Rita's coming - Houston is panicking!

Well, we are in the final stages of preparations for Hurricane Rita here in Houston. I have never seen this city in such a state of panic before. People who live in areas that don't flood and are well inland are bugging out - making things more difficult for those in the storm surge zone who DO need to evacuate.

I work for AAA, and I have been booking hotels for people who feel an urgent need to leave. By noon today, all hotels in the ENTIRE STATE OF TEXAS were booked solid for the weekend. No exaggeration. This afternoon, the closest available lodging we could find was in Oklahoma City (8 hrs travel time). That's fine that they want to leave (BTW I'm sheltering in place), but they haven't thought ahead.

Here's problem #1: Traffic has already become a nightmare on every major highway leaving the Houston area. These people must be smoking something funny if they think that they can get to Dallas in the normal drive time of 4 hours.

Problem #2: Gasoline is in short supply here already. I visited three different gas stations last night before I found one that still had any gas left. The folks leaving town for points north and west haven't realized yet that the shortage along their route will be worse. Thousands of vehicles traveling the same corridor will quickly deplete the supply. They will get down to a quarter tank and start panicking. Then, when they cannot find any gas along the road, they will run out of gas. They and hundreds (thousands?) of others simply won't make it to their reserved hotels in Dallas or Wichita Falls or wherever. They'll be stuck alongside the road without any food, water, or shelter. The gasoline tanker may be days away! And here comes Category 5 Rita, right up Interstate 45 behind them.

They should have stayed at home. Bird in the hand and all that. I guess I'll find out soon enough if staying was the right decision for me, the wife and the animals. Will the hurricane straps I paid extra for when we had the house built keep the roof on? Will 35 gallons of water be enough? Do I have enough ammunition? Stay tuned!

Best of luck down there and hopefully Rita fizzles out before making landfall (fingers crossed). Please keep us posted...

My Uncle from Lake Jackson, Tx (fifteen miles from the coast, south side of Houston) left early this a.m. He took his wife, my grandmother, the bug out supplies, and some really expensive artwork. Their decision to leave was pushed by the realization that traffic and gas supplies were getting bad already, so they skipped boarding up the windows and went straight to packing up the antique budha statue worth more than my college education.

Anyway, I'm just glad they are safe in Dallas tonight with my cousin. It only took them 8 hours to drive from Lake Jackson to Dallas, a trip that is normally 5 to 6 hours. <img src="/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

I feel for the Houston evacuees trying to come to Austin. All our hotels were booked long before anyone thought about Hurricanes. It's the Austin City Limits Music Festival, ya'll. If people really need a place to sleep, there's camping space around town. Of course, it's going to flash flood by Saturday. <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

I'm looking on the bright side -- I won't have to drag the hose around the veggie garden this weekend. It's a great opportunity to collect rainwater for future garden and fabric dying use. And, I *just* fixed that leaky window in my truck.

So very glad my grandmother is safe. I hope everyone else is, too. Good luck.

O.K. I know ancient dumb irish warriors were known to ride with drawn swords to fight the oncoming surf flooding villages during storms. But just exactly what caliber have you stockpiled against a hurricane? <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Chris,

I prefer a nice Crossbow, http://www.crossbows.net/danish.html with two dozen wood-shafted bolts and a sppol of sinew to use for repairs.

<img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Good luck, Blacktop!

Maybe this calibre?
http://www.5ad.org/gun.htm

Not that this is a laughing matter and I wish everyone in the path of this juggernaut the best.

I see a growing social phenomenon of fear and anger that will make the militia sillyness pale in comparison. Politicians and officials are collectively circling the wagons with the growiing awareness by people that our entire infrastructure has some major flaws. Special interest groups, and I make no distinction on merit or agenda are holding up a battered New Orleons like a murdered relative and crying " you killed my daddy and I want XYZ." Right now America is seeing a growing "walk the walk if you talk the talk" and a "put up or shut up" attitude.Force 5 Hurricanes provide a surplus of wind allready. None of us appreciates, nor needs the additional hot air being generated by anybody.

"But just exactly what caliber have you stockpiled against a hurricane?"

Why a water pistol, silly! <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Seriously though, I got up at 4:30 AM to see if Walmart had received any more gas cans overnight. No such luck. They were passing out flats of water packaged in soda cans to people as they came in the entrance. It was all they had.

