BigPinkCookie

We finally crashed last night after getting everything packed and watching way too much news. We woke up this morning to discover that all of Houston is a giant parking lot. Every route you might take to leave is solid with cars. My Mom left her house at 7am this morning, and headed up 249 towards Tomball – a route that normally takes 20-30 minutes to drive, My cars engine needed a few rounds of fuel injector cleaners to get it running efficiently again, so I wasn’t able to take my car. It took her SIX HOURS.

Six hours to go 10 miles.

With the windows open and the air conditioner off. It is 97 degrees outside right now.

I don’t want to be here. I want to leave. But I don’t want to be stuck on the road when the storm hits land. So we’re looking at every possible route we might be able to take, and we’re going to get on the road in a little bit. Late, but we’re hoping that when the sun goes down it won’t be so hot.

I’ll post again when we leave, and … well, whenever we arrive at Tara’s house. I’ll log into Yahoo through my cell phone if I can get it set up to work, so if you see me listed as “online” (username: bigpinkcookie), feel free to send me a message. It is going to be a long night.

I was thinking earlier today how impressed I am that people are actually taking this storm seriously. If we have learned one thing from Katrina, it is to pay attention to the storm warnings and leave town when you are told to leave town. Now that Galveston & Houston are facing a potential category 5 hurricane, people are getting out of the path of the storm. But then there are the people that you end up seeing on the news later – the ones saying, “uh uh, I’m not leaving my house!”

Great. So Saturday someone is going to have to go in and rescue you when all hell breaks loose, huh? Makes sense. They tell you to leave for a reason – get out.

Then there are people that think I’m crazy for leaving town. First of all, I will be the first to point out that Houston is very different from New Orleans because we are above sea level. If it floods, it drains. If there is a big storm surge, as we are expecting, the water won’t drain quite as fast because there will be nowhere for it to go. I know all of this – but I still don’t want to stay. It’s great if you’re staying in town, but don’t chastise those people that are leaving. They may have their reasons. Obviously, I have commitments with Blogomania that require me to need internet access and power. But everyone has their reasons for making their choices. As Michael Barry just said on the news, if you can get out – get out. Storms are unpredictible by their very nature. Where I lived when Allison hit had never ever flooded before – but that night, it flooded. All over the place, surrounding where I lived. So why risk it? Why stay?

Once the water starts to rise, it is too late to leave town.

I just don’t get the people beating their chests and bragging about how they made it through all of these other storms in the past. Great. But those storms didn’t have the potential to bring 120 mph winds to your front door. If we learned anything from Allison, realize that anything can happen. Hurricanes have a mind of their own. This can be the time that your house floods. If you want to be there when it happens, more power to you. Me? I would rather be over in Austin, enjoying a visit that Tara and I have actually been trying to make happen for months. We may as well make the most of it – why stay here when I don’t have to? I’ll take my family and our pets, and have a nice weekend.

120 mph winds. I can’t even grasp how bad it is going to be here on Saturday morning.

Once we get to Austin, margaritas are of course on the menu. We’ll be toasting those of you “brave” enough to stay behind.

In case you were wondering where I live in relation to Galveston, we are here. Well, if you turned left at the star and went through one traffic signal. But that is close enough!

The Chronicle is looking for bloggers that plan to stay in Houston and ride out the storm. Details on how to be a “Stormwatcher” listed on the Rita Blog site.

We talked about it some more last night, and talked about it again this morning after watching the news, and we realized … there is no point to staying here in Houston. We either get to have a fun little weekend road trip because no storm hit (crazy things have been known to happen), or we are safe, sound, and dry far away from here. So we are heading to Austin, where the “Hacker House for Wayward Girls” is now going to be the “Hacker House for Wayward Geeks”. Our schools have all been cancelled, Mike’s office has closed – it is time to go.

It is strange to walk through the house and think about what we will be taking with us. I’ve packed the important documents. The pets are coming with us. We’ll take the laptops and the external hard drive with the backup of the main computer. I’ll be packing up the photographs – everything I can get my hands on. My textbooks. Jason wants the X-Box. Yarn. Obviously clothes & makeup. A few old cookbooks that we got from Mike’s Great Aunt Yvonne, who might have lost all of her others in Hurricane Katrina.

After that, I don’t know what to pack. Everything else can be replaced. As long as we are safe, that is what matters most.

Funny how all of this “stuff” doesn’t matter quite so much when you can only take a few items with you. I have a feeling I’ll be doing another house purge when I get home.