Brazoria, Saturday, November 26, 7:00 am

NEAL: The Met Opera broadcast season starts three weeks from today, so Ann and I have been trying to think up quiz questions about storms, floods, hurricanes, and such.   There are certainly a lot of operatic storms:

• Rigoletto: Sparafucile kills Gilda.
  
• Otello: Otello's ship arrives.
  
• Barber of Seville: Nothing happens except the passage of time.
  
• Porgy and Bess: The big hurricane scene.

But what about floods?   The obvious example is the finale of Goetterdammerung when the Rhine overflows.   Also:

• The scene in Pique Dame describing a death caused by a flooded prison cell.
• Stravinski's The Flood, based on the tale of Noah's ark.

Of course, it's futile to think that we'd be the first listener to submit a flood-related question.   The Met will get dozens of them, and, following their published procedure, they'll pick the one with the earliest postmark.

Brazoria, Tuesday, September 27, 5:00 pm

NEAL: Well, I couldn't resist another post. I just heard the first train whistle since last Thursday. The Union Pacific is rolling again.

A friend wrote:

I'm glad you have no significant damage, but you don't mention anything about water. Was there any flooding at or near your place? Did you see any signs of it in your area as you returned home? Did the bay side of Galveston get any flooding? It seemed from the reports it would have, but I've heard nothing.

And did you carefully mark and store the plywood for the windows, or pitch it?

There was no flooding here, and there was no evidence of flooding anywhere along our route home.

Flooding can occur here for any of three reasons:

• Local rainfall. Apparently, local rainfall was minimal: the flower beds were dry, and one of the first things Ann did after we arrived home was water them. The ditches are dry all the way to the bottom, which is typical for summer. A friend who works at the Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge reported that "we received virtually no rain (maybe half an inch)."
  
  
• Upstream rainfall. We live within a mile of the Brazos River, so upstream rainfall affects the river level here. As of Monday, it appeared to be at its normal level; officially, it was 38 feet below flood stage at Richmond, the nearest gauging station. According to the Houston Chronicle, it actually receded 0.2 feet during the 24-hour period Sunday-Monday. Historically, the Brazos has flooded several times (the locals still talk about the Great Flood of '49), but it has never flooded over its banks since we've been here. This photo shows an abandoned roadway piling in two situations: normal water level (as it appears now) and at the highest level I've every seen. I was standing on the bank when I took these pictures; even at high water, I was 10 or 15 feet above the water line.
  
  
• Storm surge. The storm surge never came near us. According to the evacuation map, our property lies in Zone B, just south of the line between Zones B and C. Which means we'd be within the storm surge zone for a Category 3, 4, or 5 storm if the storm made landfall at Freeport. Fortunately (for us) it arrived way to the east of us.

Galveston had extensive flooding. Most of the island is less than 10 feet AMSL, and it's adjacent to the Gulf, so storm surges roll right in. Since the bay is also at sea level, I assume the island was flooded from all sides.

I finally got the plywood off the house just today. Most of it is still lying in the yard where it landed. Tomorrow, I'll remove the 2x4 stiffeners and store the plywood in the garage. I'll cut up the 2x4s to make rafters for the pergola I'm building along the front of the house. If we have another hurricane, I'll repeat the process. Eventually, I'll have enough 2x4s to finish the pergola.

Brazoria, Sunday, September 25, 8:45 pm

ANN: We got home about 3:00 pm, with no difficulties. Our route avoiding all major highways had virtually no traffic. We saw bits of minor damage as we trundled through Houston -- stuff like small branches down and big signs and some awnings torn off, but nothing more. On the way out we saw many Kroger stores that were open. Not so many gas stations. There are traffic lights not operating all over.

Here in our yard, we don't seem to have lost any wood, although some of my cannas were laid over like Sarah's were. Power evidently went out long enough to cause the microwave oven to lose its mind, but all the electric clocks still have the correct time, or as close to it as they ever do. And even with the air conditioner off, the house was only up to about 85F -- definitely still cooler than outside.

We have unloaded the van, and we plan to pull off the boards after dinner. I don't think I can face rearranging and putting away all the stuff that I packed up before tomorrow.

