Hurricane Rita part 3

Hurricane hit about midnight, saturday am.... Slept badly, kept waking up. Lots of wind, not much rain. Rain picked up more about 2am. Pine trees behind our house got blown around a lot but held their own. Still had electricity.

2:45 am to about 3:30 am central. Electricity flickered on & off

3:30 am to 4:00 am central. Lost power. Very heavy, loud winds. Sounded a lot like a wind tunnel or if you were on the beach, the volume on the waves was turned up all the way.

10:30 am central. It's like an October storm in Indiana, all grey & windy & rainy. Lots of water falling.

2:00 pm central. Rain over, more light throught the clouds, winds are a strong thunderstorm. Still no power. Can't see reason for no power. Winds still heading SSE.

3:30 pm central. Got power back. Still wearing PJ's & don't care.

4:00 pm central. It's all over, power back on, water back on, sunny outside. A/c going.

The lizard in my large bromeliad weathered the storm well. I saw him this afternoon.

We took very little damage, I don't think we even lost a shingle.
We are doing well, having a happy hurricane party. Life is good.

Hurricane Rita part 2

The neighbor behind us has boarded up his lower windows. We have pretty much decided not to board ours since they don't directly face the wind direction. People on our street are pretty calm, out exercising, the kids are playing. I think we feel like we've prepared as much as possible and are ready to ride this thing out.

There is a strong breeze and the air is comfy. Must be in the low 80's, it feels good.

You can kind of see in the latest picture (outside my house) the swirling pattern that the clouds are taking.

11:00 am central. The guys took off to see if anything was open, our friend must have convinced my husband that something should be done with the big window. I don't think anything is open at this point, but since they were going out, I asked them to see about getting some more eggs and some shredded cheese too (why not?). They'll probably be back here shortly. I was going to make breakfast but they left! I guess I'll just have a couple of pieces of toast to go with my kaluha & coffee.....the perfect drink for hurricane preparation. I'm trying to do as much laundry & clean up dishes as much as possible before this thing hits, so at least we can have clean clothes.

11:30 am central. The wind has picked up more now! More clouds are rolling in. The animals still are not acting any differently. The lizard that adopted my big bromeliad outside is sticking very close to it. I don't know much about lizards but I imagine this is normal.

Ok, somebody make it stop!!!! I'm sick of the media making a huge circus out of this storm!!! It's an awful attempt at trying to dish disaster before and after it happens, since they missed all that with Katrina!!!! I'm sorry for going on a rant here but could we please simply have relevant information and not all the speculative bullsh*t that they keep throwing in??? Stop making it a horrible train wreck that you've grown sick of hearing about but are too hooked to not look!!!! 4 million people evacuated...2 million people evacuated...does anyone know for sure? Can't the media, for once, stick to journalism and stay away from spectacular gossip? I don't care about speculation, I want to know what's going on now and what is coming and how I can prepare myself best! If things hit the worst case scenario, I need to know where to go or what to do! I don't even know what the emergency broadcast radio station is to tune into in case of a power out, what does NOAA broadcast on, am or fm? I need to know this stuff! CRIMENEY!!!! Sorry, I just needed to say that.

12:15 pm central. I suppose I'm being a bit neurotic by wanting to have stuff clean before this hits. I don't even understand it myself but there it is. My wrists really hurt!!!

We're supposed to start getting rain later tonight, I imagine we'll probably lose power shortly after. I'll do my best to get pictures to show later, as I promised in yesterday's post.

Since there's nothing else to do but wait, I think we should make a drinking game out of Rita! Every time thunder rumbles, that's a shot. Every time lightning strikes, that's a beer gulp or a drink of a mixed drink. yeah, that will be fun!

1:00 pm central. The guys aren't back yet, I hope they aren't too far & used up a lot of gas in my car. We might need it later! I've noticed more of our neighbors have boarded up & taped up their windows.

1:20 pm central. WHOOOAAA! The winds have really picked up into strong gusts now! Already a couple of large branches have blown down in our back yard! Not huge but big enough that they get your attention!

Oh! The disappointment! Rita is now a lowly CAT 3 hurricane!

2:15 pm central. My fingers, wrists and knees still are badly bloated. I don't know if these are storm signs but I can't stop sneezing today, finally had to break down & take something...and it's a good thing I decided to do the husband's laundry, I found ants trying to drill their way in! It's making its way in, stay tuned for more!

At least the guys called and are on their way back now! Nothin is open, only bars. I figured as much! I'm almost jealous.

2:45 pm central. Whoops! May have to shut down sooner than I thought, we just had a power flicker. Computer re-booted itself! I took a shot of the sky right after it happened but I'm having trouble sending it to myself so I can post it. May have to wait.

