Brazoria, Thursday, September 22, 3:00 am

NEAL: High temp Wednesday was 100F; humidity in high 90% range; mosquitoes swarming.

On Wednesday we:

• Finished boarding up the house.   It's like night inside the house.
• Hauled all of the potted plants into the garage.   There must be 200 plants ... it's wall-to-wall plants, intermixed with lawnmowers, workbench, storage shelves, and a narrow aisle.
• Removed the back seat from the van (1994 Plymouth Voyager).   Which means that there are now only the two seats left in what was originally a seven-passenger van.
• Starting packing stuff in plastic storage boxes.   The plan is to put the boxes on the floor of the van, in effect raising the floor of the van a couple of feet, thus creating a flat surface which can serve as a dog rest area by day and a bed for all of us at night if we can't find any place to stay.
• Kept any eye on KPRC-TV (NBC Houston) and The Weather Channel more-or-less continuously as the Rita news became ever more scary.
• Decided to get the car packed asap, and head west.   The plan is to meet Sarah and Clint in the Wal-Mart parking lot in New Braunfels, although it's beginning to look like New Braunfels may be blown away by Rita too.
• Used up an entire can of mosquito spray.

By 10:00 pm Wednesday, I was so tired that I collapsed into bed.   Ann stayed up to sort through 35-mm slides to decide which ones to take.

Around 2:00 am Thursday, Ann finally came to bed, exhausted but cheerful.   She started telling me about the latest news (all highways near Houston jammed ... cars running out of gas ... Rita now Category 5, the third-largest hurricane in history ... sustained winds 175 mph ...cellphone service nonexistent).   She said she was beginning to wonder if we'd ever be coming back to this house again.

I noted that she seemed remarkably cheerful considering the gravity of the situation.   No, she says — "I'm freaked out of my mind."

After that, I obviously couldn't get back to sleep. I got up, wandered into my office, surveyed everything that had to be done, took a few pictures for possible insurance purpose, turned on computer, checked e-mail (several new spams).   Totally overwhelmed.   Time for another blog post.   So here it is.