September 22, 2005

• Hmm, I wonder if there's something I could do...
• Scary stuff. Hadn't heard it hit Cat 5. Here's a map of the probable trajectory of this beast.
• Just went to the supermarket by the house here in Austin and the shelves were completley bare of bottled water. Canned meats and milk stocks were decimated. We're not even in danger--as dirtdirt said in latest Austin meetup thread, we're 200 miles inland and around 500 ft above sea level. My mother-in-law commented that she hasn't seen panic buying like this since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
• I hope that the lessons of Katrina have been well learned, and there are serious provisions to get everybody, and i mean everybody the hell outta dodge. Especially those without the means to travel.
• StoryBored, that map is quite scary. It's easy to believe God (or whatever) is pretty mad at us USAians.
• This log at Wunderground has Rita as an "Extremely Dangerous Category 5" and the third strongest hurricane to originate in the Atlantic.
• It's easy to believe God (or whatever) is pretty mad at us USAians You gotta wonder what the religious fundies are thinking....but then when New Orleans got hit i think they blamed it on the city's moral turpitude. Still maybe there's just a little bit of back of the mind uncomfortableness?...
• when New Orleans got hit i think they blamed it on the city's moral turpitude. Isn't Galveston the home of the second biggest Mardi Gras celebration in the US? Reports I hear from H-town say that it was a 4 hour drive from Galveston to Houston this morning (normally 45m-1h) and that this evening the Northbound Interstates were just parking lots. Best to all in the path.
• SB: your map is the 4PM map. The 10PM map tracks closer to Galveston Bay. It's that little notch just to the right (wet side) of the track.
• In our town 100 miles southeast of Dallas, the gas stations have been doing heavy, heavy business all evening... I saw several people filling gas cans. I have no idea if this is panic buying or people passing through fleeing the coast. Here's a map of all computer forecast tracks (if you're not seeing Katrina, just change the # in the URL.
• when New Orleans got hit i think they blamed it on the city's moral turpitude. I've seen an interesting range of reactions from Christians on that point. Some of the fundys, yes, are prone to blame them for their own moral turpitude, and others blame them for their "sloth" and "stupidity" for not getting out (in my experience, these reactions are little more than self-justifying excuses for not helping). I've heard liberal Christians also claim God's own wrath for Katrina, only as a sort of "wake-up call" about our own still-festering ingrained racism and lack of concern for the poor. Which, God's vengeance or not, you gotta admit, Katrina did at least bring those points up to headline status. I don't know what they'll be saying about Texas, though, as Texas is known generally as the anti-NO (and probably incorrectly -- my own experience is that there is some motherfucking drinking going on in dry counties, prayse Je-huh-zuss notwithstanding). The only vice they're famous for down there is eagerly firing up Ol' Sparky for death row inmates, something most fundys generally don't have much of a problem with. Personally, if God does exist, I have little trouble believing that he's pissed at the US. My own theology doesn't include him wiping out a bunch of innocent poor people as punishment, but if God's out there, and if he gives a shit about what happens to us, as much as I love my country, yeah, there's plenty to be pissed about. On preview, I didn't know that about Galveston. But shit, if God wanted to wipe out Babylon, he'd be going after the power centers like D.C., not after some poor schlub in Texas forking over a twenty for a lap dance.
• Pat Robertson said that maybe Katrina was a bit of a blessed relief to spare John Roberts serious questioning. I know Robertson is a Baptist, but I think he's been getting into the communion wine a little heavy lately. I remember him saying that his prayers--or prayers he led--turned a storm around from hitting the Norfolk Va area where he's HQ'd. Wonder why he doesn't do that with Rita. Or is that part of the country Swaggart's franchise? Seriously, though, I hope that Rita does not do the damage that Kattrina did. I also hope that the newsmedia can dial it down a little bit. AS Jon Stewart noted tonight--"Hurricane Rita has just been elevated to a Class 12 hurricane, just a notch below a Black Hole."
• rolypoly - can you elaborate on your link? It looks interesting, but I don't know which storms to correlate with the 'BAMD' and 'GNFI' and whatnot. Am I supposed to alter something in the link to make it the layperson's version?
• Check here under "About the Forecasting Aids"; it's all there.
• Oops, and I meant "if you're not seeing RITA". I think we're all done seeing Katrina.
• Ah, so the lines are all models of the same storm. That makes a lot more sense.
• Uggh, it hurts the eyes to look at that link. Why does it look like ugly plaid?
• AS Jon Stewart noted tonight--"Hurricane Rita has just been elevated to a Class 12 hurricane, just a notch below a Black Hole." As much as I respect Jon Stewart, from NOAA's own Rita update (probably done after The Daily Show taped).

