Here comes Rita!

by **Tarzan** on Fri Sep 23, 2005 9:57 am

Rob, are you trying to call her on a cell or a landline?

Get ready for more...your cell phone hard to use yet. Had to teach my mom to text message last night....quite a challenge! We got up to recognizing/reading messages and then she had to stop....saving sending for another day. She still had a message from my brother in Baton Rouge sent on Sept 2nd. We had been trying to get in touch with him and he send her the message, but she never knew!

I am starting to worry about Lake Charles, LA. Big LNG port there...Natural gas prices will go up impacting many industries! Industrial canal leaking and is getting worse in New Orleans/ St Bernard:

http://www.nola.com/t-p/?/t-p/stories/f ... aphic.html

**Sponsor**

by **Rob Graff** on Fri Sep 23, 2005 10:00 am

Both - Neither is working.

by **Brent Burns** on Fri Sep 23, 2005 10:04 am

After 7 hours of being stuck in traffic from Bacliff (next to Texas City) to the Woodlands, my mom and her husband finally got to my cousin's house. She said that the traffic was quite awful and traumatic. Like what CP18 said, the stores are practically closed, gas stations out of gas, etc. Yet, I am glad she and her husband are safe and sound. They will ride out the storm in the Woodlands. She emailed me which is working fine right now. Later, I can image her being incommunicado probably with computers and cell phones.

My sister and her husband are all right in Broaddus. Mbuff, I doubt they can flee Broaddus since they probably have heard horror stories about the traffic. Hey, Reggie McNeal with Texas A&M said in this morning's newspaper said that he wanted to go home in Lufkin to be with his family, but he decided not to go due to terrible traffic. I know my folks in Broaddus will just have to ride out Rita.

My dad should be all right in LaGrange anyway.

by **Tarzan** on Fri Sep 23, 2005 10:08 am

Congestion most likely! Keep hitting the redial button. They shouldn't have enough wind to impact the lines yet!

by **Rob Graff** on Fri Sep 23, 2005 10:09 am

Brent - Can I Interpret your message as suggesting that many in Tx feel Woodlands is sufficiently inland to ride out the storm?

by **monkeylax** on Fri Sep 23, 2005 10:13 am

I saw on the Weather Channel that the levees in N.O. have already been breached. Looks like Rita is going after The Big Easy. Here in Austin, 70, 000 people just let out a collective sigh...looks like the Austin City Limits Music festival will go on as planned.

by **mbuff** on Fri Sep 23, 2005 11:16 am

The Woodlands is not the best place to ride this out but if that's where you get then that's where you get! I guess you know why they call it The Woodlands. We have not had any measurable rain for over a month and the trees are pretty stressed out now. Expect trees to come down all over.

My brother left Pearland yesterday at 5:30am and ended his drive in Conroe at 6:30pm. For those that are not familiar, that is going from south of Houston to North of Houston. Should take about 50 min in normal traffic. He met the wife and kids there who left Wednesday. They will ride it out there because traffic is just too bad to make it to Dallas. Thus we have the new evacuation phrase "Where you get is where you get!" It took our head bean counter and her group 15 hours to get back here from IAH yesterday. This is a prim and proper lady who told me that she had to pee on the side of the road because it was so bad. I told her that I was proud of her. Must send her the Python clip "Sailing on the Sea of Accountancy" after the storm.

Our situation looks like it went from bad to worse. We'd be better off having this thing just blow through but now it looks like it's going to stall right over us here in East Texas, first as a hurricane and then it will dissapate into at tropical storm. Either way, we're going to end up with something between 12 to 25 inches of rain. Gah! We're going to have flooding no doubt and my Ark building skills are minimal at best.

Billy, our tailgate spot will be under several feet of water since that parking lot is built like NO. You might have to tote the Pirouge up here on the top of the bus for the game. I hope the kids get their cars out of the lot because last time it flooded, 25 cars all went floating and came together in the north end of the lot.