At that early hour, surface street traffic looked more like 8PM Saturday night levels. Hwy 6, one of the main evacuation routes from the coast, passes by about 5 miles from my house. Gridlock traffic northbound as far as the eye can see. Elsewhere in Houston, traffic conditions are similar. The OEM and EOC are fine tuning their evacuation traffic plan to see if they can alleviate some of the backup.

According to some of the other Ham radio operators, cell phone service is already spotty across most providers. (I wouldn't know personally, as I don't have one of those funny little unreliable radios!) Even landline service takes a few tries to get out long distance. 2 meter works great though! Hope we don't lose any repeaters.

Most gas stations were closed, but I was able to top off my tank at a station off the beaten path that had only Super Unleaded left. Prices are still reasonable at $2.79/gallon.

Both my wife and myself have been released from work through Sunday, so we have plenty of time to finish things. Mental preparation is important. I've decided to play a game with it so that the more excited other people get, the calmer I'll get. Getting pretty mellow about now...zzzzzzzz

If you are in the path of the storm, you will. Repeaters usually don't have a whole ton of backup power either. Even if the antenna lives, I doubt that it would last too long once power goes out.

Here, after the storms last year, the local popular repeater was running off of a generator. Somebody has to fill up the gas tank twice a day in order to keep it running.

Yeah... <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> I hope Stevie Ray Vaughan's soul shines on this festival and on all of Texas these days...

Houston survived Alicia (I know because I was there without power for 10 days) and they'll survive Rita too. I'm a little further inland these days so not too much to worry about here. We are expecting heavy wind and rain and tornadic activity but that's just a walk in the park for us (this is tornado alley after all). I will say one thing. This is the first time ever that I have seen a run on batteries and bottle water this far inland (Dallas/Fort Worth Area). I think our biggest fear around here right now is $4/gallon gas afterwards. I am happy to annouce that I need absolutely nothing. I have gone to the store to buy nothing. Water, food, batteries, tools... we are well stocked on all of those plus everything else we could possibley need short of a tornado shelter (i miss the one we had at my last house). We are prepared for flooding, tornados, power outages, whatever may come. I have ETS to thank for that. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Good luck to you, Blacktop, and to Blane and Blast as well. My sister -- the one living in Galveston -- has of course evacuated ... with tides predicted about 19-24 feet above normal at the height of the hurricane, I think she's assuming that her home will be toast even though -- like most houses there -- the actual occupied space starts 1 story up from ground level. Fortunately, she's got a close friend in Dallas....

I went out for a few things for a recipe last night, about 10 pm -- and the water was gone. There were folks trying to buy palletts of bottled water. I don't know if it was for export, or because they were freaked.

I wish I could understand this urgency of buying bottled water. As far as I know, the city's normal water sources aren't disrupted (yet). Are they buying bottled water just for the containers? If containers are available then it's simplest to just fill them from the kitchen sink or garden hose.

"I wish I could understand this urgency of buying bottled water."

I think bottled water is pretty much a way of life in Houston since the tap water tastes pretty bad.

Houston's not had a boil water order in several years, but with a category 5 storm it wouldn't be too hard to imagine our water supply compromised since most of the Houston area's water supply is surface water. We can't do well water any more due to subsidence issues. Suck the water out of the ground and your land sinks. Kinda like N'awlins.

Manufactured bottled water is a known quantity - you don't have to wonder about whether you need to boil it or not. It is easy to store so you just stash it and forget it. People will still fill their bathtubs and every other available container with tap water for hygiene and toilet flushing purposes.

I guess everyone just expects that there will be an extended interruption in our water supply.

I dunno. I've noticed that myself down here. There's another thread about how it's psychologically healthy to prepare. I wonder if the water buying is sort of like that. They know they should do something, and buying water is an easy way to do something. They'll use it anyway, they may even drink it already, and it's cheap and easy to aquire.

Everytime I see it, I keep thinking of the "King of the Hill" episode where Hank runs in to a Mega-Lo-Mart to buy a fuel filter during a storm. Everyone is panic buying. Someone sees Hank grab 12 fuel filters ('cause you can't buy just one). "What's a fuel filter????" "I don't know! But I need one too! Hey! He's buying all the fuel filters!!". <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I think anti gouging laws are dumb for just this reason. If the store owner was allowed to raise the price of water according to demand, water wouldn't run out so quick. Yes, it'd be a lot more expensive, but if you really, really needed it, it'd be available. Not hoarded in someone's garage.

