Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
In August of 2005 Hurricane Katrina had slammed into the coast of Louisiana and Mississippi. I really don’t need to tell you the destruction and subsequent aftermath of that storm as it is well documented for all to see. We had lived in New Orleans for sixteen years and had moved to Houston five years prior to Katrina so were used to living in hurricane alley. We thought….
September of 2005, a month later, the Houston area was threatened by Hurricane Rita. Rita was the fourth most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded. The paranoia at the thought of it hitting Houston after the devastation of Katrina was intense in the Houston area. The local government started to issue evacuation orders for the coastal area’s three days prior to the forecast landfall date. There were no planned evacuation times or schedules so everyone got on the road as soon as they were packed up. People as far as fifty miles from the coast were evacuating because the local leaders never came out and said who was most at risk.
We work in the Medical Center in Houston and live 39 miles north of there, commuting across Harris County and through downtown Houston. I was ready to go whenever we got released from work but my wife being a nurse would be held longer even though she was not doing actual patient care. I was anxiously monitoring the traffic which was getting worse by the minute while waiting for her, I finally told her we had to leave or we were not getting home at all. Our usual commute on the way home is an hour and a half. This time it took us three hours only because I took every back road and side street I knew of to beat the mad rush on the freeway system which was rapidly turning into a parking lot.
We have several friends that evacuated and spent twenty or more hours stuck on the freeway. They told many tales of woe about their experience’s out there. There were gangs from the inner city traveling up and down the shoulders of the freeways causing hate and discontent. Water and bathrooms were nonexistent. People in recreational vehicles had people knocking on their doors to see if they could use the bathrooms. Every neighborhood off the freeway had people coming in to see if they could get something from the people that lived there. Some areas had sheriff’s deputy’s block the exits from the freeways so that people couldn’t get off and wander through their area’s. One of my friends finally put his pistol on the dash in plain sight just as a warning to people walking up and down the freeway begging for anything they could get.
My wife decided to go to the store and get some odds and ends the day before Rita was to make landfall. She came out of our subdivision and made a left hand turn before realizing the traffic jam that was still on the road. She called me in a panic back home because the road was full of people just sitting in their cars waiting to get out. I told her to go see what she could get and I would guide her home. She went to the Kroger in town and it looked like a store that had been plundered. There wasn’t anything much worth buying left. I guided her home on some back roads and the lesson here is to learn as many routes as you can to your destination. You never know when it might mean sitting on a freeway for 10 or more hours and making it home to get your preparations done.
Hurricane Ike
Fast forward three years to September 2008. Once again the Houston area is under the gun from a major hurricane. This time because of the near miss with Rita officials are taking a less frantic position. The storm is supposed to hit to the west of Houston in a farming region of the gulf coast. The officials do call for the evacuation of just the immediate coastal areas but by all accounts are not worried by a direct hit on the greater metropolitan area.
Getting home was no problem. Many people that went through Rita said “to hell with it” and stayed home thinking we wouldn’t get the worst of the storm and were not going to spend the time sitting in traffic again. The local officials made it abundantly clear that the storm was only going to graze Houston.
We were safe at home when the storm veered north, straight at Galveston Bay. That night it roared ashore and cut thru a wide swath of the area that was supposed to be spared. We lost power in the wee hours of the morning. The next day we woke up to still no power and no water (our water company is on the same circuit as our neighborhood). Fortunately the storm was followed by an unexpected cool front and made for a beautiful day. I won’t go into the damage to our property. I set up my Honda 2000 generator and plugged in the portable television and refrigerator and waited for the power and water to return. About 8 p.m. the power came back on and we were all excited but, it went out two hours later. By the third evening we were wondering when it would come back on. Thank God for being having bought the generator for our small truck camper.
I was getting cabin fever three days into this, and wanted to go up and check on our fifth wheel trailer up at the lake. We knew there were trees down and power was out across the region but decided to run up and see for ourselves. Thankfully there was no damage to our rig. When we got home we went over to the neighbors for shared supper and to socialize. While we were gone that afternoon, a band of men (read thugs) from the subdivision were going around checking to see who had generators. The story went that the power went out the second time because someone had their generator hooked up to their house and when the power came back on it “back fed” through the main lines and killed a power worker. So these guys decide to take it upon themselves and check everyone’s setup. One particular and well prepared, gentleman was the given the wrath of the gang. The sheriff was called and told “he had to go over and disconnect this guy’s generator or we would never get power back”. The poor man was told he should be prepared to “protect” his property.
The power did not come back on for a week. There was no food in the grocery store, if people got power they were not sharing and water was still an issue. Generators were being sold for three and four times their normal price. Gas was still four dollars a gallon if you could get it with the gas stations not having any power and being sold out quickly if they did. Getting gas supplies in took days as the refineries in the area were without power also. The lines for “free” food and water were tremendous. People that didn’t even need it were going to get it. We were prepared and had bottled water and food in the pantry. The cooler than normal weather we had been blessed with helped keep a bad situation from becoming worse. If the normal heat that follows a hurricane had arrived it would have been a different tale for the Houston area. When I finally was able to get to the web I learned that power in my area was going to be out for another week at least. Fortunately, our local Wal-Mart had gotten some larger generators in and we were able to purchase one that is tested bimonthly to be sure it is “up and ready”
The news media was really funny. They would have a story about where you could get something and then at the end say “Check our web site for times and locations”. There were four million people without power, how are you going to check the web site if they even saw the broadcast? The local news was all about the aftermath. We did not get any news beyond our local area and really didn’t think much of it. When we finally got national news we found out that the economy was collapsing. We are now preparing for a different type of disaster….
In hindsight, we are much more prepared now. We have the means to protect our home and are constantly supplied with food and water. The whole experience was very eye opening and we have been preparing for any eventuality ever since. WTSHTF in your everyday life you find out just what your made of. There are tons of things I will do different next time. But don’t under estimate what your “neighbor” will do and stealth is the word in preparedness. They will take what you have and not look back.