Hunkering Down

Did you ever notice that news media types pick up a lot of catch phrases? Well the catch phrase for Hurricane Rita is "Hunker down."

It's about 25-27 hours from landfall now and for the last 36 or so hours Houston has been preparing for the worst and heading for the hills. Which means long waits on the four major evacuation routes as well as all the minor ones. Yesterday after work I personally transported myself 80 miles north of my little apartment in Houston to Coldspring, Texas, home of the world famous Red Barn Retreat and my parents. A drive which usually takes me a little over an hour took me five. I was lucky, I had a place to go. Most of the drivers were fleeing to Lufkin and points north, another 75 miles, at an average of under ten miles an hour and you can do the math.

Traffic got worse today. At one point the local director of FEMA was heading to Austin. He called one of the local news stations. He had been on the road for thirteen hours...he had traveled 30 miles (Austin is 160 miles from Houston). My brother tried to come up to Coldspring with his family, 5 1/2 hours later he was right back at his house with 1/4 tank of fuel and no available gas at any stations. They are hunkering down.

Right now Hurricane Rita is forecast to make landfall near the Texas Louisiana border, which is good for us, if you call being hit by left hook is good compared to being hit by an uppercut. The major channels in Houston have been on local news constantly since sometime yesterday. Their advice if you haven't left yet? Hunker down. So we are.