There is the ultimate philosphical / meta-economics / anthropological question. Let's see: if we price it out of the range of the people that really need it now, then we insure a supply for those that afford it more later? Or, those that can afford it now don't really need it, so if we price it high enough they won't do a 'luxury buy' now, and this is better, because the people that can't afford the luxury buy will be forced to pay whatever the market will bear later? Or, supply, demand, and market forces will ultimately make it all come out right for the masses, because survival of the economically fittest wins out? Makes my brain tired.

Why not just level the price, and after an emergency has been declaired, limit the quantity of the buy to preserve stock? There is something wrong with a nieghborhood grocery store selling a pallett of water to an ordinary joe with no declaired purpose under these conditions. Yeah, I know, it imposes a burden upon the poor, pitiful, put upon, retailer, but if you can limit scalping, why can't you limit last minute hording?

BTW: the store in question said they did not have the manpower to rollout a pallett of water for him, and he would have to move it himself.

I'd argue that lifting price controls is rationing. And it frees the merchant from having to try to keep track of who bought how much and when.

Long term, rationing might be the way to go. In the short term (like, the S just HTF), basic economics (supply and demand) have a better shot at making goods and services available fairly.

I hate to say it, but the poor are going to get dumped on either way. At least with economic rationing (allowing the price to respond to demand), they have a better chance of getting a bag of ice or a gallon of gas if they really need it.

We agree that the poor get screwed. Threshold question: do we as a society, or administration, even try to do anything to prevent or control it?

There's a limit to what can be done. Government does not produce anything. It only spends what it takes from others - and inefficiently at that. Increasing taxes has a negative effect on the economy. That's the LAST thing we need. "Government" can't borrow much more without causing interest rates to climb - ANOTHER bad influence on the economy. Very very few people in th USA are starving. I didn't see too many emaciated people evacuating from New Orleans. I continually see people on the news that are used to handouts - and they are UPSET that they don't get more. The only thing that will change this behavior is to stop subsidizing it. An empty belly is a strong incentive to work. Instead of subsidizing sloth, immorality, and ignorance, the "Government" should force those on "the dole" to perform meaningful work - whatever they are capable of doing. If you want to live "on the dole", you should live in a government sponsored trailer park - WITH RULES- where you will be required to work and attend school. <img src="/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />


"Government is the great fiction wherein men strive to live at the expense of others". Fredrick Bastiat

Poor is a very relative term. "Poor" in America in 2005 is pretty [email]d@mn[/email] comfy by historical and world-wide standards.

You will please note, I did not say 'government'. I said society. There is a major distinction.

"If you want to live "on the dole", you should live in a government sponsored trailer park - WITH RULES- where you will be required to work and attend school."

I am of the slightly controversial opinion that if the government provided decent funding to schools in the first place, there wouldn't be so many people on the dole. And don't even get me started on the quality of life you can acheive by working a fifty hour week at minimum wage . . . sure, you can pay rent, but only if you didn't plan on eating anything or ever visiting a doctor, ever.

GG

Depends on what you call decent funding. The small town I grew up in the school teachers lived in a lake resort and drove big new conversion vans to school every day while the rest of the population lived in trailers. I live within a city now and my property taxes are higher than all the suburbs due to a new school tax being added a few years ago yet the suburbs have better school still. Throwing more money at a broken system won't fix it. And giving better schools to people that refuse to learn won't help them either. Not saying everyone in that situation isn't willing to learn, but having come from a poor county in WV I can say that better than half the kids I was in school with didn't want to learn and my wife growing up in the city school can say the same about her classmates.
Minimum wage jobs are not a career. Minium wage jobs are temp jobs for college students to work until the graduate then get a real job. I worked miniumum wage for 4 years through college and I can tell you from experiance that most of the people stuck in those minimum wage jobs have the same attitude that someone else should take care of them, either the union or the government and they refuse to learn anything or try to do anything to better themselves.

*Long deep sigh*

I have practiced primarily personal injury law for nearly twenty years in a below average income community, with a below average of average clientel. I can assure you that minimum wage earners of any race [aggravated by language barriers here, however] get hurt at far greater rates than white boys that went to SMU. Unfortunately, we also have among the highest rates of high school failure and teenage pregnancy. They all go together: failure of education, lifetime menial labor, early pregnancy, and thus the cycle of poverty continues. Don't even start talking about substances, licit and illicit. I also have personal experience with a family that ran through $1.8 million dollars in one year with the 'guidance' of their pastor. I am not a fan of organized religion.

