Before Rita: Wednesday evening

Insanity.

After my sort-of fruitful trips to Home Despot, I went to work around noon. The ride to the office was a bit of a bitch as the Beltway was already significantly backed up around the "exit" routes, like 290 and 10. I saw a convoy of 50 busses escorted by a State Trooper (you very rarely see Troopers within Houston city limits, so you know something's up), which was eerie. Well, it was at least 50, I started counting only when I realized there was more than about 5 or 10. Also many mobile homes and campers on their way outta town. On the surface streets, all jammed up: people getting their kids from schools, and trying to get gas - very long lines.

This afternoon we basically secured our office. We moved all the computers and critical files away from the windows and into the locked interior rooms. IT-guy made us all synch our laptops and ran a full back-up to take off-site. It was a bit surreal. The advantages of being on the top floor of an all glass building, and having northern/eastern exposure suddenly seemed a little less when faced with blown windows, etc. Most of the people in our office are ex-pats, so they are kind of stuck here in town.

Anyway, around 5 I left and it took me very very little time to make the in-bound trip to SHG's place, seeing as how everybody was going outbound. Long lines at gas stations - like 10-50 cars depending on the station. I finally stopped at one to top the English Cottage off, but had to put regular in it (not a big deal, but there goes the fuel "economy" and it ran a little grainy after that).

At the service station, you could see the fear and concern in people's faces. At one point, I was gassing up and the pump in front of me was free - so I waved the taxi behind me ahead. He was just jockeying in when another Rover Discovery comes flying in off the street and tries to take his space! Asshole! The taxi did not budge and wound up sort of blocks him in, so the Disco had to back up/turn right to get out. Well, he starts yelling:

"Hey! You have to back up to let me out!"
(taxi sees where this is going and does not budge)
"Hey! BACK UP! I'm in a LAND ROVER not a HONDA, I cannot get OUT!"
(no movement by taxi)
"HEY ASSHOLE! I'M IN A LAND OVER, I HAVE NO TURNING RADIUS! It's not a HONDA! Back the FUCK up FUCKER!!!!"

Well, at this point, now I'M pissed off because I see his wheel is not cut all the way, maybe only 1/3 of the way, so I yell "Hey ASSHOLE your turning radius is 26 feet, turn the FUCKING wheel!!

So he sees I am standing there with the same truck as him and have called him on his shit, so he cuts it, backs up and speeds off. Fucking dickhead.

Then, it was off to SHG's place, where we packed/protected, and got him and Boris the cat ready to go. He was having a touch of aegnst about the traffic up to Stepford. We dumped his fridge into some bags, etc etc. We took off in two cars and headed up and had no problems since we 1. checked the traffic report, and 2. I knew the "back way". But when we crossed 59, the big highway by my house, it was a mess, and it is not even an official evacuation route. Wow. It looked like this (though who knows where this image was taken from):


So, lots of people stressed out, scared, trying to get out of Houston. And I used to think we had plenty of ways out of the city.