hey everyone... well.. I live 20 miles north of Galveston and landfall is expected between Galveston and Corpus Christi... We are packing bags and leaving in one hour... a backup of all the files of this website and the complete database is in a safe place so if the worst happens.. we will roll back to wednsday the 21st.

Sassysue will be filling in while I am gone.. could be a week.. could be a few days.. The global staff know how to get in touch with me, but Sue will be here to assist in all matters untill my return. As soon as I return, I will ship the 3 new T-Shirt orders I have recieved as well...

yall try to stay out of trouble.. and I will do the same.. got to go.. I am pulling out in about a hour...

good luck!

Good luck! You're in our prayers....

Hey formula90,

I live here in Dallas, so I can feel for what you are going through! If you need a place to stay, email me. I have a spare bedroom or two. (Your ARE taking the 'Bird, aren't you?!? Two of them would look good parked outside my house!)

I hope Rita isn't as bad as Katrina was and at least everyone has enough time (and the sense) to leave before "She" hits!

Best of luck, be safe and our prayers are with you!

1stbird

According to the weather stations, Rita is supposed to be at least as bad as Katrina. Good luck guys! Something tells me that the federal response in texas will be somewhat more immediate than in Louisiana.

So if his post time is accurate I'm hopeing he got far enough out before the traffic slowed him down.

We are hopeing we dont get too much of Rita over here in Baton Rouge

Wind has already picked up and we are having intermittent rain storms
Formie is under her car cover in the car port.

Y'all need to gas up everything you have and please minimize fuel usage cause all the refinerys are now shutdown and gas will be in short supply for a week or two. So a Gas can or two and fill them all up!

Jon, are you back yet? Sounds like your area pretty much lucked out, except for the fires.

Charlie, how did you make out? I heard something like 9 inches of rain in Baton Rouge?

Just thought I'd let everyone know that I talked to Formula90. He's safe and sound and will be back here hopefully in a couple of days again.

We did ok
Thanks

The road at the front of our subdivision flooded to the point only pickup trucks could get in and out but none of the houses on our street got any water in them.
My work made us work a 24hour shift so "B" shift wouldnt have to come in during the worst of it but it was a mistake. Friday evening was ok - saturday morning had the rain and high winds.
By monday morning the water was gone.

I hope the remanents that went up north didnt do too much damage to y'all.

Good to hear that you made it thru safe and sound too Formyla and that the only water that ending up standing around was on your road and not in your house. Sucks to hear that you had to work a 24 hour shift though.

As for the rain, the rain that ended up by me wasn't too bad. We got 2 1/2 inches out of the remnants but we ended up with thunder and lightening with it.

I hope that everyone else who had to ride out both Katrina and Rita are ok and that you didn't suffer any damage or if you did that it was minor.

One of my good friends Mom and Dad went home yesterday. They used to live in St. Bernard Parish. Their son Eddies family has 29 people staying with him now. Five familys that lost everything.

MSNBC was there and did a short story.

Here is a Link to the MSNBC video page. Type Dazed in the search box

You will get an advertizement first of course
Caution: Do not click to make it full size or you will have to "control alt delete" to get out

It is real sad and we were so lucky.
There are lots of people who did not live in N.O. that had lots of damage.

yes sir... just like the mayor of Galveston said... "we really did dodge the bullet this time"

I am back also.. I went to my Mothers house in Pearland which was not in the storm surge chart but was mandatory evacuation though...

that thing just turned north north west at the last minute man.. they usually do.. feel really bad for the folks in port Auther and further east up the coast... they caught the dirty side of the storm and they have taken great damage from wind, surge, and rain...

in Galveston.. I am going back to work tommorrow to help clean up.. we lost all the boat slips, and the first floor was flooded.. got some good wind there on the west end....

what gets me is.. there were more fatalities involved in evacuating the city of galveston and Houston, than there were in the Hurricane itself.. They evacuated an old folks home here and since the traffic was "ABSURD" getting out.. turns out the brake pads overheated on the bus and caused a fire.. in turn catching some oxygen bags onfire thus feeding the fire to eventually engulfing the bus in flames killing nearly everyone... also.. a few people died from heat exhaustion on 45 North..

