Dang Hurricane Rita

Well, it has been interesting few weeks. When Hurricane Katrina hit the Lousiana area and affected New Orleans so drastically upon the levee breaking, Austin has been seeing a ton of evacuees from the storms. Yesterday, we were seeing the next flood of evacuees coming in from Houston on up through the Corpus Christi area.

With the evacuees, traffic problems occurred and we are having to plan our days even better. Schools are closed for the day in the area to help allieviate some of the traffic problems. The gas, which had finally seen a low of $2.54/gallon after the Katrina days, is on the rise once again. Would you believe that they had to call out for tankers to deliver to gas to the evacuees as they were running out of gas on the highways, doubling the normal otherwise 2-4 hour trek, sometimes trippling it. Hotels are filled to the brim.

Word is that if it was hitting Galveston (my birthplace) at a category 5, Austin would feel some ramifications at it with a Category 1 and San Antonio, my home town, would have been hit with a Category 2. Much rather the 1 or 2, but I would be greatly saddened by the loss of Galveston, if that were indeed to occur.

Fortunately (or unfortunately for others), it looks like it is taking a more eastwardly direction towards the Texas-Lousiana border, which is also bad for New Orleans because if they haven’t had time to get their levee back to 100%, they may see additional devastation. I am trying to keep posted though.

We in Austin, are okay though, eventhough we are greatly impacted by the cell phone lost of services yesterday, and many of the deliveries for businesses here are not getting their deliveries because they come through the port of Houston - and Houston had a mandatory evacuation yesterday. Businesses have stopped. I told my security boss, when he mentioned that we weren’t going to need some officers at one location because they aren’t able to get the construction and setup supplies from Houston to continue one site over the weekend, to look at it as a positive because it will be a break for our guards there - their assignment is 6 days/week for more than 45 days straight - and it may mean that the contract is extended if the impact is greater in the end.

At any rate, I talked to my daughter yesterday to make sure that she is remaining at an even keel because when we lived in South Carolina she would get swept up into the matter of things. So far, she is remaining calm and we are okay.

If Rita takes another turn and hits Galveston at a Category 5, or west of that, I may be going to San Antonio to help my family with anything that they are affected by; however, with only an anticipated Category 2, that shouldn’t be too much.

If I hear differently, I’ll let you know.

Good thing is....

I am off for Friday and Saturday from all of my jobs!!! Talk to you all more soon....