Hooray, we're (relatively) safe! Well, my folks, my sister and her husband, and my wife and I all packed up the cars and headed north to Spring, Texas, where my brother lives. A drive that normally takes approx. 1 hour took us nearly 3.5 hours. The traffic was attrocious, but we got there ok. From the maps the local weather guys are using, it looks like our houses will fall right along the edge of the storm surge (if it hits the expecterd 20+ feet). JSC, where I work, will be under water, so I wonder when that will open. All the surrounding counties have called for mandatory evacuations, and Houston is expected to make the call tomorrow morning. But, as Dad pointed out, there are some people that just don't want to leave. Mostly, the people interviewed have said that they have no place to go, and just about every hotel in the state of Texas is booked. Some of the highways have been opened up so all traffic is going outbound (i.e. all the opposite lanes have been reversed). The rest of the highways should be opened up tomorrow. The toll roads were opened up, and the school districts have been using their buses to evacuate as many people as possible. I guess they took notes whiule Katrina was unfolding. The good thing is, Rita will die pretty quickly once she makes landfall. In Spring, we should expect conditions somewhere around catagory 3. It's all over but the waiting! For anyone else in the area, stay safe, stay dry, and get as far from the coast as possible -monkey
Good luck to all the Texans on the board! Snap some pics if you get the chance According to this website, all these massive storms are due to a secret weapon developed by the Russians and being used by the Japenese mafia in retribution for the bombing of Nagasaki & Heroshima back in the 40's..
Well thanks for clearing up the reason behind the bad weather Dad. And here's little ol' me thinking we just pissed off mother nature. It makes so much more sense now. And as logic would indicate, I just made a decent (virtaul) investment in two oil companies. Lessee who'll be top of the virtual stock exchange in my class next week! Seriously though, good luck to all in the area. Make sure you've got your windows closed up tight. And that you're five hundred miles away from said windows.
Wow extreme weather in the US, better board up the windows and get as far as possible from the coast. Good luck people in the projected part of the hurricane.
ouch... Good morning all. It's update time. Rita's outer bands should be nearing New Orleans right about now. Overnight the projected storm path changed. Rita is now expexted to go right up Galveston Bay, into Houston and on up I-45 to Huntsville and beyond. Looks like we're gonna bend over and take this storm hard. My wife has a cousin in Conroe (about 30 min. north). If things look worse in a few hours we may be re-packing up and heading out again. The only problem this time is the mass exodus going on in Houston at the moment. The news just interviewed some poor guy on Highway 290, heading out to Austin. In 8 hours he has managed to travel just over 5 miles. I'm thinking it's probably a better idea to just hunker down at this point. I'd rather be trapped in the attic than in the middle of the highway! If the high pressure system over Louisiana would move a little more to the east, then Rita has a chance to move east enough to get us on the dry side of the storm. Oh, and Dad, don't worry. I made sure to pack my camera before I left. I'll try to get some pictures of the impending doom. -monkey
I heard on tv this morning that at 9:00am cdt, they are opening up southbound traffic on a few interstates to northbound traffic. Good call, I wish they had done it sooner, but that will help those people a lot. Looks like Rita is weakening a touch. Winds are now down to 170mph and pressure is up to 907mbar. Like supermonkey said, the path has changed north and it looks to make landfall in the northerh part of the Texas coast or southwest Louisiana.
The Texas Department of Transportation guy was just saying that they didn't want to open up the southbound lanes yet because of all the rush-hour traffic from the folks going in to work this morning. Crazy, really, that people are still heading into downtown, given all the traffic jams coming back out. I-45 southbound will be opened up shortly to help get people out, but they are going to open it up north of Conroe all the way to Huntsville. Doesn't help the people that are still stuck downtown, though. One of the things that makes it difficult to open up I-45, is that in town, it wasn't designed to be used that way. I'm starting to breathe a little easier. Every time they update the track, it goes farther northeast. I feel bad for Louisiana, but at least they've already evacuated! As it is, we're already on the clean side of the center track. -monkney
as promised Hi there all. As promised, here are a couple of pictures of the Houston evacuation. This is I-45, one of the main highways in Houston. I am standing on an overpass in Spring, looking south toward Houston. This the other side of the overpass, looking north. We saw this exact same scene at about 10:30 this morning. It is now a little after 3:00pm. Off on the side is a strip mall. We saw quite a few people taking refuge on the leeward side of the mall. They had unpacked some cooking equipment and looked like they were there for the long haul. -monkey
Damn man! There's NO ONE in the southbound lanes! When do they plan on opening up the southbound lanes to northbound traffic? Over that, those people with RV's have got the right idea. They're prolly hell on gas now, but at least they have comfortable, inexpensive shelter.
