Evacuation Rita
We saw on the news that Rita was inching towards Galveston at a category 5 level. We had thought to ride it out here at home until word came that Pasadena was going to mandatory evacuation at 6 am. We wanted to beat the traffic. We left Thursday morning at 1:15 am.
We scurried around packing up stuff and the kitties into the truck. We had a tank of gas and thought we�d make it to Quitman at least where we knew there was a nice motel.
However, Rita had a surprise for us. Houston went to evacuation. Galveston had already left but they were still on the road in a lot of places. All told there was between one and a half and three million evacuees on the highway. Needless to say, it was a disaster in the making.
Traffic slowed to a crawl. We went anywhere from 3 miles and hour to total stop for minutes at a time, sometimes even longer.
We used 19 gallons of gas to go 111 miles. It was bumper to bumper all the way.
Sometime on Thursday we stopped to rest, running low on gas, we had been in the car for most of the last 21 hours. Al slept a little but there is not much sleep to be had in a truck.
I made the mistake of eating fruit, mostly plums the day we left. I got wicked stomach cramps and needed to go to the toilet like you would not believe.
Neither toilets nor gas stations were open!
Bathroom stops were rustic to say the least. In the night we tinkled wherever we could. I left DNA samples along the highway several times. It reached a point where no one cared if someone saw their butt in the night or day either. It was nothing to see a guy whip it out and tinkle anywhere.
At one point we stopped near a business, possibly construction related. Al and I went out back to do ours. With my back and knees aching so much, it was impossible to squat. Oh to be young and bendable again! I leaned against the building and let out some of my pain and gas. All modesty disappeared somewhere along the way. I happily let the gas go. If we could have powered the truck with it we would have had no problem.
I went back there three times before we left. Finally I got all the plums out of me and vowed never to eat another one again.
Later in another stop, still dark of night, I went behind some bushes several times. I still had more plums to come out. It was beside a veterinarian hospital. I prayed for the animals inside if the storm came through there. The dogs barked whenever I went back there. Towards morning I saw a car parked back in there and they could have seen me with my drawers down every time. I laughed at that.
I had stowed apples in the back of the truck. They baked in the heat!
Morning came and we rested at a Z-Mart. They had no gas but they had food and a toilet. The bottled water was gone but the man let me fill our empties in his sink! I spent about 50 dollars for canned foods and drinks.
The tank said empty. We were near Livingston and the junction of 59 I think.
A lady cop called for emergency gas for us so we could get to a station that had gas. The guy came but he could find no gas either. We drove on fumes hoping we could make it up the hill and around the bend to a Walmart where there was a line to another station that had to be at least a mile or even two long.
We sometimes drove and sometimes just pushed the truck. Others helped and Al helped pushing theirs. Heat was awful. I kept squirting water into the cat carriers. I worried a lot about them.
One guy came down the line begging for food, he said for his children. He was clearly not looking for food for his kids. He asked for money. I told him I had none, which was true. I gave him a bag of trail mix and my last plum before I was tempted to eat it. He tore into the trail mix and began to eat it at the same time saying well, what about his kids? I shook my head in disgust.
I saw parents doing some god awful things. In traffic I saw a boy about 6 climbing all over the outside of the truck ahead, finally he lay down stretched out on the tool box thing. His mom had her hand on his back but if that truck had braked or someone hit it, she could not have saved him.
At the Z-Mart place I used the toilet several more times. I didn�t take my water pills the day before and my legs and feet were swelling. I took them all that morning. It was a nasty toilet but it was a toilet with a door and running water and toilet paper. I was thankful.
We heard on the news while we sat there that one of the huge busses we saw go by us earlier was carrying folks from a nursing home. It caught on fire and with a bunch of folks with oxygen tanks they were exploding, one after the other. Of the 35 people aboard, 24 died. They were almost to Dallas.
We heard later that 19 people died in traffic from heat exhaustion before the storm even hit.
Most of the folks on the highway were friendly and helpful. We were all in this together. People offered to share water with us but we had some. In the gas line at Walmart, a local truck came with tanks of water and we all filled up our containers.
I kind of felt what it might have been like in the dust bowl days when Woody Guthrie and scores of folks tried to find prosperity by taking to the road.
I changed my shirt in public. I had on a bra but maybe that would not have mattered either. I just didn�t care who saw me.
I took pictures of the line. When we first took off from home, I put the camera in the back and forgot about it.
I saw lines of cars along the highway with their hoods up. It was signal that they needed gas. Trucks were supposed to come along and give everyone that was out 5 gals. I never saw anyone getting gas. We were told to take 146 but never on the news did I hear that help was coming to those on 146. It was like 146 was never part of the plan. Somebody should have told the thousands of cars on the highway that.
In most places we had two lanes. No one was supposed to drive on the shoulder in the emergency lane but a lot of folks thought they could get ahead doing that. Cars streamed by in that lane and then pushed their way in ahead of other folks making it even harder.
Eventually they started going North in the South bound lanes even though an occasional car came South. There were a lot of accidents. Some even died from heat exhaustion.
Somewhere it said they had begun �contra flow� lanes making the South bound North but not on 146. Drivers just took it on themselves.
We would hear on the news that someplace had gas and within minutes that place was out of gas.
