Well, darn it, it's been 3 weeks and my Rita tale still hasn't been edited for the sound-bite universe. So to heck with it; here it is in raw form. A forewarning though - I wrote this before I had learned of the deaths of about 20 people during the evacuation so I think the story is bordering on the offensively frivolous. Furthermore, I cannot refund the time you waste reading this. Anyway voila:As a former meteorologist-turned-armchair-weather-forecaster, I had warmed up to the local obsession with the latest tropical blip on the Equator. So naturally, I was piqued to find some vigorous thunderstorms near Puerto Rico had coalesced into a Bahamian depression last Sunday. By Monday morning, I checked the web to find that it had become a tropical storm and, “Hey! It’s headed straight toward us.” Now typically, these systems always manage to go drifting around the Gulf of Mexico aimlessly while the hot Texas sun flogs my parched lawn with endless abuse. I’d been burned too many times by these unpredictable things to get very excited about Rita so, for now, it was just a curiosity.
By mid-Tuesday, I wasn’t curious any more. Nor was I too concerned about my lawn either. In 4 hours it had jumped from a tropical storm to a category 2 hurricane and it was starting to look serious, enough to start thinking about contingencies for a direct strike on Houston. My office was thinking that way too and scheduled a closure decision for Wednesday afternoon. Meanwhile, a good number of local people weren’t thinking at all: they were leaving! For all we knew at the time, Rita could have been headed into Mexico so a Tuesday exodus, albeit small, seemed awfully premature to me.
With my healthy appreciation for scientific uncertainty still intact, we watched all day Wednesday as the predicted storm path remained un-flinched: a gently curving line that aimed right at the west side of Houston. Being in charge of our computer systems, I was now into full precaution mode, making backup copies of everything, and closing off a few nagging problems so our gadgets would keep purring without me sitting next to them. Schlumberger wisely chose to secure and close everything for Thursday and Friday so, after clearing my office of obvious debris candidates, I finally started making my way home a bit later than I would have liked. There was something about the 2 hour drive home that told me many more people were starting to evacuate already. Rita was now a beastly category 5, grinding her way across the Gulf of Mexico on a track that would certainly cause massive destruction all the way across Houston. Our house is a good 80km inland and sits at a healthy elevation of about 30m so we were not required to evacuate the area. Nonetheless, flight seemed like the sensible option.
I promised Toki we would make a decision at lunchtime on Thursday, after A) closing off some work issues for some of my colleagues overseas (who obviously had nothing to fear) and B) watching the latest forecast. We were now hearing nasty tales of people driving north through Houston who had left Galveston the day before. Unfazed, I finished off the work stuff and started watching the latest forecast tracks. The storm was now heading slightly to the east of Houston so my plan of driving towards Louisiana or Arkansas was not looking too safe any more. We decided to go west instead. Where exactly? I had no idea but I knew Austin and San Antonio would be packed so our destination was pinned down to “somewhere west of there”.
There was one last step: storm-proof the house. Most of this was sensible, hiding stuff in closets and away from windows, but Toki insisted on toppling one of the bookcases so Rita wouldn’t get the pleasure of doing it. This looked more like an earthquake-proofing measure to me but she’s the seasoned typhoon expert so I went along with it. After creating a chaotic pile of books under the toppled shelf, we left the other cases standing and just turned them around to face the wall. I then had to fix up some of my fabulously duct-taped windows because the tape was heating up in the sun and shriveling like rubbery bacon. The whole tape job was starting to look like Wile E. Coyote’s anvil umbrella but at least I had done something. As we got ready to pile in to the car, I now became aware that Toki had been meticulously planning the departure for days, acquiring extra diapers, cup noodles, bottled water, a carafe, and so on. She had set us up for weeks of in-car living as long as we could get clear of the storm.
