My Hurricane Rita Blog
by Donald Ray Burger
Attorney at Law

Note: I will use this page to update what is happening to us in Houston. Phone service is already erratic. If you can't get through, don't worry. Circuits have been busy since Wednesday. Read the latest here.

Saturday, September 24, 2005:

7:00 am (last entry in blog):
I just returned from checking around the house. We did not lose electricity. Or water. No broken windows. The wind was pretty loud, but the rain was pretty light. According to the three rain gauges I placed around the yard, we got eight-tenths of an inch of rain.

It is still raining, but not very hard. I have spied some shingles around the yard, but I don't know if they are from my roof. Several plant pots tipped over. But, all-in-all, we definitely dodged a bullet. Thanks to everyone who emailed and called in their concerns. Your thoughts were appreciated.

02:45 am:
The wind woke me up. Rain is still pretty light. No street flooding. And, of course, we still have electricity. The wind varies in intensity. At times it is really calm, and at times it seems fairly fierce. As I type this entry, I can hear stuff blowing into the front of the house. It wouldn't take all that much to break a window glass. But, so far, no problems. It is weird when a window vibrates from the wind. Not a pleasant sound.

I'm not sure if I'm going back to bed, or if I'm staying up and reading. The TV coverage is fairly repetitive at this point. Looks like we have a few more hours of wind. No tornadoes on our side yet. Keep your fingers crossed.

Friday, September 23, 2005:

11:10 pm:
I'm going to bed. I figure, if anything happens in Houston, it will happen between 4 am and 7 am. I should wake up. Nothing has happened until now. I took Sarah for a walk, then I took Cody for a walk. I wore my outback hat, with stampede strings. Didn't need them. The streets are still dry under the trees. We still have a light rain/mist falling. A few gusts. That's it. I am making a fresh pot of coffee, just in case we lose power overnight. But that is the end of the preparations. If I wake up, I'll add another post. Otherwise, see you in the morning.

9:15 pm:
Nothing to report within the last two hours. Winds are around twenty mph. That is the case throughout Houston, as per Channel 11. It sprinkles, from time to time, but no serious rain. We heard that the only neighbors to leave spent eighteen hours getting to San Antonio. Normally, that trip takes three hours. Ugh. Several neighbors have been by to swap DVDs, so we all have something new to watch, if we aren't watching the weather.

We just learned that there are power outages in parts of Dickinson. No serious power problems in Houston, so far. All flashlights are armed and spread throughout he house.

We just finished supper. I advised everyone to take a shower tonight, just in case we lose water. Nothing else is happening. I am posting this entry just to keep in practice. All is well.

7:15 pm:
We had a little rain around 7pm. It barely wet the strets. I have three rain gauges out. Winds are gusting, but not too badly. It is dark out, and it is early for darkness to hit. I've filled both bathtubs, and all our five gallon containers of water. We have 25 gallons in the five gallon containers, and lots of water in tupperware, etc. Obviously, we still have electricity.

As of the 7 pm coordinates, the center of Rita will land east of Galveston. It is not clear yet whether we will experience hurricane force winds. Channel 11 is reporting that Galveston has already lost electricity along the Seawall.

Everyone here, dogs included, is fine. Stay tuned.

1:30 pm:
Not much is happening here. All the outside stuff is in, including the garden railroad buildings. We fixed both frozen pizzas and are just waiting for Rita to make up her mind. She is still headed for Galveston and the weather people are still projecting she will turn north and miss us. She is moving at 10 mph and is 190 miles away. That would mean the center would hit shore in nineteen hours. It could easily be twenty-four hours before the eye passes Houston. This doesn't fit in with what the news media is saying. They are saying landfall during the night. The math doesn't add up.

Otherwise, everyone is calm. Breezes have picked up a little, but there is no significant weather yet. More later.

10:30 am:
The morning has been cool outside. There is a slight breeze. No effects from Rita yet, weather-wise. We have moved the 4 and 6 mil plastic inside, along with box cutters, brooms for broken glass, dust pans, hammers (to finish breaking out windows), and water containers.

The big discussion so far has been whether to have hot pizza for lunch or to wait till supper, and chance that we still have electricity. Lunch won. I smoked two chickens last night, and that will probably be supper.

I am going outside in a moment to do my "Plants in Bloom for September" report, before the expected 60 mph winds blow the blooms away. All outside stuff we thought could blow around is in the garage, except the garden railroad buildings. I will move them in shortly.

