther than I.
To send 4 million out of the city with no gas, food or water supplied along the way was insanity at it's finest moment. We all came into San Antonio with war stories.Many of my friends went north to Dallas or Oklahoma City now they are in the path of this monster called Rita. Although Houston MAY be out of her eye, we aren't out of her sight as she is the monster we all feared and knew would hit us one day, pictured it, but we were not prepared - we were NOT prepared. We can at this point, only pray for the best, we are all in shock and now I totally understand the stories I have heard from our friends in New Orleans and the feeling they had of "when I get home....what will I find?" I boarded the house best I can, grabbed those memories that can't be replaced - all of Dustin's pictures, pictures of family, my beloved books...but the bottom line is, the decision of what to take, what to put up and what nature will take - very sad indeed.
At this point we are all in a waiting pattern. I pray for those in New Orleans who were totally NOT prepared and now find themselves like us.
If I can update you I will. Please pray for us
Deb, Ed. Lloyd and Joan