Friday, September 23, 2005

It's starting to rain

Here we go! The rain just started here. Nothing too heavy at the moment, but it's going to be a wild night. The storm has weakened to a Category 3 and shifted a bit to the east, so we won't get the absolute worst of it. Still, we could be without power for awhile. Absolutely everything has been shut down since about 5:00 yesterday afternoon, so whatever food and supplies we have right now is all we're going to have for a few days. Fortunately, we're prepared. I took photos of our well-stocked pantry and fridge and I'll see if I can upload those later on.

It's nice to have a rational, sedate, responsible newscast like the one on KHOU, Channel 11 in Houston. Their meteorologist is Dr. Neil Frank, who is an internationally recognized authority on hurricanes, going all the way back to Hurricane Carla in 1961. He doesn't try to freak you out or boost their ratings through hysteria. They leave that to Channel 2, whose coverage ("Worse Than Katrina!!!") should be subject to criminal prosecution for inciting riot.

I really hope the power stays on. I'm such a wuss; I really like my air conditioning, TV and internet. It was 100 degrees outside yesterday! That's unusually hot for the first day of fall. We watched the entire first season of Arrested Development over the past two days (BRILLAINT!), so I'd also like to keep the DVD player and TiVo in commission as long as possible. And by that I mean for the rest of my life.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Hurricane Rita!

HURRICAAAAAANE!!!!!

Um, in case you haven't heard, Houston has a hurricane headed right for it. By last night you couldn't buy bottled water, batteries or plywood anywhere, and some filling stations are actually out of gas. We now have emergency rations of Cheetos, pretzels, Pop Tarts, Powerade and Arizona Diet Green Tea with Ginseng. I love the stuff, and it now comes in gallon-size bottles. I'm all stocked up.

I think they're going to let us off work Friday, which is probably for the best. Most schools will be closed and the roads will be flooded, so it's safest for folks to stay home. Also, my company relies heavily on shipping with UPS, which already has stopped bringing most packages into the area, or at least the southeastern quadrant. If we can't ship things, we might as well not be here.

We don't have a lot of hatches to batten down at the apartment, but I hope the sliding glass door stays in one piece. Otherwise yikes.

People are seriously freaking out here. We haven't had a major hurricane in town in a long time, so I think it's a combination of post-Katrina panic and bored people wanting a bunch of excitement. It's like a snow day here. The past couple of years have really fostered an "ohgodohgod we're all gonna die!" mentality in general, so people have all this pent-up fear and are looking for a way to blow off some steam. If the worst they do is buy up a crapload of bottled water and batteries, we'll be okay.