Operation Chaos

I awoke this morning to find Hurricane Ike headed straight for Houston, expected to make landfall overnight on Friday. In the last 5 hours, organized chaos has broken out around the city as this is the 3rd storm this summer that has threatened the Houston area. With about 24 hours until the first squal lines start to hit the area, many people are battening down the hatches & going through the now-familiar drill.

People are closing their businesses, wiping out all the grocery stores, packing up their homes & heading out of town. Our boss just gave us the "secure the work site" lecture & told us to take care of whatever other personal items that needed attention. Evacuations have been ordered all along the coast and the roads are starting to get congested.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, there was a massive, disastrous evacuation ahead of Hurricane Rita a few years back. I hope that history doesn't repeat itself with people stuck on freeways for over 18 hours and needless frustrations at a totally unorganized pandemonium.

Hopefully, everybody will prepare today & sit around with nothing to do tomorrow. I'm not really concerned about the storm, wind, rain, flying debris or weather itself. It's the possibility of days in the hot, humid Texas weather without electricity. No air conditioning, no cold drinks, no fans, no relief. Although Hurricane Rita didn't cause much damage here, the loss of electricity was miserable.

I think the Eagles concert tonight will be cancelled, my 10 year high school reunion tomorrow night is already cancelled, and I'm hoping that my flight Saturday night to Canada isn't cancelled. I'm hopefully going to enjoy tomorrow off at home, catching up with my husband before being gone a week, finishing my book, getting some blog posts lined up and watching our movie.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: I think we're ready for the hurricane with supplies, I'll be hopefully in Canada even if the power goes out & H (and Zoe) can go swimming in mom's pool to cool off.