TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Gulf Coast Emerges From Battering by Rita

Re: Gulf Coast Emerges From Battering by Rita

Neal McLain (nmclain@annsgarden.com)
Mon, 26 Sep 2005 09:29:43 -0400

Julia Silverman <ap@telecom-digest.org>, in a long article most of
which is snipped here, wrote:

> By JULIA SILVERMAN, Associated Press Writer

> John Willy, the top elected official in Brazoria County,
> southwest of Houston, said he would ignore the state's
> staggered return plan.

> "I am not going to wait for our neighbors to the north to get
> home and take a nap, before I ask our good people to come
> home," he said in a statement. "Our people are tired of the
> state's plan! They have a plan too and it's real simple. They
> plan to come home when they want."

I live in Brazoria County. We returned home yesterday after riding
out the storm at our daughter's place in northwest Houston. The
damage here was minimal -- lots of tree branches on the ground, and
some of my wife's flowering plants were blown over, but there was no
structural damage. Judging from the status of the digital clocks,
there had been a brief power outage. I had boarded up the windows,
but that was probably unnecessary.

The storm had little effect in northwest Houston either. At our
daughter's place, the power (Reliant) and cable TV/internet (Time
Warner) never went out. We all slept through landfall (even my
daughter's fiance, who wanted to watch it on TV, but fell asleep
on the couch).

The worst part of the whole experience was trying to follow the
state's official evacuation plan -- in our case, go to Brenham, Texas.
After a five-hour bumper-to-bumper crawl along SH-36 in 100-degree
weather, we abandoned the attempt, split off on a side road, and went
to Houston. Which, in retrospect, is what we should have done in the
first place.

I blogged the entire experience:
http://www.survivingrita.blogspot.com/

Neal McLain

[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: We are all glad to hear that you are
safe and sound, Neal. PAT]

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