Friday, September 12, 2008

Hurricane Ike: The Saga Continues....

I wrote yesterday or the day before about contemplating evacutacting for hurricane Ike. I know Houston is not right on the coast and I probably would have been safe had I stayed but....you never know.

One of the main reasons I decided to leave is because I have a 19 month old son. If something were to happen and we would have stayed, I just would not have wanted to have to deal with taking care of my son, my dog and myself. I don't think I could handle that type of stress.

I decided to leave yesterday afternoon. My step-sister lives in Austin and I called her to see if we could stay with her. She was like, "Of course". So, I put Dominic down for his nap and packed our things while he was sleeping. We ended up leaving my house around 1.30pm. We got on I10 West and headed out toward Austin. Traffic was pretty much stop and go from Houston all the way to Highway 71 (the cut off to Austin). Once we were on Highway 71, traffic was heavier than normal, but I was still driving approximately 75-80 mph. To make a long story short, I ended up arriving at Lori's (my step-sister) house around 6pm. It definitely took longer than normal (typically takes about 2.5 hours), but we made it. Yea!

Today, the Houston news has been on the television here all day. All I can say is that I am very happy that I decided to leave. I'm really not concerend for my house because I am fairly certain it will be fine (we live in a mid century modern brick house and we're not right on the water).

I'm just curious to see what type of devastation there will be when we return home. I'm also praying that our power is on when I get home because I just went grocery shopping (idiot) on Tuesday or Wednesday and I don't want our entire stock of food to spoil. I'm also concerned for all of the people who were also supposed to evacuate and did not-and now they are stuck with the rising water. Ugh!

No comments: