[Corpora-List] News from Houston re Ike

[Linda Bawcom]

Dear friends, collegues, and list members,

Please do forgive my use of the list to connect  with everyone who has been sending me e-mails and asking how things are going with me here in Houston. Thank you for your kind wishes and prayers.  

Just as an update,  the  costal areas had mandatory evacuation yesterday and some of low lying Harris county areas (Houston's). It looks like Galveston is going take a direct hit from what will be a category 2  and then, if we go to the Channel 2 url we can actually track it practically by street. It was going to come right up Clay Street (we're between Clay and Tanner). Then we had a sigh of relief as it as it looked like it would go right up I45 east of us-about 20-25 miles. Then our hopes were dashed as yesterday evening  when we saw that it was going to go right through the middle of Houston (but at least not about 4 blocks away). They have estimated that the winds will reach a max. of 90 miles an hour perhaps sustained for  as many as 12 hours and of course we can't forget the rain. It sounds grim I know,  but we live a good 40-50 miles from Galveston on the Northwest side of town which fortunately is surrounded by watersheds and is fairly
 high. By time it hits us around 3 or 4 a.m. on Saturday it will probably just be a very bad tropical storm with winds around 66-80 miles an hour. No mandatory evacuation has been called for for us. Of course the joke in Houston is that if someone excitedly says "but we're going to haveraind and  winds up to 60 or 70 miles an hour" and the other person answers "and your point is?" We are rather used to very bad rain storms-deluges sometimes really. Although admittedly, I am a bit concerned about the wind.

Everyone has taken precautions however. Our gated community has left the gates open in case the electricity goes out (on the optimatic note of us being able to actually drive anywhere). A few houses and places are boarded but the vast majority are not. People have filled up their gas tanks (the evidence being that a lot of filling stations are out of gas)-not to evacuate but just to make sure they have enough for a few days after the storm. People did a lot of shopping yesterday.  I noticed the beer and potato chips had run out (darn it!)-no doubt for the hurricane parties! Obviously, all the canned foods were low, but still in all they must have gotten a lot of deliveries last night because we went shopping today and most things (except milk, batteries, water, and bread) were available. Everything is now  seemed to be closed (at 3:00 p.m.). 

My husband has put batteries in our flashlights and lights for reading and our little battery operated fan and our radio. We've ice to fill our ice chests and plenty of water. (We'll fill up the bathtubs tonight)  We went out today and brought in everything that could be a possible projectile (including our old mailbox where the wood has rotted so much it's just sitting on it). Anway, we'll probably stay in our bedroom which has storm windows. 

Yesterday I taught my one morning class at the community college and left immediately due to not wanting to get tangled up in traffic with people fleeing Galveston. I felt sorry for my ESL students, some of  whom have only been here a few months, especially because some news stations hype this so much that if you continue listening throughout their 24 hour coverage you can easily panic. So I just went over what they should do and where they could go and made sure they all had some place safe to stay. 

Right now it's a bit windy sometimes and cloudy here although the storm surge has already begun on the coast and water is already up to the door ways and in some places where the homes are on kind of stilts the water is quite a ways up.  

And that about it for now. I'm sure we'll be just fine. Just think of it as a "snow day"!

Kindest regards,
Linda
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