traffic slowed so bad that a 4 to 5 hour trip out of houston turned into 24 hours.. we actually ended up turning all south bound lanes into north bound lanes.. "contra flow".. 12 lanes of cars sitting still with brake lights illuminated at 4 in the morning.. wow... cars were stalled out.. out of gas.. , overheated from the 102 degree day we had that day... and all the gas stations were bone dry.... some people were actually pushing their cars in neutral to save on gas...

the thing is.. people were not going to take any chances.. after Katrina.. people that did not have to evacuate... did.. 2.5 million estimated in all in a few days...

IT WAS CRAZY

I live in Clearlake City.. which is right by the bay.. right by Kemah then Galveston Bay... I live in a storm surge area.. so.. before we left... I brought all things I could upstairs.. and everything i couldnt.. I made sure there was at least 18 inches of clearance off the carpet to allow for flooding... taped the windows up.. No lumber available... took all our food, 2 weeks of clothes.. and headed north to Pearland and "hunkered down" and watched the TV untill power allowed..

went outside at around 3 in the morning and all the trees were blowing side ways.. shingles from the gusts were coming off the roof.... some branches snapped... Mother nature is something else....

and talk about ghost towns.. everyone was gone... highways were empty.. only thing we saw was police... I was going 20 over in a 45.. "speedtrap" looking for an open store and got pulled over... cop said to slow down and go home.. he didnt even get out of his car.. he just rolled the window down as he rolled past me and I said yes sir..

All the toll roads were free.. found a gas station with no gas of course that was still opened.. he had everything in there half off, including tabacco and alcohol.. guess he was trying to move all his stuff...

I was real lucky to find gas a coupla days before landfall... I topped her off, and I filled the gas can as well.... I swear to god.. after that.. i saw plastic bags on EVERY PUMP IN THE TRI-COUNTY AREA!!

ya know.. McDonalds just now opened today... and Diamond Shamrock will begin there 24 hour schedule tommorrow morning.. still half the homes and businesses still are boarded up.... I am real gratefull... where i live.. it might go back to normal... but for others it wont... We becasue of Rita, have actually got in a nice habit of praying before we eat.. in public... praying for the others that were not as fortunate.. I just dont know why things turn out the way they do.. just cant really see the logic.. this could have wiped us off the face of the earth.. but it didnt this time...

my prayers are with the ones that it really did effect.. and i am not talking about a long trip down the highway.. or a empty tank of gas.. I am talkoing about the ones that have lost EVERYTHING... including life...

good to hear you're alright, still sad though for all the people who aren't. I heard about the bus fire and that is really sad.

WOW Charlie, I can't imagine having that many people in one house but it's good to hear that at least they had/have someplace to go. Hopefully it won't take them long to get back on their feet again.


Jon, I watched what you all were going through the night that Rita hit. I watched it not only on TV but here on the net as well while keeping an eye on things here. I can't even imagine what you and everyone else went through cause just watching it from here was scaring the crap out of me. I don't think I've said more prayers or prayed harder that night hoping that you and the rest of my friends like Charlie and others I know who live down that way would make it through safe and sound and with everything you and they own being safe too.

I also say a prayer each night before I go to sleep for those who lost everything - not just personal things or property - but mainly for those whose lives will never be the same because they've lost someone they loved. I pray that they have the courage, strength and the faith to keep going and to make it out the other side of this ok.


BTW Jon - glad to see you back. This place wasn't the same without you.

Is there anything you need?

I havent herd from my uncle who lives in Port Arthur yet

I'll say an extra prayer that you hear from your Uncle soon Charlie. Hopefully it's just cause of the power and phone lines being down that he hasn't gotten in touch.

Ok got in touch with him - they are fine, house is ok, lost two trees but no power so wont begoing home yet.

That's great that you got ahold of him and that him and his family are ok.