3:30 PM Wednesday in La Porte/ Deer Park/ Pasadena

All routes leading North from Clear Lake and more Southern areas are bumper to bumper.

Scattered stores are closed and boarded up. An example would be Kohl's Department Store. HEB Grocery was surprisingly not crowded but some staples were gone. They are closing at 6 PM and will reopen Sunday depending on conditions. Academy Sports and Outdoors was being boarded as I entered and all of the store closed except for a few possible hurricane items near the front. The rest of the store was roped off and closed. Odds and ends available but they were closing by 6 PM. Mini-flashlights and coolers available and Coleman propane lanterns (but no propane) were the major items available.

Picked up candles at a Everything's-A-Dollar store.

Good supplies to get - peanut butter, bagels, bread, Apples, fruit juice, mosquito repellent, soup, crackers, candy, cookies, and candles.

Filled tank with gas at HEB - 261.9. Only needed 6.7 gallons but that seemed a good price compared to what I expect after the hurricane. Ten minute wait but I had more of a problem with my gas tank being on the passenger's side and not the driver's. Over 80% of vehicles are the other way and I couldn't get in a correct line with the right facing. Damn it, I forgot and left the gas cans at home.

Nephew has gone to Austin with his birth mother - 4 hours to get to Katy.

Watching news - if I lived on the west side of Houston I would be evacuating. Will this extra forty mile distance be enough?

My Red Cross source has gone to stay with a friend who lives by Houston Intercontinental Airport. About 20 miles north of her house in Pasadena just below HWY 225. My brother and family are staying in old house in central - west Houston area. He is off getting supplies.

Only about one in ten homes here are getting boarded up. More businesses are. I guess they saw they couldn't count on help from the authorities to control looting.

Overall the scene is like what I would expect if the hurricane was a day closer. Katrina and the lack of federal response has scared people. A category 4 and 5 hurricane scares people.