  ...RITA BECOMES THE THIRD MOST INTENSE HURRICANE ON RECORD... THE DROPSONDE INSTRUMENT MEASURED 32 KT/35 MPH WINDS AT THE SURFACE...WHICH MEANS IT LIKELY DID NOT RECORD THE LOWEST PRESSURE IN THE EYE OF RITA. THE CENTRAL PRESSURE IS PROBABLY AT LEAST AS LOW AS 898 MB...AND PERHAPS EVEN LOWER.

  This ain't no fucking dust devil. I hope to god this thing weakens immensly before you people in Texas see it. I can't even imagine what the people from New Orleans are thinking right now.
• Since some are forecasting that it will hit Houston, what's going to happen to the NOLA evacuees in the Houston Astrodome?
• I tried to imagine life outside of a Jerry Bruckheimer production ... now, I wonder why I ever doubted His eminence.
• ramix - Rumor had it that (ironically) they were being evacuated....
• I just want it to hit Crawford.
• They moved 1000 of the NO evacuees to Arkansas. The rest, I don't know about. This storm is poised to pulverize my mother's and my inlaws' houses. They're all here right now. Kind of fun, in that impending doom sort of way.
• Oof, sorry to hear that about the houses, Nickdanger. Glad all the people have got a place to stay with you, though, which is of course more important, but losing your house wouldn't be fun. Stay safe and dry, monkeys.
• Mr. Danger: Sounds like you've got an upbeat attitude about it, anyway. My thoughts go out to all in the way of this beast. Oh, and if I may.... MonkeyFilter: Kind of fun, in that impending doom sort of way.
• Just curious: did anyone see a quartet of horses trompling through here recently? *eyes New Madrid, Missouri with trepidation* don't be fools, people - if you can get out, get out.
• *eyes New Madrid, Missouri with trepidation* No shit. That thing's long overdue to pop.
• Don't I know it, and when it goes, it's going to murder the Mississippi Valley. My entire town is built over abandoned coal mines; there is exactly one building in downtown St. Louis that is built according to California state earthquake specs, and I'm sitting in it right now (it was built right around that whole Iben Browning thing awhile back). Of course, it's just seven blocks from the Mississippi River, and surrounded by taller buildings that will probably come tumbling down like tombstones. No one is even remotely prepared for what an 8 pointer will do here. But the last one rang bells in Boston.
• OK -- I'm confused -- is it better or worse that Chimpy's the President instead of the Governor when this thing hits? Brain cramp! Brain cramp!
• One of my good friends is in Houston, and she called me yesterday to let me know what was going on. She said trying to buy milk, bread, water, or batteries is impossible. Her family up in Huntsville (an hour north of town, I think? Home of the state prison & ol' sparky) offered to buy some and "meet in the middle" to get the supplies, but the drive from Houston to Huntsville is now a 12 hour drive. As she was talking to me (she was driving home from work) she saw a fist fight at a gas station. Her office is closed for the duration (they've already been promised pay for a while through the business' insurance) and her husband, who works closer to the coast, had to board up the windows at his office. Anyway, my folks up in the Ft. Worth/Dallas area have already told them to come on up -- they're going to ride it out, for now, but may head up if it gets hairy. Fun fact -- my friend figures if the power goes out it'll go back up soon, since she lives pretty close to Bush I and Barbara.
• I've found where the hurryupacanes get their maps . Seems they are partial to a particular color... I think oklahoma is next! and, to all in the path, be safe, be careful, let us know how you're doing when you get a chance... best wishes to all of our friends in texas...
• This doesn't help.
• Sometimes, I wonder if God hates Louisiana. I mean, it seems like everybody else does.
• she saw a fist fight at a gas station That's just how we express our love in Texas. I was born and grew up in Texas, I live in SF now
• The big difference tho, is that there isn't a city with 400,000+ sitting below sea level and sub-par evacuation routes, squarely in front of Rita. ...and it happens to be that bushwhacker's home state...aid's already there.
• People are going nuts for gas here in southern Ontario. Traffic is blocked both ways through town, with people waiting to get to either of the gas stations that bookend Main St. Gas in town is still at $1.04L, but the next town over is at $1.70L already. Not that I mean to be self-centred in the face of impending disaster and tragedy or anything.
• My boyfriend is in Houston and will be staying there... Partly because of the lack of actual ways to get out of the city at the moment, and partly because his parents are, since his dad works for the power company. And you need people fixing that sort of thing. So he was boarding up the windows this morning... I think I will mostly spend the weekend worrying.
• The highways are a series of very long parking lots. I wonder what the two-lane country roads are looking like. That'd be my first instinct. My best to you and your boyfriend, shandrin.
