Pandemonium
This is a note I posted on the AM forums on Sunday when we got back from our evacuation from lovely Rita meter maid. A little late to post it here, I was going to write with a little more depth, but I don't have time right now. My heart definitely goes out to the people on the Texas/Louisiana border.
I am back, back from the pure hell of evacuation.
We couldn't get the 2 dogs, baby, and clothes and essentials into one car so we took both. I had the baby, the wife had the dogs.
It took us 6 hours to go 37 miles!
We had five cars total with my brother's family and my parent's and ours.
We were all needing gas and we were all sitting in 100 degree weather inching North, slower than a dead snail. You could crawl faster than we were moving.
There were cars as far as you could see, alot of them on the shoulder of the road because they ran out of fuel. The gas stations that had gas also had lines of cars, most 10-12 deep for each pump. But most gas stations were closed.
Most of the fights that broke out were at the gas stations that had gas. It was freaking like War of the Worlds (when the mob fights over the minivan).
I thought about War of the Worlds alot, because we were basically running from this thing, not really knowing where we were going to end up. Not wanting to be caught on the road while this alien (Rita) blows in.
The bad thing was that people had to go to the bathroom on the side of the road. Women, children, old, young... me, my wife, my mom.
I had a baby in the back seat that needed changed regularly and needed to eat. I couldn't do anything to make him happy at times. He would just scream his head off. My wife had the dogs, they had to relieve themselves also. Hell I tell you.
In all we traveled from Wednesday afternoon to Thursday afternoon (with a stop at my parents house to pick them up and to rest for 6 hours) and made it about 80 miles north and ended up getting lucky and getting a hotel room off the road we were sitting on. My wife got out of her car and ran to a La Quinta through the stopped traffic. We don't know why but for some reason they had 15 freaking rooms, so we took two. Less than 30 minutes later they were sold out. So we were very very lucky. Before she left, I was telling her that it was a waste of time for her to try to get out of her car and run to the hotel.... but I was so wrong. We still weren't that far out of the path of Hurricane winds, but it was better than sitting in the road or being at home.
It was utter hell getting out of here, but I am glad we did. We ended up in a nice hotel with air conditioning and it only took us an hour and twenty minutes to get back home, no traffic.
As you may know the storm curved to the east and spared Galveston and Houston any major damage. Our house had only received an INCH OF RAIN! We totally lucked out, one tree in our neighborhood was uprooted, but nothing else bad in our area. One side of our culdesac was without power, but our side has power.
I am back, back from the pure hell of evacuation.
We couldn't get the 2 dogs, baby, and clothes and essentials into one car so we took both. I had the baby, the wife had the dogs.
It took us 6 hours to go 37 miles!
We had five cars total with my brother's family and my parent's and ours.
We were all needing gas and we were all sitting in 100 degree weather inching North, slower than a dead snail. You could crawl faster than we were moving.
There were cars as far as you could see, alot of them on the shoulder of the road because they ran out of fuel. The gas stations that had gas also had lines of cars, most 10-12 deep for each pump. But most gas stations were closed.
Most of the fights that broke out were at the gas stations that had gas. It was freaking like War of the Worlds (when the mob fights over the minivan).
I thought about War of the Worlds alot, because we were basically running from this thing, not really knowing where we were going to end up. Not wanting to be caught on the road while this alien (Rita) blows in.
The bad thing was that people had to go to the bathroom on the side of the road. Women, children, old, young... me, my wife, my mom.
I had a baby in the back seat that needed changed regularly and needed to eat. I couldn't do anything to make him happy at times. He would just scream his head off. My wife had the dogs, they had to relieve themselves also. Hell I tell you.
In all we traveled from Wednesday afternoon to Thursday afternoon (with a stop at my parents house to pick them up and to rest for 6 hours) and made it about 80 miles north and ended up getting lucky and getting a hotel room off the road we were sitting on. My wife got out of her car and ran to a La Quinta through the stopped traffic. We don't know why but for some reason they had 15 freaking rooms, so we took two. Less than 30 minutes later they were sold out. So we were very very lucky. Before she left, I was telling her that it was a waste of time for her to try to get out of her car and run to the hotel.... but I was so wrong. We still weren't that far out of the path of Hurricane winds, but it was better than sitting in the road or being at home.
It was utter hell getting out of here, but I am glad we did. We ended up in a nice hotel with air conditioning and it only took us an hour and twenty minutes to get back home, no traffic.
As you may know the storm curved to the east and spared Galveston and Houston any major damage. Our house had only received an INCH OF RAIN! We totally lucked out, one tree in our neighborhood was uprooted, but nothing else bad in our area. One side of our culdesac was without power, but our side has power.
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