My personal observations: good primary education is the best predictor of success in life. I've seen lots of kids that didn't have a statistical chance in hell wind up doing quite well because they had a teacher early-on that gave a rats ass. If you can get a little kid started to enjoy learning, he'll overcome a lot to keep on learning.

Money does not equate to good schools, but if the schools are chronically underfunded, not to mention dangerous, you have a worse chance on getting and keeping good teachers.

Economics 101: price fixing always leads to shortages.

If it is too low the demand will be high and suppliers will not want to produce it because of lack of a normal profit. If the price is too high people will not want to buy it and suppliers will not be able to produce it. The lack of sales and profits will force them to reduce production.

Supply and demand always reach an equilibrium point. It is the Adam Smith invisible hand of economics.

And I hope that your not thinking I'm putting anyone down or anything like that. I just wanted to point out that I have seen plenty of well funded schools with no better results than the underfunded schools because it takes people who care to make it work, both students and teachers. If I had listened to my teachers who told me I wasn't fit for college then I would be the one service french fries in that little town.

Politically incorrect, but how true!

Successful students (people) come from dedicated parents, not expensive schools or government programs!

And even then sometimes successful parents can have unseccussful students or sucessful students can come from unseccuesfull parents.
My parents while they have everything they need both barely graduated high school. My wife's parents neither made it though high school. We both have made it through college so in that sense we are more successful.
Its the student that has to want to be successful and that will be the biggest factor in their outcome. There have been many successful people who made it with nothing and there have been many unsuccessful people whom had everything handed to them.

But Eugene, what is it that put the "want to" in them? It aint genes. Sure, raw intellect is a lot of it. I've handled some really bright lifetime criminals. I've also represented a lot of very successful people with IQs under 100.

Don't get me wrong -- I agree with you entirely on the unpredictability of the outcome. I just don't understand the beginning. I think that any adult that intercedes in a meaningful way can turn the tide. What do I know, though, I've no kids, and want none.

Yep, that is the trick. I can't really say what put the want to do better into me, for some reason I just did and all those I went to school with or worked with who don't want to do better I don't understand why not either. My wife has a college degree in psychology and she still doesn't either.
I think it is possible for an adult to intercede. Looking back in history before schools were a classrom with a teacher who follows a government mandated lesson plan you usually had one on one teaching where you worked hard to prove yourself to someone who would become your mentor and work as their assistant for years to strive to become as great or greater than them. As we move to a classroom environment the quality of the education goes down I think because you don't get to see the light at the end of the tunnel, the point is to make it through the class day in and day out and get a piece of paper, where is the motivation in that?

An exception does not disprove a truism. My wife works as a PT in our school district. She has a lot of contact and conversations with teachers, students, and parents. It is universally understood that the students that do well are the one with involved parents. The students that tend to do poorly are the ones that have parents that can't be bothered to take the time and energy to work with their child. I have seen it myself with the Boy Scouts. The parents that take an active interest and participate tend to be the ones that end up with an Eagle Scout. We have one boy that has been at the rank of Scout for about two years. His parents are too busy (drinking a beer in front of the TV) to work with him.

I also consider myself an exception. My parents both had a 6th grade education. They did not consider education important. As a result I did poorly in grade school. I joined the army after high school (dropped out and had to retake 12th grade). When I was in the army I realized that education makes a difference in life. I got out and used the GI bill to get a bachelors of Science in computer information systems. After I was working as a programmer my company paid for me to get a master's in management information systems.

Involved parents = good students.

Money + government = @#$%^

Now that the storm has passed through the Houston area--I haven't seen any news coverage of whether any people were caught on the highways trying to evacuate when Rita came through. Apparently, the traffic jams eased up before Rita arrived, but then again, what about all those people who ran out of gas/broke down the day or two before?

Another related question--when everyone was bugging out, were the gas stations open? Not "did they have gas?" but were the stations actually open and staffed? For example, if you only had cash, was someone there who could turn on the pump? Well, in a pinch, you could always ask another motorist to put it on their card and just pay them the cash, too, I guess. Anyway, I'm just curious since from the TV, it seemed like just about every business closed in anticipation of Rita and I'm wondering about the most important businesses that day--the gas stations.

" in a pinch, you could always ask another motorist to put it on their card and just pay them the cash"

This happened quite a bit actually. The credit card "pay at the pump" was all that was available in some cases because some of the stations closed the convenience store part and locked the doors due to shoplifting and irate patrons. Things got ugly so they took sensible meaures to protect themselves. People still got gas, but couldn't get twinkies and beer!