Hurricane Rita Houston stories 5

Bonnie's story - David and I decided to wait and see what transpired before either "hunkering down" or rushing off. He kept an eye on the weather info (he's a pilot and, unlike myself, can spell the word "meteorological" without having to resort to a dictionary). I kept abreast of the evacuation route horror stories. When it became pretty clear where landfall was destined to be, we headed in the opposite direction just after noon on Friday (carefully avoiding any evacuation routes). He drove the van, which takes regular gas, and I followed with the diesel.

We took tow ropes and chains in case one of the vehicles had mechanical problems or had trouble finding fuel. (Although we had plenty of fuel to get to Victoria and back, we were concerned about finding fuel once we got back home.)

We drove secondary roads out through Brazoria and on up to Victoria, and I doubt if we saw more than 40 vehicles on the road the entire trip.We topped off where we found the occasional open gas station. Very leisurely drive under gorgeous skies. Residents were just beginning to return to Victoria, which had been one of the first areas to evacuate, and businesses were starting to reopen. We found a nice hotel, but they wanted to put our elderly, skitzy half-feral cat in an air conditioned kennel separate from the hotel. In her carrier. Surrounded by strange barking dogs. No way -- and if they happened by some chance to discover our python...! We could have probably camped on the outskirts of town
somewhere, as we were fully equipped for camping, but decided instead to sit in the Wal-Mart parking lot and nap between storm updates on David's mobile radio. We could see Rita's outer cloud bands in the distance.

Got breakfast at McD's on Saturday morning and drove another leisurely convoy back into Houston. We were home by mid-afternoon. Lots of little stuff to rake up, but no major damage. Our power was out, but we were able to stash perishables in our nearby rent house, which had power. (Our renters also kindly froze a bunch of ice bottles for us.) Several of our neighbors who had either stayed or just returned got together Saturday evening for a barbeque. Chicken and sausage and Omaha steakburgers and sea
scallops and shrimp and salmon steaks and veggies! We spent a rather warm night, but taking the mattress pad off the waterbed made sleeping comfortably cool. Our power came back on around 11:30 Sunday morning.

I had stashed lots of stuff in closets and bathrooms and Sterlite bins -- and my polymer clay in the chest freezer. One thing we found when we returned was that one of our water heaters (located in the attic) needs replacing. If it were not for the storm, we may not have noticed any leakage until it had done some real damage. This was also a great incentive to defrost the chest freezer and clean out the refrigerator! Sooo, we are all happy once again -- and very, very thankful. I'm just beginning to realize how stressed out I've been. Take care, all.