One thing about this evacuation mess that I can't believe Texas missed from Katerina was CONTRAFLOW!!! When I was in NO I didn't know what they were talking about on the radio but we figured it out damn fast. For the life of me, I can't figure out why officials didn't turn all lanes in Northbound Only lanes like at midnight Wednesday. Aggie school of traffic engineering I guess (sorry Chris).

by **Sonny** on Fri Sep 23, 2005 11:47 am

National Guard is reporting 3 major levee breaches in New Orleans. I don't know what's more amazing - The fact that we built a major city under sea level OR the fact that the levee system hasn't failed more often in the past 100+ years.

Save travels to all....

by **Sonny** on Fri Sep 23, 2005 11:48 am

This story is very sad.....

Bus Bursts Into Flames, Killing Up To 24
Passengers Were Elderly Hurricane Evacuees

POSTED: 7:06 am CDT September 23, 2005
UPDATED: 11:29 am CDT September 23, 2005

DALLAS -- A fire in a chartered bus filled with elderly Hurricane Rita evacuees, including some who used oxygen, killed 24 people and injuring at least one near Dallas Friday.

Authorities said the bus apparently caught fire due to a mechanical problem, and that oxygen tanks then started exploding on gridlocked Interstate 45.

Dallas County Sheriff's Sgt. Don Peritz said deputies couldn't get everyone off the flaming bus. It carried about 45 people from a nursing home in Bellaire, a separate city within Houston. They had been on the road since Thursday and were headed for facilities in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

He said the brakes may have been on fire, leading to the explosion.

http://www.nbc5i.com/news/5010437/detail.html

by **mbuff** on Fri Sep 23, 2005 1:17 pm

Don't bring out the 2nd Line yet. NO will rise up and dry out again.
-Lyrics by Randy Newman

What has happened down here is the winds have changed

Clouds roll in from the north and it started to rain

Rained real hard and it rained for a real long time

Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline

The river rose all day

The river rose all night

Some people got lost in the flood

Some people got away alright

The river have busted through clear down to Plaquemines

Six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline

Louisiana, Louisiana

They're tryin' to wash us away

They're tryin' to wash us away

Louisiana, Louisiana

They're tryin' to wash us away

They're tryin' to wash us away

President Coolidge came down in a railroad train

With a little fat man with a note-pad in his hand

The president say, ''Little fat man isn't it a shame

What the river has done to this poor crackers land."

Louisiana, Louisiana

They're tryin' to wash us away

They're tryin' to wash us away

Louisiana, Louisiana

They're tryin' to wash us away

They're tryin' to wash us away

They're tryin' to wash us away

They're tryin' to wash us away

by **Sonny** on Fri Sep 23, 2005 3:28 pm

Looks like the storm is getting a tad weaker.

by **mbuff** on Fri Sep 23, 2005 4:07 pm

Yea, down to CAT III.

Does anybody know what category Hugo was that hit Charleston? I think it was in '89 but I'm not sure. I flew in there from Europe in '91 and all of the downed pine trees looked like Pick Up Stix. I was not really sure what I was seeing from the air and found out about Hugo from the Customs Officer.

We have stressed out pines all over here and I'm not sure what they will handle but I'm sure they won't take a III. One thing I'm sure of is that no matter the category, when we get hit tomorrow, it's going to take all of the pecans off the trees. Watch the pie prices skyrocket!!!

by **Brent Burns** on Fri Sep 23, 2005 4:13 pm

mbuff wrote: it's going to take all of the pecans off the trees. Watch the pie prices skyrocket!!!

Nooooooo!

There go my favorite pecan pies!! :wink:

Wonder if you can take pictures of those piney trees after all is done when Rita passes your way. I will ask my sister to do the same if she is still communicado. When you talk about those trees, those bring up good memories of my visit to East Texas!

by **Brent Burns** on Fri Sep 23, 2005 4:32 pm

Tarzan,

I am curious as to exactly where the sugar refineries in Louisiana are located.

by **mbuff** on Fri Sep 23, 2005 4:51 pm

Just got back from the ER and there was a young lady in there saying that she worked in ICU at Charity Hospital in NOLA and once she got out she was brought here and now this hurricane is on the way and her neighborhood is flooding again in NOLA and something about her husband.

Man, my heart was breaking while overhearing this and when I turned around and looked at her she had "the stare". Then a nurse said 3 traumas inbound. Sometimes this place just gets to me.

Here comes Rita!

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