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Ike, or something like it
As Ike barreled down on Houston, I tore myself away from the ever-fascinating NOAA imagery to make a decision about evacuating.
The eye of the hurricane was projected to pass east of us, putting us on the “good” side of the hurricane. My apartment is well out of the surge zones; I would have to worry about wind damage and maybe some minor water damage if the apartment complex’s drainage is as bad as I suspect. In all honesty, the worst I expected to deal with was the lack of power after the hurricane.
So, while at work, I decided to stay. Then I went home, looked at all the trees and telephones in the parking lot, and looked in my car. My car is the single most expensive thing I own. Although it’s insured, I wasn’t keen on trying to get it repaired in a city suffering major infrastructure damage, as I expected Houston to be after Ike passed.
I decided I would leave, provided I could take the cats out with me and would not be in the way of people who legitimately needed to evacuate. Some friends in San Antonio were willing to put the cats and I up for a couple days, and that left only the question of how to get out of town without interfering with the real evacuees.
Before I left my apartment, I checked the traffic, which showed I-10 to be moving freely. I thought that was too good to be true, but who was I to argue with technology? Turns out it was too good to be true—I-10 was a parking lot. It was just that the traffic backup didn’t start until past the sensors. I had no desire to sit in that traffic, must less add to it, so I took advantage of my GPS system’s best feature: the ability to avoid certain roads. It reprogrammed my route to go on Alt 90. As I drove the back roads to get to Alt 90, I decided that if this route was also busy, I would stay home.
Alt 90 was clear, clear, clear, so I hopped on it and headed west. I think this is the major flaw in evacuation plans: they put everyone on too few roads. It seems to me that if you want to get a lot of people out quickly, by spreading them across multiple routes you can reduce traffic and the infrastructure load (gas, accident response, etc) across a much wider area, allowing everyone to move quickly. But what do I know? I’m just the one who got to San Antonio in half the time it would have taken on I-10, passing numerous open and busy but not overwhelmed gas stations.
The cats and I spent a couple days in San Antonio—enough time to let Ike pass and then give first responders a chance to make the trip to Houston without having to deal with me as excess traffic (e.g. the convoys of utility trucks and water/food). Then I waited a few more days to hear if my apartment had power. That was the hardest part, really—not being able to find out the situation on my apartment. Although I was reasonably sure it had come through without damage, there’s a difference between “reasonable sure” and being sure.
The complex did lose some trees, although it doesn’t look like anyone’s cars were damaged. I probably could have stayed and the car would have been fine. But in a similar situation, I think I’d go again.
If I’d had a horse? That would have been tougher. You can’t throw the horse into the back of the car the way you can toss cats, and it’s much harder to fine a place to take in horses. You also have to balance how well the horses travel against the relative danger at their home location.
Coming back, it’s clear that it’s going to take Houston a long time to recover. There are still places without power, and I don’t mean in just the devastated zones on the coast. My office building doesn’t have power yet, and we’re working from home as best we can. My phone and internet service has been unreliable, making my ability to work spotty. My local gas station had gas this morning, the first time I have seen it open in a week.
All of which, frankly, is merely inconvenient. I’ve been lucky, and you won’t be hearing anything else from me on Ike for that reason—there’s nothing for me to report. And although I expect to be out helping some people who were not so fortunate this weekend, they can choose to tell (or not) their story in their own way.
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Comments
You say “only gets down to 35 degrees” like that’s a bad thing. That’s why I moved (well, I sure didn’t move for the summers or the hurricanes!).
Actually, just wait—Houston is going to get its own initiation. Mark my words: there will be snow this winter.
I’m not saying it’s going to stick around, but there will be snow. There always is. It’s the weather gods’ great big joke on me.
On Sep 19, 2008, Lynda said:
Ah, your first hurricane! Now you’ve been through the official initiation of Houston - first sweltering heat, then hurricane. The next thing you get to experience is winter where it only gets down to 35 degrees.
When Hurricane Alicia hit Houston, we lived not very far from where you do now. Glad you survived okay.