Houston, Thursday, September 22, 9:30 pm

NEAL: Well, we ended up in Houston after all.

At one point or another, we had discussed four plans:

PLAN A - Go to Houston and stay with Sarah and Clint.

PLAN B - Evacuate to Brenham. Under the official FEMA/Texas/Brazoria County evac plan, the coastal plain is divided into segments, and each segment has a designated evac route and destination. Each designated destination community is supposed to have facilities for sheltering and feeding evacuees; in many cases, the destinations are college towns (presumably because colleges can provide space for evacuees and student volunteers to assist). For our segment (southern Brazoria County west of the Brazos River), we were supposed to head to Brenham (home of Blinn College) via State Highway 36.

PLAN C - Head west to New Braunfuls and meet with Sarah and Clint there.

PLAN D - Evacuate to Bryan/College Station. Under that official evac plan, southern Brazoria county east of the river is supposed to head north on Highway 288, skirt around Houston, and end up in Bryan/College Station, home of Texas A&M University. We live within a mile of the Brazoria Bridge, so we could have easily switched designated destinations.

Then reality set in: there's no gasoline available. Here we are within smelling distance of the refineries, but virtually every gas station anywhere near Rita's path is either closed, or out of gas. The few stations that have gas have long waiting lines.

Yet in spite of the gas shortage, everybody in Houston seems to be trying to evacuate anyway, and all highways are bumper-to-bumper. On top of all that, Galveston's evac route — Interstate 45 — runs right through the middle of downtown Houston.

A further complication: Clint's mother and her three horses live in southwest Houston, in an area expected to be flooded by the storm surge.

Faced with all this, Sarah and Clint decided to stay in Houston and ride out the storm, partly to help Clint's mom and partly because they couldn't get gas anyway.

At that point, Ann and I decided on Plan B. We didn't want to go anywhere near the Houston traffic jam, so we ruled out Plans A and D. Looking at the map, Highway 36 is a straight shot from Brazoria to Brenham, passing way west of Houston. Unfortunately, it's also a two-lane road, with cross traffic from locals residents.

We set out at 9:00 am today (Thursday) toward Brenham, with a full tank of gas and an extra two-gallon gas can. Smooth sailing for the first 30 or so miles. But by the time we got to Rosenberg, it was bumper-to-bumper, with idiots driving on the shoulders, many stalled cars, 100F temperature, and almost no gas. As we passed under Interstate 10, we noted that it too was bumper-to-bumper, apparently by Houston residents trying to evacuate. The eastbound lanes had already been converted to "contraflow" — i.e., westbound. Had we wanted to, we could have switched to I-10. Great choice: one b-to-b lane north, or six b-to-b lanes west?

We decided to continue north on 36. We did find one open gas station, and waited almost an hour in line. By the time we got to Sealy, it was 3:00 pm, and traffic was all but stalled. After studying the Texas Atlas, we decided to head to Houston after all, via back roads. As it turned out, outbound highway lanes leaving Houston are indeed jammed, but inbound lanes were clear. We finally arrived at Sarah and Clint's around 8:00 pm, eleven hours after we left Brazoria.

So after all those endless discussions about alternate plans, we ended up with PLAN A. But by a very circuitous route.

Houston is a spooky place right now. Thousands of cars heading out of the city, hundreds of people huddled around stalled vehicles, and no gas. And no anything else, either — even Wal-Mart and McDonald's are closed.

Restaurants and bars are closed too, although the "Marga-Rita Special" signs are still in evidence.

It's supposed to be windy and rainy tomorrow, but the serious stuff won't set in till about midnight tomorrow night. Clint and I may try to board up some of the windows tomorrow, using whatever plywood scraps we can find. But of course, Home Depot and Lowes are closed too, so we can't buy anything.

Fortunately, the power is still on, and Time Warner's internet service is still working. I expect we'll lose both sometime tomorrow, but I'll keep posting updates until then.