• So, what are the chances of this hitting while people are stuck in the highway traffic jams? That could be a horrible disaster. sorry if I'm stating the obvious
• Good luck, Tesas momkeys!
• An aside: Check out this train wreck and pat yourselves on the backs.
• Fuck. I spoke too soon. When I wrote the above message, my mother, my sister and my mother-in-law were in town with me, and my father-in-law and brother-in-law were soon to be leaving. Well, they left at 4am and ***12 HOURS LATER*** they were still in Houston. Being the impetuous people they are they decided to ditch the traffic and head home. I can't believe it. Needless to say Mrs. Danger is beside herself and we haven't been able to reach them via phone since 4, and we don't know whether they're going to try again or what. Live coverage here. Mostly about the horrendous traffic problems right now. People are running out of gas as they sit on the road *in Houston*.
• Good luck to them, and as little stress to you and the Mrs. as possible, Nickdanger.
• Welp, we just started feelin' the winds here in Baton Rouge. It's going to be bad here. It's going to be much, much worse in a few hours. And, I fear for those to the west.
• Nickdanger, if they can get the traffic moving again, and there is still gas available anywhere in Houston and along the roads your family needs to take, it seems they should have time. Opening all lanes on 45 to northbound traffic is bound to help, and it sounds like police and others are getting gas to those who ran out so they aren't blocking any of the road. It may end up being a close call, but they really just need to get it moving again... On the other hand, each updated track for Rita has it making landfall further east of Houston/Galveston. So it may be they will just need to be in an area that doesn't flood. I'm hopeful at least, because that's the best I can say for the safety of where my boyfriend lives. Best wishes to you and your family, I hope everything works out alright.
• Like the Danger in-laws, a number of my friends turned around and came back when they saw the freeway. I have a few who are planning to stick it out anyway. Some of them are blogging here for those who want to watch the storm out with them. On top of all that, my mother is returning to Houston from China today (probably to beat the airports closing tomorrow at noon). She's been out of town for 10 days and I doubt she has supplies laid in for the storm. My great-aunt lives in Beaumont. I can't get in touch with either of them. I know they're all OK and my mother is going to call tonight and tell me I'm panicking over nothing, but right now I'm getting frantic.
• It's not quite "IP Freely," but always amusing when people give fake names to reporters (see pargraph 5)
• ... and about 2 seconds after I posted, mom called and she's pretty sure she has a message from a friend of my great-aunt's with news from her. *fingers crossed for the same for the Dangers*
• drjimmy, odds are pretty decent that that's not a fake name. Google "Peggy Hill," and just in the first couple of results pages you get 5 or 6 real people in addition to pages mentioning the King of the Hill character.
• Now, "Anita Bonaire," down in the 7th graf, *that's* funny.
• I spoke to a guy today who has a friend coming to see him from down that way. He said it took him 23 damn hours just to make it outside of Texarkana. Hadn't even crossed the state line. Guy was driving through people's yards to get out.
• This is where owning a motorcycle is a big plus.
• Being the impetuous people they are they decided to ditch the traffic and head home. This is likely better than sitting out on the open highway when the monster hits. If their home isn't concrete and on higher ground at least they have time to find a good public building to take shelter in, they'll be safe. The folks in trouble are the ones who are going to wait til the last minute before turning back...
• I'm amazed at this exodus. Where are all these people going to *stay* over the next few days?
• Emergency planning sucks once again. How many of those cars I wonder, are not carrying a full complement of passengers?
• A former employee of mine just emailed a current employee of mine one of those emails that people like to forward. I knew this former employee to be a Republican sheep, but I always thought of her as being nice and considerate. The forwarded email was titled "Things I Learned Over the Past Week" or something like that. It contained a list of things like, "Black people make interesting news stories," and "We are rewarding black people for being stupid and staying behind by giving them money." It was disgusting. The employee is hardly a closet Klan member. What the fuck is wrong with people?
• Something similiar circulated through my company e-mail as well, came to me from a woman who never revealed the slightest racist inclination to me. I think I said it elsewhere, maybe upthread somewhere, but I believe such responses (for those who aren't dyed-in-the-wool bigots) to be nothing more than self-justification for sitting down and doing nothing to help. The alternative entails looking at your own failure to serve your fellow man and woman. We mask it in cynicism, and then mask that cynicism in a manufactured weariness of everyone else's cynicism — "Oh, how dare they place the race card/try to start a class war/etc."
• quoth bernockle: What the fuck is wrong with people? I dunno. But the MeFi trainwreck that HawthorneWingo linked to is giving me some ideas as to what do do about it. And it ain't pretty. Gulf State monkeys, stay cool, stay cool. Thoughts be with you and much love.