Both Sarah and Cody are doing fine. Will is still asleep. The 10 am report on Rita is still reassuring. It seems that the storm will mostly miss us. Rita is also weakening. It is barely a Category Four storm now. The eye is not well defined. These are all good signs.

We just heard that a levy in New Orleans broke again. The newscasters are showing rain already hitting that city. We are still dry here in Houston. Stay tuned.

6:00 am:
I awoke at 5 am. The radio was optimistic. The 4 am coordinates for Hurricane Rita were 26.8 N and 91 W, with a direction of northwest. Speed was 9 mph. That still puts Rita on a track to hit at Sabine Pass, well to the east of Galveston (and Houston). Last night, Channel 11 said we would know for sure by this morning. Now, they are saying to stay tuned until this afternoon. Still, I am optimistic. I have fed Sarah and Cody and let both of them out in the back. I have the coffee primed to brew, and I am about to head out for my morning ride. More to come.

Thursday, September 22, 2005:

10:00 pm:
The news continues to be that the storm will hit east of Houston. That puts us on the dry side. That means we will face high winds, but no rain. And the hurricane is weakining, so the winds will be less that predicted earlier. They are saying that we should know for sure in the morning. Stay tuned for that.

My friend Lupita traveled from her apartment to her brother's house in Kingwood. That is normally a 45 minute drive. Today it took five hours. Ugh. Another friend, who headed for Laredo, left at 5:30 am and was still thirty minutes out at 7:30 pm. That's fourteen hours for a trip that normally takes five and a half hours.

We are dog sitting for John and Nadine. Cody and Sarah are getting along, and both were eager for their evening walk. If it's true that animals can sense upcoming disaster, these dogs don't seem upset. In fact, Cody was walking faster than he had all day. And he had been active the whole day long. Both dogs are waiting for me upstairs.

As of tonight, only one family decided to leave the neighborhood. Everyone else is sheltering in place. Tomorrow night may be a long one, so I am headed for bed. I think I will sleep well, because everything still indicates we will miss the big one.

2:15 pm:
I called Cynthia, my paralegal. She left Houston last night, using backroads I have talked about on my motorcycle blog. It worked out beautifully. She made it to Temple, Texas, without serious delay. And her daughter is enjoying all the disaster tools and equipment Cynthia and I got for her on Wednesday, before they left. It is good to know they are both safe, regardless of which way Rita goes. I am about to head out on my daily motorcycle ride. To read my motorcycle blog, click here.

1:45 pm:
Ron and Will returned. They barely made it to Highway 146. Traffic on I-10 was at a crawl. Six hours to go forty miles. They gave up and returned.

Maria and I have been removing yard art from the trees and fences. Slow work.

Noon:
At ll am I was in my car, headed for a lumber yard to buy 6 mil plastic to cover my office furniture. I am blessed with an office with windows. However, this is a mixed blessing in a hurricane. Anyway, the lumber yard was open, and had the plastic. $75 for a twenty by one hundred foot roll. And well worth it. It made draping the desks and credenza fairly easy.

More to the point, the radio reported the first hint that Rita may entirely miss Houston. It continues to turn to the north. Louisiana now is in its path. We would be on the dry side. At least under this one scenario. One that seems plausible to me.

We finished wrapping my office, and on the way home the "officials" were saying that we should not be feeling confident yet. "Yet" is the operative word. Of course, a hurricane often changes directions. But such turns are determined by meterological factors. Hurricanes are not alive, with minds of their own. I have not yet performed my own weather analysis of the full effect of the shifting high that is accounting for this turn. But things look better than they did this morning.

Also, Nadine dropped Cody off to stay with us. Cody is a twelve year old golden retriever. He and Sarah have been deciding who will rule the roost. So far, Sarah is winning.

8:00 am:
Ron and Will headed for Louisiana to pick up a generator Ron had loaned out during Katrina. They left at 5:45 am, heading east on I-10. Ron called about 6:30 am to say traffic was bad. Haven't heard since. We took Sarah for her regular morning walk. We are now finishing breakfast and heading for my office to waterproof things. Channel 11 is reporting that the highest wind expected in the inner city is 90 mph, and that is with Galveston taking a direct hit. Please see my other hurricane pages, especially the section called Observations about Hurricanes for my editorial opinions. More later.

Copyright © 2005 Donald Ray Burger. All Rights Reserved.