Dodged a bullet--Hurricane Rita

All of you in the midst of clean-up and relocation after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita remain in my prayers!

I evacuated my S. Texas home on Wednesday, the 21st, at 4:30 am, when our area was predicted to be on the "clean side" of Rita. I tethered my trash cans, brought my lawn furniture inside, grabbed some clothes, a laptop, my oboe and English horn, and my 2 doggies, and set out for Tomball--which was, at that point, on the "dirty" side of the oncoming storm. OK, not very smart, I grant you, but my sis lives there, and Tomball was far enough north of I-10 that I thought we would weather the storm better there together. As I traveled north at dark-thirty, I encountered only minor traffic going my direction. I have a photo I took on I-10 in which there is NO traffic between me and the horizon on our east-bound side, but there is a steady stream of bumper-to-bumper traffic heading westward. I began to feel like my fireman friends, those guys who run INTO the burning building when everyone else is running out!

Anyway, by the time I finished my 5-hour trip, the mandatory evacuation notice in my area had been lifted, turned into a voluntary one because Rita had begun to shift back to the east. We in Tomball experienced only some gusty winds and some scattered power outages; No major damage other than yards and driveways littered with branches and pinecones. The NBC affiliate in Houston stopped all of its network programming (in a week of premieres, no less) to go 24/7 on the hurricane that Wednesday and for several days following. I don't think I want to get that much media coverage on any topic ever again; It did nothing but keep my stomach churned up the whole time, first in concern for US, and then in grieving for those in Rita's path, shown up close and personal in live video coverage.

Then, the de-evacuation began. Is that a word? I wanted to come home on the following Sunday, but there was NO FUEL available in our area. I had 1/2 tank from my trip up, but that wasn't enough to get back home, with no clue as to where I'd find gas along the way. I was saved from that dilemma by having a car window go bonkers; it rolled down and would NOT roll back up. That kept me from trying to leave on my trip until the window was repaired. So, I finally came home last Tuesday--plenty of gasoline, normal amounts of traffic coming and going. The only thing I noticed was that there were more vehicles abandoned alongside I-1o than I had ever seen. I sent up prayers for the occupants who had fled, that they had gotten to safety.

I returned home to find that we had not only avoided the hurricane but had not even gotten any rain to end our drought out of it! Everything was as I left it, and my feral kitties showed up by the second day home. I am, of course,extremely grateful to have dodged this bullet, but it has made think seriously about what I would value enough to take with me if I had to bug out again. We are, after all not through with hurricane season yet!