• monkeyfilter: What the fuck is wrong with people? This makes me sad.
• There are idiots in the world. They exploit the pain and anger of a crisis to push their agenda of hate. They're best left on the curb, with the rest of the trash.
• Fucking hell. I'm going to go out and sacrifice a plump juicy goat to British Columbia for not smoting the crap out of me on a seemingly continuous basis. Hang on tight smotified monkeys! :(
• This is likely better than sitting out on the open highway when the monster hits. If their home isn't concrete and on higher ground at least they have time to find a good public building to take shelter in, they'll be safe. Except that if they had just persevered they'd be here before it hits. As it is they're at their house while the mayor's saying that it's too late to start evacuating. :(
• As for where everyone's staying, my mom just called and said that she heard on the news that 1.2 million people have evacuated to the Ft. Worth/Dallas area, and every hotel is full. My home town (a Ft. Worth suburb) has opened up its little civic center, and Reunion Arena is a shelter again. (Of course, the area already absorbed a couple thousand Katrina refugees, too, so some shelters are still full.) My mom drove home from work at about 8:30 pm, and the main streets of my home town were bumper to bumper, which is weird, but she figured that a lot of Houstonians (and people from the surrounding area) were heading to family in the area. Because of the traffic jam, my friends are staying in Houston, but have promised me that they'll head up to my folks' place if things get Katrina-esque.
• good luck and be safe.
• BBC is reporting that a bus carrying elderly evacuees has burst into flames outside Dallas. Police think up to 20 might be dead. Man oh man.
• Not a good sign of things to come... My heart goes out... .
• Except that if they had just persevered they'd be here before it hits. As it is they're at their house while the mayor's saying that it's too late to start evacuating. :( What's the topology of Houston? It's not a flood-plain is it? Just thinking that maybe there are higher elevations in the city that would be safe for riding out the storm....
• It's not quite "IP Freely," but always amusing when people give fake names to reporters (see pargraph 5) Heywood Jablome made an appearance on the CNN lost & found person board after katrina. Good luck to everyone sticking around or trying to leave. After I heard about the bus on BBC, they had an interview with a guy who was told he had to stay until today to take care of the IT network for his job, and now it's too late to try to evacuate. Fucking management.
• was told he had to stay until today to take care of the IT network for his job It never fails to amaze me that upper-managerial types still cling to "the company first!" in times of crisis. On 9/11 (I worked blocks away from the WTC at the time), my manager tried to force me to stay in the office until I changed the greeting on the phone system! My hands were shaking, I couldn't think straight, yet there was the manager, "you have to change the greeting, what if a client calls and no one answers!?" Meanwhile, buildings were collapsing and the air was noxious. Yeah, like I *really* cared... Take care all of you monkeys who are in the storms path, and please be safe!
• Okay, everyone made it safely, finally. They're saying it's more likely to hit Beaumont/Port Arthur area, but NOAA is still giving a 48% chance for Galvezton. NBC is showing footage from Keman, the little town next door to Seabrook (my hometown). Looks like the surge is starting to swell there, water already coming up over the boardwalk of the local Joe's Crabshack Funland. Should be interesting. Storeybored, Houston's "topography" isn't much to speak of, 50ft or so above sea level and that's pretty much it. There's some sort of flood plain around it, I think they call it a 100 year flood plain but I'm not real sure about where it starts and ends.
• They just said Galveston had 43mph winds.
• God bless you all. It just keeps getting worse, I know. But I suspect it's the way it's always been.
• Looks like it's going to miss those that are close to me. Send your good thoughts to the people in Beaumont, Port Arthur and those in Louisianna.
• I just saw a wind gust blow Shep Smith over (or whatever his name is). That was pretty funny. Now if a Wendy's sign would fall on Geraldo, my life would be complete. J/K, but really, it seems a little silly to watch all those cable news reporters getting rained on and blown about. Yep, it sure does look like a hurricane out there, by golly.
• Good to hear the news, NickD.
• also glad to hear they got out, Nickdanger!
• To find out when it's OK to return to the area, check here. For when it's OK to go home, this site has traffic and gas availability info.
• I was relieved to learn today that my cousin in Beaumont evacuated before the storm, to a friend's home about 200 miles north. Some comments her kids made in the past led me to believe Beaumont was a small town - not so, it seems, at pop. 114,000. Some reports suggest that it will be without power for a month. I hope that's just a cautious first estimate. (Video/audio of the storm & aftermath.)
• It's amazing how our relative scales of damage have changed. Estimates of Rita damage are in the $6-8 billion range and people are viewing it with relief, even though before Katrina this would have been considered a big deal.