NEAL: As Ann noted, we came home via a back road of sorts: FM-521. It's a straight shot from Houston to Brazoria, and crosses the Brazoria Bridge about a mile from our house. But it's not an evacuation (or return-from-evac) route, so there was minimal traffic. We made it home in a bit over an hour, which is typical for our trips to Houston.

Apparently, our local county judge has taken evacuation matters into his own hands: he lifted the county's Mandatory Evacuation order at noon yesterday, two days ahead of the date specified by unnamed "state officials."

It's now after 8:00 pm, and we still haven't gotten the plywood off the windows. Those Plylox clips make it easy to install plywood (as claimed) but it's not easy to get them off later (contrary to the manufacturer's claim). But it's now as dark outside as it is inside, so we're not missing much. We'll get them off tomorrow.

In view of the minimal damage we sustained, we probably didn't need to board up the windows anyway.

And we certainly didn't need to try to evacuate to Brenham. Next time we get a hurricane, we're going to Houston again -- probably via FM-521.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the Texas highway numbering system:

• "SH" designates a 2- or 4-lane state highway called a "state highway."
• "FM" designates a 2- or 4-lane state highway called a "farm-to-market road."
• "RM" designates a 2- or 4-lane state highway called a "ranch-to-market road."

Got that?

And for those of you have been following this blog, you might want to scroll through it again. I've added several photos to previous messages.

Feel free to e-mail me if you have comments or questions ... I might want to respond here on the blog. Otherwise, that's it for this blog.

Houston, Sunday, September 25, 4:00 pm

SARAH: OK, my last post. Things are pretty much back to normal here. We've got all the duct tape off the windows and are busy unpacking the valuables, antiques, irreplaceable books, etc, that we had packed up to take with us. Clint and I are both going back to work in the morning. I've even made a trip to the Kroger to get us set up with food for a few days.

The one really good thing to come out of this experience is that we now have a much better grasp of what to do the next time. I started planning a hurricane preparedness kit after Katrina, but did I actually go out and get the stuff for it? Of course not, but now I will. I've discovered I absolutely must get a cat carrier for Mojo once they're available again, because the thought of carting around a very fat, pissed-off, sharp-clawed cat in a pillowcase is a little frightening. And of course, now we all realize that the dangers in evacuating may well be worse than the danger of riding it out. Hopefully the next time the upper Texas coast is threatened, we'll all have a better idea of who should evacuate and who should stay put, and how to handle any necessary evacuations.

Houston, Sunday, September 25, 12:00 noon

NEAL: Success! This morning I managed to find gas and a chololate cake! Kroger was open, and seemed to be operating with normal staff, although the self checkout lanes were closed (all the video screens were complaining about Microsoft runtime errors). The bakery and deli departments had their shelves fully stocked, but the canned-goods and paper goods shelves were mostly empty. I forgot to look for batteries, but that's a moot issue now anyway.

At the moment, we're still sitting around digesting cake, but the time has come to pack up the car and head back to Brazoria. I expect SH 288 will be jammed, but hopefully we can make it on FM 521.

At this point, I'm signing off from Houston. I'll post a final message from Brazoria later today.

Houston, Saturday, September 24, 10:00 pm

NEAL: Just went outside to check the weather. Absolutely clear sky, still air, temp around 75F.

Houston, Saturday, September 24, 8:15 pm

NEAL: Around 5:00 pm, Sarah and I headed out looking for whatever we could find: gasoline, carry-out food, that elusive chocolate cake, or maybe even an open restaurant. We found an open Chili's! They were operating with minimum staff and a limited menu -- just hamburgers. But boy, was that a marvellous hamburger!

Houston, Saturday, September 24, 4:00 pm

SARAH: We just took a walk with the dogs to see how White Oak Bayou is doing. It's running a little high, but I'd estimate not more than a foot, if that. There are a lot of tree parts all over the sidewalks and roads and lots of people cleaning up. No real damage, though; our neighborhood is mostly scenes like this:


Now if we could just find a grocery store open.

NEAL: Here are a couple shots of the bayou, yesterday and today. Although the water level is higher today, it's still well within the capacity of the bayou.

