Thursday, September 22, 2005

Turn Around and Try Again

My dad called at 5:30pm from the Grand Avenue Parkway. For those of you who don't know Houston, it's the outermost of the three loops encircling the city. Figuring the Katy Freeway (I-10) would be a parking lot, they headed out Westheimer only to come to a standstill before even leaving the greater Houston area. Having traveled only 22 miles in 11 hours, they decided to turn around and try again tomorrow.

With the Rita's eastward track, they're considering just riding out the storm on the west side of Houston. Their house isn't in the mandatory evacuation area and should be reasonably safe if Houston catches the weak side of the hurricane. I think they'd be fine there provided they have enough food and water to last 3-4 days, which they apparently do.

On the other hand, Rita is still 400 miles out and there's plenty of time for it to change course. If former National Hurricane Center director Dr. Neil Frank of Houston's KHOU-TV doesn't know where it's going, I'm sure as hell not going to second-guess it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Greg,
We're keeping a close watch of the news here, too. I don't blame your Mom & Dad for turning back. The traffic looks horrible. Keep me posted via your blog.

Anonymous said...

FINALLY got a hold of my parents....12 hours to drive to San Marcos. Wow.

RKM