Very little damage to Houston
Well, it's the afternoon after Rita. The wind is still up... we had some sun earlier, and I opened all the blinds to let the light in. This was a very welcomed anti-climax to all of our preparations. Veronique and I are now bringing things back out of hiding. What a lot of stress for nothing!
Landfall Made
It's 7:10. Rita has made landfall. We are still in our bed. We still have power and we're listening to the wind howl and watching the storm on TV. It doesnt sound/look bad enough yet to go into the saferoom.
Lights flickering
The power has started to get a little spotty. The lights have flickered off and on about 3 times now. Veronique thought she heard the garage door motor turn on so I went downstairs and disconnected the garage door from the track. Im watching the movie Constantine right now w/ Keanu Reeves. It is basically "The Matrix" but with angels and demons and he is the guy that needs to save everyone. Unfortunately not as good as "The Matrix". I was hoping power would stay up at least until tomorrow morning. Now I am not so sure.
First signs of Rita
The wind has started to pick up now. It is raining on and off. It just feels ominous outside.
I decided to tape up the east and north facing windows with Duck Tape. I dont know that it will really do anything, but at least it makes me feel like I have done everything I could. It seems that the Hurricane is continuing on its path to make landfall at Port Arthur / Beaumont - about 120 miles or so from Houston. This looks a lot better for us, but not so good for those in Port Arthur / Beaumont. I didnt hear anything on the TV yet about them being evacuated, so I am not sure if most are still there. I visited a chevron blend plant in Beaumont about a month ago and there is not that much there... just a bunch of refineries, but the devastation to that area Im sure will be tremendous, just not as bad as a direct hit on Houston.
We had dinner a little while ago. I made chicken with spinach and asparagus. Im not sure when we will have our electric stove again, and am wishing that I had a gas stove other than my barbeque grill downstairs.
Everyone here is worried about the looting. I know nick had tried to get a shotgun. I would like to have one too. A couple of signs we have seen so far are "You Loot, We Shoot" and "Protected by Smith and Wesson" in front of peoples houses. I think it might be a good idea to put a sign outside as a deterrent to people to come in to our house.
All this waiting is really frustrating. Come on already Rita. We're ready for you to come, if only because that means we are closer to you leaving.
Hurricane Rita
It's less than 24 hours until Rita makes landfall. I am typing this from our saferoom, the 2nd floor bathroom on the east side of the house - with no windows and not too much space. We have a large supply of canned and fresh food and water, a flashlight, candles, my cell phone, a walkie talkie to communicate with Nick, Kevin and Kim who are also riding out the storm and kennels for the pets. When tomorrow morning arrives, I am sure we will be awakened earlier by the howling winds, but right now I am planning to come into the safe room at 6:00 am, right around the same time the hurricane will make landfall.
Veronique and I planned to leave Houston, and even had the car packed. It took my colleague Erik from 4:00 am Thursday morning until 7:00 pm Thursday to get to Austin, and miraculously he made it on one tank of gas. The trip usually takes 2 1/2 - 3 hrs. When we saw the state of the roads on Thursday morning, we still decided to try and leave. We drove north to I-10, saw it wasnt moving at all and then decided to come back into the city. I got a big bottle of water from the office, took the backups out of the server and we went to Kroger. Thank you so much for being open on Thursday. Most of the other supermarkets were either closed or out of food, but the Kroger on W. Gray was open, the lines were long, but the fresh food was plenty, and there were enough cans of food too that you werent going to go hungry. So, we got our $200 worth of emergency food and made our way back to the house.
As of right now, there isnt much we can do except prepare a little, put breakables away if we can. I think we will take the dog for a walk in a little while, maybe see what is on T.V. tonight. Hopefully they dont cancel regular programs for hurricane coverage! Wish us the best of luck. I will try and post a message when the power goes out. Providing the internet stays up when the power goes down, I have a battery backup on the cable modem and the wireless router so I should be able to post from the safe room. Watch this space!
Oh yeah, we are using channel 7, security code 31 during the storm... if anyone has a radio and is within 10 miles, give us a shout.
Uh oh – Rita’s comin right for us
The below image seems to update itself, and so far, unfortunately the headline has held pretty true.
Ubuntu Linux 5.04
Im trying out Ubuntu Linux 5.04 at the moment as a reaction to Windows requiring verification to download updates and also as a reaction to the low quality windows ISOs there are on the net at the moment where everyone is trying to add this, or remove that, thus causing instability in the OS and irregular behavior.