Houston, Saturday, September 24, 2:15 pm

NEAL: It's hot, windy, and cloudy now, but the rain has stopped. Lots of neighbors are out cleaning up fallen branches. I drove around major streets for a while looking for gas and/or food ... no gas, but I found a C-store that still had some frozen burritos. So we had a lunch of sorts.

The official return plan (as defined by which sectors of the city that are supposed to have gas) says that the northwest sector, where we are, is supposed to have gas tomorrow. If true, we might go back to Brazoria tomorrow. But we still don't know about the electric power situation down there, so we can't go until we find out.

Houston, Saturday, September 24, 9:20 am

SARAH: So this seems to be the extent of our damage:


The cannas are a little squashed and we've lost a few strips of veneer off the shed door. The next door neighbors have a branch down and some uprooted shrubbery. All in all, at least where we are, it really wasn't worth all the anxiety.

We do have a number of fires happening across the city and down along the coast, but HFD is still operating and has water pressure so they've been able to extinguish them fairly quickly. HPD reported 28 burglary calls last night - which is actually fewer than Houston gets on a normal night.

A fun fact I heard on the news this morning - NASA closed down Mission Control for the duration and handed over control of the Space Station to the Russian Space Agency.

Houston, Saturday, September 24. 9:00 am

NEAL: As a hurricane, this thing is a dud. The power never went out, cable TV/internet never went out. According to Sarah, the official landfall happened at 2:40 am, but apparently we all slept through it. Even Clint, who was determined that he was going to watch TV until it was over (or until the power or the cable went out) ... but he went out instead ...we found him and Charley asleep on the couch this morning.

The biggest disaster in all this: the impossibility of evacuating two million of people along highways that are jammed on normal business days. Instead of evacuating, most residents of Houston should have listened to the Harris County Emergency Coordinator, who stated last Wednesday that people who are not in the storm surge zones should remain in their own homes:
"Run from the water, hide from the wind"See Ann's comment about this.

Of course, Galveston had to evacuate. If there's one iconic image of Rita that the media will rerun forever, it's the aerial footage of Interstate 45 at 3:00 am: eight lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic creeping north through the middle of Houston.

But Galveston's evacuation through Houston made Houston's situation all the worse. So why were other government officials insisting that everybody in Houston should evacuate? If more people had taken the emergency coordinator's advice, and stayed home, they would have avoided those monumental traffic jams. And, of course, the traffic jams would not have been so severe.

And why didn't Ann and I take that advice and simply stick with Plan A in the first place?

Overreaction to Katrina, I guess.

The situation right now: it's raining, windy, and cloudy. Temp is down to the 70s, which is actually a relief from the 90s we've had for the past few weeks. The only apparent damage was to the storage shed door, where some of the veneer blew off.

And we emptied the bathtub so I could finally take a shower!

Now, Sarah, about that chocolate cake...

Houston, Saturday, September 24, 1:45 am

SARAH: Sarah again. I think we're between storm bands; things seem to have settled down for the moment. So far we've gotten a lot of wind but not too much rain. No flooding on the road as of yet. The trees are blowing around pretty violently at times, but I'm not seeing any branches down or any debris. Obviously, we still have power and internet.

Houston is currently getting wind speeds between 35-40 mph. Those numbers are expected to increase through the morning as Rita makes landfall and the outer bands move over us.

Mom and Dad are asleep in the guest room with their dogs while Clint and Charley are sacked out in front of the TV. I'm going back to bed to try to get some sleep; hopefully we'll still be able to report in the morning. If this is the clean side of a storm, I don't think I ever want to ride out the dirty side. Listening to the wind is just nerve-wracking.

Houston, Friday, September 23, 7:20 pm

SARAH: OK, I couldn't get any videos but I have lots of nice pictures. Don't they say hurricanes make beautiful sunsets?

But then, looking down the street the other way:

We've already had one brief power outage so we may be cut off soon. We'll see how it goes.

