Waiting

[mellicious]

OK, well, here's what I just posted over at TUS:

We are safely in Bryan - a pretty long way inland, although they are expecting big winds and power outages here too. (We just made a expedition to Wal-Mart and they told the cashier while we were standing there that the store would be closed tomorrow.) The pictures of Galveston on the news are really scary-looking. The old-timers and the weather experts always say, "It's not the wind, it's the storm surge," and it sounds like that's correct this time.

The traffic was not too awful - nothing like Rita. Also, during Rita people were pretty hysterical even here and the grocery stores were stripped of all the bottled water and all that kind of thing. It's not at all like that this time - everybody in Galveston was really calm and here too, for the most part. (Although I gather that there are some people in Houston getting worked up about whether they OUGHT to be worried or not. Possibly with good reason.) 
 

We got here in less than five hours and we went by a roundabout route and made a couple of stops, so that's not too bad. I suspect that it would have been longer had we gone straight through Houston. (For those of you who know what I'm talking about, we took highway 6 around to 59, took 59 down to Rosenberg, and cut across to Hempstead on some highway I forget the number of - 379 or something like that. Then highway 6 again to Bryan.)

Comments

[peebles.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you guys are safe and dry.

[mslilly.livejournal.com]

Hmm . . . you're the 2nd person we've heard say that hwy 6 wasn't so bad. I'll add that to my brianstorming for next season's escape route.

[mellificent.livejournal.com]

I saw your post that said it took you 5 hours to get to Brookshire and it didn't take us near that long. There really wasn't that much traffic on 6, I don't know why. (I guess it took us about 3 hours to Brookshire, because we left Galveston at 11:30 and I know we were in Rosenberg at 2:00. Of course six is somewhat easier to get to for us, too.)

[mellificent.livejournal.com]

Oh, another thing? If you saw the pictures on the news that they kept showing yesterday, where the traffic was all backed up on the Galveston causeway because there was an 18-wheeler accident? You may have seen us, because we got caught in that. We came in on the tail-end of it, though, so it wasn't all that bad.

[profrobert.livejournal.com]

Glad you are ok -- the most important thing. Now I'll keep a good thought for your house.

[otherwise-nyc.livejournal.com]

Happy to hear you're safe and provisioned. Here's hoping your stuff makes it through just fine, too. What a scary one this is.

I was thinking of you earlier this week, before Ike got fierce, actually -- now that it's almost-fall, and I need a quick project, I'd like to knit up that neckwarmer/scarf we talked about last year, and I can't for the life of me find your links to it. Would something like this work? http://www.loopknits.com/2007/12/11/herringbone-neck-warmer/

Maybe a little narrower? Any other thoughts? The yarn is light-gray cashmere, and I think you'll like it a lot.

[mellificent.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the same sort of thing. Sounds great!

[nonelvis]

I'm glad you guys are okay; hopefully your home will be, too. It really does sound like you did the right thing by evacuating.

[mellificent.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I don't think there's any question that evacuating was the right thing to do. I'm worried about the 20,000 or so people reportedly left in Galveston and who that I know might be among them. (Last I heard my boss' 70-year old father was intending to stay: he said that when the eye came over he was going to get up on the roof and patch it.)

I'm also a bit worried about what all I left in the apartment (ALL my photographs, for one thing - I can't believe I never thought of that one. Many of my mother's quilts, for another.). I don't think this one is going to turn at the last minute and spare us.

[nonelvis]

I'll keep my fingers crossed for your possessions. And the quilts, at least, are washable.