Forget saying a prayer for Texas, that's just wishful thinking! Take action & donate to the red cross!

Ok, the picture will have to wait. The tower must be having trouble. Here we go! The rollercoaster ride has begun!

3:30 pm central. It has gotten really hot again, must be upper 90's....and HUMID!!! I can't put anymore pics up right now, sorry.....my phone can't send a signal to my email for some reason. The server that hosts my cable modem isn't working too well either right now, it's very slow. But the clouds are getting darker, more circular-looking and the wind is stronger. The guys made it back & are out in the driveway watching nature's show. I'll still keep taking the pictures tho, just not sure when I can get them posted. The dogs (our friend brought his) are getting a bit agitated & testy...but I think the one dog was upset that his daddy wasn't home, he seems s bit better now. I'll stay on as long as I can. Some of our neighbors have opened up their garage doors to have their own hurricane parties & watch the storm approach. Almost all the neighborhood has done this with each storm we've had so far, especially when we all lost power....it's kind of cool. It's like a way to check on each other too, you can yell to each other if you need help or whatever.

This is funny....and they might get mad at me for telling but it's still funny....they guys are pretty happy & lying in the driveway letting the strong gusts blow over them....I just messed with them a bit, I'll try to get a shot!

Oh yes, that is funny!!! good shots! ^_^

5:15 pm central. The sky is much darker, you can feel rain in the air. It seems the hurricane will hit louisiana but I still think the eye will pass very close to where I am. There will still be a bad storm. We'll see what happens!

6:00 pm central. Skies are even darker now, lots of wind gusting, very blustery. Rain is spitting here & there, it's beginning. I understand that it's hitting the west edge of Louisiana....that really isn't that far from here. All the satellite images I look at still show me that we'll get a nasty dose of this storm. There's nothing else to do but wait for it all to happen.

Now, after a few minutes, the winds have died down to strong breezes again. It is much cooler now, I've had to put on a sweatshirt. The direction of the clouds has changed, they were moving north since yesterday, now they are moving south, a little slower than before. Just waiting for the big boom to start!

7:00 pm central. Now that it rained slightly earlier, the wind direction changed and it's gotten cooler, I don't feel so swelled up & my wrists, fingers & knees quit hurting. That's a relief! The animals still hav'nt really changed their behaviors.

The guys decided to destroy our old propane grill that was falling apart. For the last half hour, they've been hacking away at it with an ax, breaking the thing up into trash. The wind has slowed and the rain is still spitting here & there. There was a nice break in the clouds where the sunset streaked through so it was purple clouds with a bright yellow streak through it. Got the shot, it's very pretty. The wind changed to the southwest direction. Still waiting for the storm to hit!

my phone finally decided to work so i can post some pics! It's begun raining lightly, the storm making its way to the house. We're just watching the weather channel.

10:00 pm central. Ok, I'm going to be completely sarcastic here. Where's the monster storm cat 5 that the media kept going on about? It's a Cat 3!!! Where I am, Rita is peeing on us! I don't even know if it's still going to be a hurricane by the time it gets to me, it may just be a sad thunder storm! All these businesses, even the city of Houston itself shut down for this! There's no major catastrophic storm here! Maybe it will act up by morning but I doubt it! I'm a bit disappointed, not by the storm, nature does what it does....but by the huge media build up over basically nothing! What the hell? I don't mean to be ungrateful that there won't be a huge catastrophe like Katrina here....but if it hadn't been for the media hype, people wouldn't have been so freaked out over this! All that is happening in Houston is a lot of wind! I don't think they even have any rain! How crazy.

10:30 pm central. We just started getting some rain.
I expect to lose power overnight. At least I don't have anywhere to
be tomorrow. I didn't today either! Since things are not too exciting now, I'm going to shut down. Maybe there will be more to report tomorrow. We'll see!

See you after the storm!

Hurricane Rita

Well, I live about an hour and maybe 15 minutes north of Galveston....work has been shut down today & tomorrow, maybe even Monday if DT is still flooded (Houston has terrible water drainage, it's all concrete)....I don't get paid for it, I left my job Tuesday. I feel screwed money-wise. Anyway, Since yesterday afternoon, the air has been very still, it's sort of eerie. I managed to get plenty of food & supplies in the late morning, before everybody else left at lunch & freaked out running to stores. Traffic usually sucks anyway but now it's even worse, which is hard to imagine. People don't care driving, cut everybody off, just cut right in. You have to drive very aggressively to manage or you won't get anywhere.

For us, I figure the worst that will happen is power loss. There's a lot of trees that the wind has to go thru to get to us. We won't starve, we'll be fine, I made sure of that. We have gassed up to so our vehicles are taken care of. We have a friend who lives in Houston proper who is staying with us through this. It makes things more tolerable, more fun, we can all suffer through together! Oh yeah, we have the most important thing too to help us through this....lots of alcohol!!! But it is a little unsettling how still the air is.