Houston, Friday, September 23, 6:40 pm

SARAH: This is Sarah again. I wasn't able to get any convincing videos, since it still just isn't very stormy looking yet. I did get some nice cloud pictures though:



Weather-wise, this is about where we're at now — cloudy and sort of ominous-looking:

But according to the latest Doppler maps, the outer bands of Rita are knocking at our door. Those green bands are now right over downtown Houston and should be here shortly. Depending on how bad it gets, we may have to sign off soon so we can avoid any possibility of a power surge. I have to admit, most of today has actually been pretty boring — not that I'm complaining. I just wish there were some stores open so I could go get a chocolate cake.

Houston, Friday, September 23, 5:30 pm

NEAL: It just started raining, and the lights have dimmed a couple of times. Sarah has gone outside to shoot a video.

Addendum ... five minutes later. Well, that was a dud ... must have been one of those "outer bands." The rain stopped, the wind died down, and the temperature went right back up. Sarah gave up trying to get a video.

Houston, Friday, September 23, 5:00 pm

NEAL: A friend wrote:

"Your blogs are great, but you've neglected to tell us what you've done about provisioning. I assume at your day-long hurricane prep program that they covered all that, but so far all you've told us is that you had a 2-gallon can of gas on board. I assume by now you've filled the tub with water to use for flushing and washing when the city water system fails, you have bottled water, food that doesn't require cooking, a zillion batteries, and lots of other stuff. Did you have to abandon much food in Brazoria? And what happened to Clint's mom?"

We've filled the tub here in Houston. After I got back from my second dog-walk an hour ago, I wanted to take a shower. No luck.

We have the food and water (four gallons) that we intended to take to Brenham, combined with the food that Sarah had on hand. There's plenty of food, albeit a rather strange assortment. And so far, we still have gas for the stove and electric power for the microwave. In fact, Sarah is cooking up something right now.

We have lots of C-cells but no Ds. I looked around for some on Tuesday ... in every store I checked, there was a big blank spot were all the Ds had been. Fortunately, all three flashlights have new batteries, and Sarah's radio works fine with a selection of Cs from three different manufacturers.

We left a lot of stuff in the freezer in Brazoria. Its fate rests in the hands of Texas-New Mexico Power Company. We still have power and internet here in Houston.

Clint's mom, with horses, made it safely to a friend's farm somewhere northwest of Houston where the horses could have access to pasture and shelter. Clint's younger brother Jason is there too. Clint's sister Tracie and her boyfriend Tab are in San Antonio.

Clint's older brother Shawn and his family are still in Houston. Shawn's wife Amiee is part owner of, and official dog-groomer for, a dog-boarding kennel located on the same property as their home. They apparently have several dogs in the kennel whose owners have left them during the hurricane. The last I heard, Shawn was going to ride out the storm in the house, while Amiee was going to stay in the kennel with the dogs. The two boys, Jacob and Justin, are probably enjoying the vacation from school, helping with the dogs, and playing videogames.

Houston,.Friday, September 23, 4:30 pm

NEAL: Just got back from taking the dogs for another walk. It's still windy, hot, and cloudy, but the sun is still poking through the clouds. Temp is 93F according to KPRC-TV. Clouds are still drifting NE to SW. There are vehicles on the road, but fewer than a normal Friday afternoon.

Very few pedestrians ... none at all in the park ... just one neighbor, weeding flowers. But some things never change. The school-zone warning signal is still flashing away, and pickup-truck drivers are still throwing beer cans into the Watonga Blvd median.

Houston, Friday, September 23, 2:30 pm

SARAH: This is Sarah, Neal's daughter. It's still a beautiful day here on Nina Lee, but at times it's getting a little iffy. I was just outside putting tape over a BB hole in the garage door (it was there when we moved in, really) and with the wind blowing and trees rocking and a fire truck screaming down 43rd and leaves flying down the street, it was finally starting to feel like a storm. There's a layer of clouds in the sky, not heavy enough to block the sun, but just enough to make it feel a little closed-in. The clouds are currently moving NE to SW.

Inexplicably, there are butterflies everywhere.

Houston, Friday, September 23, 12:30 pm

NEAL: The wind is getting stronger, and temp is getting higher. But still no damage.

Inside the house, things are surreally normal except that it's pitch dark in the bathroom. Power is still on, and air conditioning is still running. Internet access is still working fine, so I can continue blogging. Ann, Sarah, and the dogs are watching TV, including ongoing reports from the situation in Sealy, which appears to be even worse now than it was yesterday when we passed through (at one mph). Clint is playing on-line video games.

