Tales of Rita I

Drivers stranded on I-10

I have just two pieces of advice for anyone who has to
flee a large metropolitan area in the face of a
Category 5 hurricane: Be sure you have a Magellan
RoadMate and a Japanese car. Let me explain.

My 14-year-old son, Sam, and I left Houston at 10:30
Thursday morning with our golden retriever, headed for
my parents' condo in San Antonio. This is normally a
three-hour drive. My neighbor, offering to share his
hotel room at the Hilton downtown, warned me not to
go-"It's anarchy out there," he said-but by then I was
packed and was being drawn out of town by
progressively more anxious calls from my parents and
my boss. My husband, a newspaperman, had to stay. He
kissed us goodbye like someone forced to stay in
Atlanta as Sherman approached.

I was not particularly worried about Rita. I grew up
with hurricanes, starting with Carla in 1962, and
spent Alicia, in the early '80s, calmly babysitting my
friend's cats while the wind howled around us. In
anticipation, I stocked the house with canned goods,
flashlights, and batteries; got cash from the ATM; and
filled up the car day before yesterday-go or stay, I
was as ready as a Girl Scout trying to win her
preparedness patch. I thought I even had a good
alternate route out of town: I was going to go south
and then head west on 90A, a back road I'd taken a few
times before to San Antonio. If the phrase "going
south" strikes you as somewhat ominous, please note
that I have been living in Hurricane Central for the
last few weeks, and was gripped by serious denial

And so, Sam, Chuy, and I drove toward the coast, out
Main Street and on to 90A, where there was, indeed, no
traffic. At all. Somewhat further on we sped past a
beat-up scarlet Nissan with the words "Rita, go away
bitch" spray-painted on the back window. Fifteen
minutes later, we hit gridlock. To the right of me was
a family that had three kids and a bright cockatoo
flittering out of its cage. Behind me was an Asian
couple who took no solace from the smiling, happy
Buddha on the dashboard of their pickup. In front of
me, as far as the eye could see, were cars, bumper to
bumper. "I think there's a wreck up there," a driver
with binoculars told me hopefully. Meanwhile, the
radio DJs kept using the word "catastrophic" and
talking about "the cone of uncertainty"-that area
where the storm might or might not hit, which included
the exact point at which we were stuck. I had the air
conditioner on-at the lowest setting, mixed with
outdoor air, which by then was already 100 degrees. My
son and I were both the color of tomatoes, and the
dog's panting was starting to sound like coronary
disease.

We sat there for two hours, during which time we moved
exactly three-tenths of a mile by my speedometer's
reckoning. I kept checking the gauges on my 9-year-old
Honda Accord's dashboard-so far, all was well. I had
about three-quarters of a tank of gas-I'd run a few
errands on Wednesday, but the car wasn't overheating.
I figured I needed only a half-tank to get home to San
Antonio, and we had about 48 hours until Rita came
ashore. Still, at the rate we were moving, the odds
weren't good. I turned off 90A the first chance I got.

We were somewhere near the suburb of Missouri City in
what was most definitely a mandatory evacuation area.
We spent the next hour or so heading north again, past
oversized tract homes that, if past experience was any
indication, might not be there when we returned. Every
gas station we passed either had long lines in front
of it or bright yellow plastic ribbons tied over the
tank handles, indicating they were out.

I remained calm, and couldn't figure out why, since
it's not my normal state. Then I realized I wasn't
calm-that this quiet focus was what it felt like to be
terrified. I had visions of riding out the storm in
Southwest Houston-a part of town I avoid on the best
days-while the water rose up around the Accord, the
dog whimpering as Sam and I huddled together, waiting
for the end in a Ross Dress for Less parking lot. I
thought about turning back home, too, but I kept
worrying about the pine tree in our backyard crashing
through the roof. I wondered, briefly, how long our
neighbors would realistically let us stay at the
Hilton, and how long the Hilton would realistically
let us all stay. (During Alicia, the hotels pushed
everyone out once the power went off.) Then I thought
of my parents' condo, with computers, clean beds, and
air conditioning. I pushed on, toward I-10, despite
increasingly alarming reports on the radio about
people running out of gas and further blocking the
highway, where many drivers had already been stranded
since the night before. "Better start rationing those
Doritos," I told Sam, who had already gone through one
bag and three Capri Suns with electrolytes, while the
dog had already drunk two bottles of Ozarka.

It took about three hours heading dead west on
side-streets before I reached the approach to I-10. It
was utterly jammed. Then I remembered my husband's
Christmas present to me last year-a GPS device called
the Magellan RoadMate. That may not sound like the
most romantic gift, but I spend a lot of time in the
car, and a lot of that time on strange roads on the
verge of being very, very lost. "Turn on the
RoadMate," I said to my son.

The RoadMate displays a map so detailed that even the
most directionally challenged can find their way to
their destination. I decided to skip the freeway and
let the RoadMate guide me. At 1:23 the radio brought
news that the first rain bands had reached the coast.

By then we were on a series of farm roads, driving
about 50 mph toward San Antonio, tacking first west,
then northwest, then west again, according to the
computer on my dash. I knew most of the towns, with
their wonderful German and Central European
names-Waelder, Wiemer, Schulenberg, New Ulm-but had
forgotten how pretty and pastoral they are, racing
around Texas on the interstates as I do. While the
radio was predicting Armageddon, we drove past gnarled
live oaks and sable herds of cattle, crossed the
Brazos near Columbus, and veered past
turn-of-the-century homes that were still waiting for
gays and yuppies from the city to take them over. We
pulled into a general store called "Po Boys Gas." It,
too, was out of gas, and mobbed by desperate
Houstonians in search of homemade sandwiches (there
were none) and bottled water (supplies were
dwindling). "Oh, I forgot to tell you," Sam said, when
we were further down the road, "The lady back there
told me I-10 is open on both sides now."

We used the navigator to tack south-past a house
inexplicably decorated with four knights in shining
armor out front-and got to the interstate, where,
indeed, traffic was now moving at 60 mph on four
lanes, all of them headed west. There were families
picnicking at underpasses, and cars broken down along
the road-clearly out of gas-but the traffic moved, so
we stayed on until my boss called to tell me that I
should get off the highway because it was going to
bottleneck in Seguin, where the four lanes went down
to two again. We had lost the radio by then, and so
were blissfully free of horrifying news.

A few miles later we turned off the AC-I was down to a
quarter of a tank, probably enough to get to San
Antonio but I wasn't taking chances. We rolled down
all the windows, and soon, the car filled up with
glistening gold hairs floating in the air-my dog
shedding in the breeze.

We cut south. It was close to 6 p.m., the sun was
starting to set, a bright orange ball with the kind of
rays you see in children's paintings, filtered through
the beginnings of the fluffy cumulus clouds that
signal storms on the way. Even this far west, people
had boarded up windows of their homes-no one here
needs a DJ to tell them hurricanes can change
direction overnight. We finally pulled into a gas
station that had lines but also gasoline, filled the
tank, and, air cooled again, tacked northwest for the
30 or so miles toward my parents' place. We had been
on the road for nine hours. Near Seguin I passed a
high school jammed with people and bright yellow buses
and assumed it was a shelter. Then I looked again:
Crowds had collected on small bleachers, and there
were kids in pads and uniforms on the field. I had
forgotten: This was Texas. They were just playing
football.


Mimi Swartz is an executive editor at Texas Monthly