The southbound lanes finally started opening up about an hour ago. From the reports we've been hearing, they've only opened up the southbound lanes north of Conroe (which is about 30 min north of Houston). It's helped clear out some traffic, but the jam is far from over. Also, the highways going east and west (to Beaumont and Austin) are still gridlocked. It looks like the storm may keep turning north, so much of Houston on south is going to be ok. TexDOT and the city of Houston are preparing to send fleets of trucks with gas out into the evacuation routes to offer fuel to emtpy cars. Some of the gas stations are waiting for the tanker trucks, which are all currently stuck in traffic. I feel sorry for all the people heading east, as well as Louisiana. Apparently there was a low pressure system moving through the north-central US that put a dent in the middle of teh high pressure system that was forcing Rita into the south Texas coast. With the weakening of the high system, Rita is going to force her way up the middle, into the north Texas coast/Louisiana area. However, the low pressure system has pretty much moved through, so the high pressure system may regain its strength. If it does, Rita may turn back toward Houston. The best news we've heard is that Rita is already beginning to die down. She's now expected to make landfall as a cat 3. Where we are now, we're expected to see tropical storm force winds. The sky was crystal clear today, but tomorrow I'll try to grab some pictures of the coming storm. We should start seeing the outer bands by noon. edit: Here is the link for the Houston TransStar highway camera network. These cameras show near-live views of select places throughout Houston. A key camera of interest would be the "Lake Woodlands" camera in the I-45 North category. You can see both the southbound and northbound lanes are both pretty much gridlock now. For a good contrast, the I-45 North/Louetta camera is where I took my pictures earlier. It appears to be fairly clear now. I'm quite amazed that all those people were able to get out! -monkey
On the radio this morning, someone said why dont they use both sides of the carriage way to evacuate? Its not like people are going into texas??
Well, we have another one. Being from Texas myself, I hope this turns out well. My uncle lives in Houston, and left yesterday morning. Myself, I'm all the way on the western edge of the state, so I'm safe. But still, I hope everything goes ok. Stay safe Monkey, and everyone else around there. I'll be thinking about you guys!
Well, the cone of possible strike location continues to shift to the east. Houston is nearly out of it now, but Louisiana looks like it will take a lot of the "dirty" side of the storm. More rain for them can't be a good thing. The wind here has picked up a bit. It's just slightly overcast with a very light breeze. It looks like the most we'll get is some bad wind. The eye should make landfall sometime very early Saturday morning (4:00-6:00 am). The roads are, for the most part, clear now. Everyone is where they need to be, even if it wasn't where they necessarily wanted to be. In fact, almost all of the contraflow lanes have been closed and returned to their normal directions. The last few stranded cars have been given enough gas to get them to the nearest shelter. -monkey
the wind...oh, the wind Greetings from Hurricane Rita! Well, she managed to skirt to the right of us, so overnight we got some fairly heavy wind and some moderate rain. I'm looking out the window right now and it's still pretty blustery. It's not so bad, though, my dog is playing around in the back yard. I feel sorry for Beaumont. It took Rita head on. There were the usual fires, but since the situation here in Houston wasn't too bad, there were than enough firefighers to go around. Houston even sent some down to Galveston to help out there. Anbd anyone who even thinks about looting is in for a surprise. As with the fire department, the police don't have much to do at the moment, so there out rounding up the thugs. They caught 8 people at one Target alone. The reporters mentioned that there were 28 robberies overnight, with 16 arrests. Houston dodged a bullet this time (since Rita shifted and broke down near the shore). Given everything that's happened in the last week, I think that we learned some good lessons from Katrina. I'd say that Houston passed this test. -monkey
Rita now downgraded to a catagory 2 hurricane, and the damage is far less than predicted. This seems to have been a lucky escape for you guys, especially after what we seen last week. I wonder what reasons they will use for pushing up petrol prices this time ?
Assuming you can find gas in the Houston area. A good number of the pumps are empty, though I did see a Texaco station with two big tanker trucks out front this morning. Well, we're home now. Less than 12 hours after landfall and we are back in our own home in the Clear Lake Area (about 10 min from Clear Lake and about 35-40 min from Galveston). The total damage to our house is comprised of a 4 foot tree branch sitting in the front lawn. May parents had a few limbs in their yard and their pool was full of leaves. They also don't have power. My sister's place had a few branches in the backyard, and that's about it. There was, however, one casualty. There was a dead cockroach on the kitchen floor. Poor guy, he probably died of heat stroke since the air conditioner was turned off. Either that or boredom with the television unplugged. On the drive home, the traffic really wasn't too bad. It looks like much of Houston is heading home to clean up. We really dodged a bullet this time, and I'm greatful that the overall damage was a minimal as it was. -monkey