Houston, Friday, September 23, 11:30 am.

NEAL: Wind is picking up, although the temperature is going up too, and today will probably be another 100-degree day. Ann and I have moved all those plastic boxes of stuff from the van to the house. Clint, Ann, and Sarah, in a monumental joint effort, have boarded up the bathroom window (we can all huddle in the hall if the windows break, but we can't do without the bathroom).

Willie is getting very nervous (he always gets nervous when his routine is interrupted). Governor Perry has been on TV spouting the obvious ("this is a very serious situation"). Studs Turtle is crashing around in her little plastic travel box, which she always does then the atmospheric pressure drops. Charley keeps standing on tiptoes next to the Studs' table trying to see what she's doing. Sadie, the neurotic guest dog, is in confinement (her crate) to keep her from fighting with the other dogs.

Houston, Friday, September 23, 9:00 am

NEAL: It's a beautiful day here in northwest Houston ... temp around 75F, whispy clouds, a light breeze (just enough to keep the mosquitos at bay). I took three of the four dogs (Charley, Lucy, Willie) for a walk this morning, around the neighborhood and through the park along White Oak Bayou (that's a fancy name for a concrete-lined drainage ditch).

It's like a holiday out there: joggers jogging through the park ... bikers biking ... dog-walkers walking dogs ... homeowners mowing lawns and puttering in gardens. Over on 43rd, there's a bunch of guys sitting in lawn chairs in the median strip, guzzling beer and waving at passing vehicles.

But the signs of the coming hurricane are much in evidence: homeowners boarding up windows ... guys hauling gas cans ... the constant buzz of power saws ... TV news choppers buzzing overhead. I even saw one lady rescuing her wine collection.

And one sound noticeably absent: train whistles. The UPRR has apparently shut down.

Some people seem to be totally oblivious to what's going on. Several neighbors have taken out their trash cans, just like any other Friday ... they apparently don't know that the city isn't making collections today. There are a couple of houses in various stages of renovation (I guess they're being "flipped") that have brand-new windows but nothing to protect them from wind-borne trash.

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.

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.

Brazoria, Wednesday, September 21, 4:20 pm

NEAL: We've all decided to evacuate somewhere west, although we don't know where.   As things stand now, Ann, Lucy (dog), Willie (dog), Studs (turtle), and I will leave Brazoria and head northwest Thursday morning.   Sarah, Clint, Charley (resident dog), Sadie (guest dog), and Mojo (resident cat) will leave Houston and head west sometime Thursday.   We'll keep in touch by cellphone, and meet in some Wal-Mart parking.

We'll try to find some place to stay — maybe an off-brand motel in some obscure community.   Failing that, we may end up camping in Wal-Mart's parking lot (which Wal-mart permits, and even encourages).   Ann, the dogs, and I can sleep in the van fairly conveniently (as we did in 1970 when we went on our long road trip with Pooka).   Sarah, Clint, et al may have a more difficult time sleeping in two pickup trucks, but I guess that's their problem.   In any case, we'll have plastic screen fabric and aluminum duct tape so we can screen the vehicle windows (saltgrass mosquitos are in full bloom down here right now).

Brazoria, Wednesday, September 21, 9:00 am

NEAL: Well, it now looks like Houston will have to evacuate too.   Jim Cantore says a direct Cat-4 hit on Houston looks like "600,000 lost houses."

But KPRC-TV (our local NBC affil) says that parts of Houston don't have to evacuate, and even recommends not evacuating in order to avoid further congestion. Ann notes:

ANN: I've been watching the Channel 2 coverage and they had a veryinformative session with the weather dude and the Harris County Emergency coordinator. They kept stressing that people not in the storm surge zones would probably be better off sheltering in their houses — "run from the water, hide from the wind". They said to make your house as secure as you can then retreat to an interior area - such as your hallway - and ride it out. You would need water, water in the bathtub maybe for flushing purposes, batteries and flashlights, energy bar kinds of food that won't spoil. And take in all the outdoor stuff - all the plants, the picnic table probably.