Something big is coming at us, I can tell because yesterday afternoon, my wrists, fingers and knees swelled up really badly. A reaction to air pressure changes, I suppose. And it's so damn hot! It's over 100 degrees, I can't wait for things to cool down.

People wonder, I guess, if animals actually sense disasters before they happen.....i've been watching my dog & cat. The dog isn't any different so far, he doesn't care. He's just happy as always. The cat has been acting a bit agitated, he's more vocal than usual, but he's a little neurotic so i don't know how good of a gauge that is. He may just be reacting to me being home when I'm usually not. I feel a bit restless, like I need to do SOMETHING, not just sit around. I don't know if that's air pressure, you know, like when they say kids get to acting up right before a storm, etc. That might also be simply a reaction to being at home when I'm usually working.

2:00 pm central. Just went out & got the mail, noticed in our immediate neighborhood that only one house has boarded up their big picture window, one other house taped up theirs. I saw a couple of neighbors with their belongings packed on the top of their vehicles leave. Maybe we'll tape up our windows, I'm not sure. We talked about it a little but our window doesn't face directly into the direction the wind will be coming, we have no windows in that direction. There's a little breeze now, which makes the heat more tolerable. I guess this is the very beginning of the storm, I should take a cue from the other neighbors and bring my plants in now.

I can't say that I'm scared, I've lived through ice storms, blizzards, tornadoes, floods, even earthquakes. I've flown through a hurricane in an airplane, even flown through a bad electrical storm in a plane. That was probably the worst, lightning going on all around the plane, but I still managed to take a nap. I suppose the best word would be "apprehensive" since i've never been through a Cat 5 storm before. Yeah, in case you havn't heard, Rita is a Category 5 storm now. Well, this will be one more interesting story I'll have to tell. But I am confident that overall things will be okay.

3:00 pm central. Got the plants moved to the garage. Left a couple on the front entry, they should be protected by the wall since it is a west-facing entryway & hopefully out of any strong winds. The lizard that took up residence in one of the bromeliads seemed to object to his home being moved so I left it.

It is brutally hot! You can see the beginnings of large storm clouds coming in, absolutly huge, slow-moving clouds. The wind has picked up a little which is still the only thing making the heat bearable. I'm glad for air-conditioning.

The other people in the house have opted for a nap, which is probably smarter than me. I just can't bring myself to lie down for a while, just too wired. I see that NOAA has downgraded Rita to a Cat 4 now....so it's weakened a little.

Everything that can be done for preparations has been done, the Houston mayor has done an outstanding job of telling people to evacuate & working with the Galveston mayor and the state governor. I think it was very good timing & advice to tell businesses to let people go home yesterday in order to prepare. Human cost should be minimal from this. Regardless of federal involvement, Texas will take care of itself and so will its residents. Everything will be alright in the end.

Took a picture of the very beginnings of this about a half hour ago, you can see what it looks like from my house on the right of this page.

4:30 pm central. Took another shot, it's gotten a little dark all of a sudden! The main highways in Houston (I-45 and I think 59) have been converted to only out-bound and some of the exit ramps have been cut off because the local stores have run out of gas & food. I saw on the weather channel in one spot where the next exit wasn't for 90 miles. Glad I'm at home!

Wow, I'm morbid. It's almost disappointing that Rita was downgraded. When it was a Cat 5, it was the third most powerful storm! It was the big rival to Katrina, even more powerful because the millibars were lower, making it an even more powerful super-storm! Now it's a lowly Cat 4 storm.

5:30 pm central. Ah, the sleeping beauties have awakened! I saw that Rita was picking up power again, the hurricane eye winked. Also saw the traffic on 45 on the weather channel. That's gridlock for you! Why isn't the traffic moving? Good question, but you have to wonder where the head of that line is. Basically, you have A LOT of people here who simply don't know how to drive, who completely lack driving skills. Find out where the head of the line is and you might have the answer!

Even after we lose power & I won't be able to post for a while, I'll still do my best to get shots to post later.

I think it's time to start the party, it finally cooled to the mid-90's!

8:30 pm central. The guys went out to get cigarettes but found the gas stations all closed. They came back to use my car, it's fully fueled. I hope they don't end up too far. People are still stuck on the highway, running out of gas. I guess that fuel trucks are going up to help out, that will be quite a feat. I can see already that the handling of disaster traffic will be highly criticized. I sincerely hope some good will come out of it, some kind of constructive road planning.

Cool! The guys are coming back, mission successful! Cigarettes bought! Gas stations are open with everything but gas.

See you after the storm!