The initial phase of the drive was just as bad as we had heard: even on back roads we spent more time parked than crawling. With ¾ of a tank of gas, we knew there could be a shortage so we painfully chose to leave the AC off and wind down the windows. In 36-degree heat it was a tough choice but we finally made it out of the gridlock after 70km and 7 hours of sweat. By then it was dark of course but the joy of driving faster than 30km/h superseded any fatigue I might have felt. We kept on going, staying away from the freeways, meandering towards Austin, and then veering away when the traffic started backing up again. We arrived in San Marcos, halfway between San Antonio and Austin, around 1am, checked a few hotels (full of course), and kept driving. Finally, around 2am, I was getting tired when we spotted a roadside picnic area and pulled over.
Sleep quality in a 5-seat car is generally pretty awful when there are 5 people in it. Let’s just say, I was tired enough to combine sleep with contortionism for a few hours before sunrise. I felt like crud but found we were sitting in a pretty scenic picnic area. Yes, this was Texas Hill Country and we were, you guessed it, on top of a hill. Mildly inspired, I was ready to start driving again. Amazingly, Rachel and Eric slept a solid 10 hours each. Claudia had fed once overnight and was out again so we were making good time and headed for Fredericksburg, a tourist haven of sorts. I went in to a couple of the more obvious motels, LaQuinta and Holiday Inn Express. Neither of the concierges were too encouraging (“Texas is full” just to quote one) but I did get the Holiday Inn 1-800 number to try. We kept heading north toward San Angelo and Claudia got hungry again in the City of Mason, so I stopped and pulled out the 1-800 number for Holiday Inn and discovered that the nearest vacancy was in Albuquerque, New Mexico. After informing Toki and measuring the distance on the map (1000km!), Toki delicately informed me how ridiculous that notion was, suggesting that I ask someone in town for local information.
By now Rachel had spotted a glowing purple bat in the window of the local country store, all decked out for Halloween. Bracing myself for the imminent, “I want it!’ onslaught, I went inside with her and Eric. I asked the two people behind the counter if there was a place with accommodation information and, much to my surprise, discovered that one of the two people:
· Was the mayor of Mason
· Owned the store and the Bed and Breakfast upstairs
· Had gotten several cancellations the day before (I assume because people were stuck in traffic and gave up)
So, while contemplating a drive to Albuquerque, we had in fact been sitting about 10 metres from a vacant room!
It’s truly amazing how something as simple as a vacancy can turn an ordeal into a pleasant vacation. That’s what happened to us as we showered, dozed, and strolled about the rather idyllic “city” (it really is a city but the population is 2134 – I have a hard time not calling it a “town”). We dined at the local taqueria, went to the homecoming football game, got invited to a church dinner, and visited the local attraction, a bat cave that’s home to about 3 or 4 million bats. We’re officially obliged to go back there in the spring and visit the friends we made during our two day stay in Mason.
By Sunday it was clear that the storm had minimally affected Houston and we were free to return. What’s more, we hadn’t gotten much rain so my dreaded lawn was getting dry again. There’s something slightly embarrassing about having to hurry back from a hurricane evacuation to water your lawn.
The drive back was uneventful save one flat tire near Austin. There’s nothing like trying to handle metal tools barehanded in the Texas afternoon sunshine. What was a little less pleasant than that, though, was the fact that I couldn’t figure out how to turn our power back on when we got home (OK, I get it now: you have to rock the main circuit switch). As a result, we needlessly went without AC on Sunday night. Some have it worse and are still getting rolling blackouts tonight (the low is going to be around 26).
So what happens if Houston takes a direct hit next time? I think more people will leave at the first sign of trouble but most will just hunker down in their homes. There simply isn’t any feasible way to clear 3 million people out of harm’s way within a reliable weather forecast period. One of these days, it’s going to cause a major disaster and I don’t plan for us to be here when it happens.
The car now smells a bit like the Superdome with a twist of mexican free-tailed bat guano but we’ve got a lot to be thankful for, beyond the soothing drone of our air-conditioner.