NEAL: Sarah and Clint live in the northwest part of Houston, where evacuation is not recommended.

In any case, here in the Brazosport area mandatory evacuation begins today.

MAPS:

• Area road map
• Brazoria road map
• Brazoria topo map

Note that the elevation at our property (the red "+") is 21 feet AMSL, which means we could sustain a 20-foot storm surge without damage.   But we're also close to the Brazos River, and heavy upstream rainfall, combined with a storm surge, could cause local flooding.

Brazoria, Tuesday, September 20, 12:30 pm

NEAL: Ann went to her regular Tuesday-morning Texas Master Gardeners workday this morning.   The Fall Plant Sale is scheduled for this coming Saturday, the same day that Rita is supposed to make landfall.   Ann, and several of her fellow Master Gardeners, have expressed some doubt about the fate of the Plant Sale, but several others wanted to proceed with preparations anyway.   We'll see what happens in a day or two.

Meanwhile, I spent the morning cleaning the garage to make room for potted plants and other stuff that can't be left outside during high wind conditions.   We plan to fill the van with plastic boxes containing stuff we don't want to leave here if/when we evacuate, so we'll have to remove the rear bench seat (more stuff to store in the garage).

Assuming that we decide to evacuate, we plan to head to Houston and camp out with Sarah and Clint.   They have two dogs at the moment: the resident dog Charley and a guest dog Sadie, a neurotic stray one-eyed Blue Heeler that Sarah is trying to nurse back to health.   Which means we'll have a total of four people, four dogs, and a cat riding out the storm in a one-bathroom house.

Brazoria, Tuesday, September 20, 12:30 pm

NEAL: Ann went to her regular Tuesday-morning Texas Master Gardeners workday this morning.   The Fall Plant Sale is scheduled for this coming Saturday, the same day that Rita is supposed to make landfall.   Ann, and several of her fellow Master Gardeners, have expressed some doubt about the fate of the Plant Sale, but several others wanted to proceed with preparations anyway.   We'll see what happens in a day or two.

Meanwhile, I spent the morning cleaning the garage to make room for potted plants and other stuff that can't be left outside during high wind conditions.   We plan to fill the van with plastic boxes containing stuff we don't want to leave here if/when we evacuate, so we'll have to remove the rear bench seat (more stuff to store in the garage).

Assuming that we decide to evacuate, we plan to head to Houston and camp out with Sarah and Clint.   They have two dogs at the moment: the resident dog Charley and a guest dog Sadie, a neurotic stray one-eyed Blue Heeler that Sarah is trying to nurse back to health.   Which means we'll have a total of four people, four dogs, and a cat riding out the storm in a one-bathroom house.

Brazoria, Monday, September 19, 6:15 pm

NEAL: The Weather Channel tells us that Hurricane Rita is headed straight for the Texas coast.   Time to implement The Plan (assuming we can decide which of our several plans is "The Plan").

Earlier in the summer, we attended a day-long seminar at the Lake Jackson Civic Center.   It was sponsored by the county, and featured speeches, demonstrations, and exhibits by representatives of county, state, and federal agencies.   The basic message: GET OUT!   They explained the evacuation plans in detail, and handed out copies of the evacuation map.

McCoy's, our local building supply place, gave a presentation about hurricane preparations before getting out.   They explained how to board up windows in brick houses, and demonstrated Plylox clips to support the plywood.

So today:

• I went over to McCoy's and spent $300 for eight 4x8 sheets of plywood, a bunch of 2x4s, and 80 Plylox clips.   The clips were the most expensive item: they cost $26 per package of 20 clips.
• Starting cutting one of 4x8 plywood sheets on the radial arm saw, which promptly went into thermal overload and shut itself off before I finished even one sheet.
• Finished cutting it with the circular saw.   Worked fine, although it was a bit difficult following a straight line because the saw shoe is so rusted (like every other exposed steel surface down here in the Texas Coastal Plain).
• Quit cutting and hauled everything into the garage because it was starting to rain (one of those almost-daily "sunshowers" we have down here, where a rain cloud passes overhead while the sun is still shining brightly).
• Came inside and created this blog.