The �kids� scared me. I could see Pookie back there panting and the other two were strangely quiet which also scared me. I hadn't gotten individual water dishes for them. I got bowls at the Kwik Stop and shoved them in and watered them but up to that point, I squirted water in there hoping they would at least lick it off themselves or off the floor. Al aimed air flow on them. The second day on the road I gave them each a scoop of dry food. I think they ate it. I heard Sandy barf but that�s a normal thing for her.
We tried a motel but they said they were under evacuation orders and couldn�t rent so that was out. It was dumb because here were lots of folks doomed to ride out the storm on the highway and there was damn well room at the inn!
I had prayed in the car for guidance, for the safety of Al and the cats, our kids and yup for myself too because I know a few folks that love me and need me. I hoped for the safety of our home and stuff but I knew that was all just stuff and sure my art stuff and photos couldn�t be replaced but nobody could take my memories.
The thought of an angel flitted through my head but no Irish beauty appeared. What I got was even better!
When word came down the gas line that they were out of gas the sky had turned angry and wind whipped up. Folks still able to drive off did. Those of us with no hope sought the safety of the parking lot. A car pulled up to say a shelter was taking folks with one animal each. Some went there. It was out for us.
Then our Angel appeared. His name is Jim from Onalaska, Texas. He invited to take us home with him to his summer camp. Our pets were welcome. He had several beds from having several grandchildren. He took us and another couple. At first we didn�t� think we had enough gas to get there but a church man came along and shared some gas with us.
We followed Jim along a beautiful tree lined road. A sign said Hawg Heaven Estates. Yup, we were in Hawg Heaven!
The house was old but it was a castle to us. Nonie and Elmo stayed downstairs with their 3 tiny dogs. We stayed upstairs with our 3 cats. The cats ran loose but didn�t venture down the stairs. The dogs never tried to come up the stairs.
Millie, Jim�s sister made us all a lovely chicken dinner.
Jim served it up and as he passed some to me he said �I don�t believe I ever served a Yankee before!�
Al got a shower. I was too tired to worry over it. He felt much better afterwards but in the morning he discovered he had a huge blister on his butt from driving.
Part way through the first night the power went off and there went the AC!
The storm hit with a vengeance! Trees bent over and some broke. One crashed into Jim�s gate and twisted it all up. Jim couldn�t sit still. He was on the go all the time, checking on his neighbors and animals.
He moved our vehicles out where they would be safest from the trees. He wouldn�t let us do it. He said he had a slicker on and he could do it for us.
For dinner we ate homemade venison and pork sausage. It wasn�t all that bad even though I don�t care for venison or sausage.
We all shared what we had. I had brought some muffins and Nonnie had 2 cases of water and cookies. With what was in Jim�s freezer and all our noshes and cans I bought on the way, we knew we wouldn�t starve. When the power went off we used Jims stove in his trailer which ran on bottled gas.
Nonie thought she saw a white duck across the road. Jim told her it was a chicken but she really thought it was a duck. The next day we were thinking about what to eat when Jim kidded her about the duck he could go kill. As it turned out a fox got in the hen house and killed most of them that night.
The morning after the storm I walked down to the lake to look. I took a lot of pictures along the way. The water in the lake, Lake Livingston was roiling along.
There was a lovely log cabin and some beautiful cactus. A few trees were down where I could see them.
The yard was littered with oak leaves and fire ant mounds.
Sometime during the day we heard that the dam had been damaged a lot and they needed to release the water in order to repair it. This meant that a lot of folks downstream would be flooded out anyway.
Later Al and I walked down to the lake and I forgot to take my camera. There was a beautiful big crane or heron standing way out in the lake. You could see sand everywhere. I took photos that afternoon when we walked down again.
By then the heat was immense and I was getting close to problems. We walked out on the pier but even though there was no water below it, I was still scared and hyperventilating. I was a streaming basket case when we got back. They said my face was white. I calmed down but I didn�t get cool again till we were in the car on the way home.
We spent the last night there upstairs trying to sleep. Even then the heat was intolerable. We left the back door open onto a small upper porch. At first I worried the cats would go out and fall off, but only Sandy was nosey enough to check it out. She poked around and sniffed but came back in. Snowball stood about 2 feet back from the door and looked out and shivered. That was enough for him. Pookie stayed in the front of the building. She wasn�t even curious. I moved over to the bed nearest the open door and tried to sleep. I got some but it was hard. I sleep normally with a C-pap machine and now I was with out that and over heated lying on a plastic covered mattress with a sheet under me and nothing over me. I took off my shirt. In the morning I was covered with red spots, not bites but instead the heat rash from hell.
On the news they were ordering us all to stay where we were and not come home till further notice because there was no power or water and it would be too much to all come home at the same time.
A stranger loaned us all his cell phone. I called my son, Tom. Despite what the news was saying La Porte had power. This we knew because I have a web server under my table that houses my web site. He could see that my site was up and running even though he is in New York. He could also access it and see that the power had only gone off for a few minutes and had stayed on since then.
Jim scrounged around and got enough gas to get us into Huntsville. All of us went, Jim filling up tanks for his generator as well. Then we left him and started home.
A barge had hit a bridge so we had to take a different route home. We took 45 through Houston.
Home at last, we found the power on, the water on and no damage at all. We were so lucky!
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