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<p>If they’re sustained 55 MPH, you’ll be awake. I guarantee.</p>
<p>No big deal. Slept through the whole thing. I didn’t see any damage reports on the local paper this morning so I assume it wasn’t a big deal.</p>
<p>I still don’t like Ike!</p>
<p>The closer the forecast gets it to me, the less I like him, too!</p>
<p>I worry if people in New Orleans (if it comes down to another evacuation) will take it less seriously b/c of Gustav.Is that what they call “hurricane fatigue”?</p>
<p>The pictures they are showing from Haiti/Turks and Caicos/ and Cuba are frightening.</p>
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<p>Lol! We sent S2 to California to college, and earthquakes seem a lot scarier to me than hurricanes! At least when a hurricane is coming, you can get out of the way. Keep in mind that even though it probably seems like the same places are getting it time and again, that’s not the case. I live in the Greater Houston area, and the last hurricane that hit here was Alicia (cat 3) in 1983. That’s been 25 years. Yes, there are threats lots of times, and sometimes a tropical storm will come through, but those aren’t generally dangerous, they just make a big mess of everything.</p>
<p>I definitely have “hurricane fatigue” this year. First they had us worrying about Dolly (it headed down to south Texas), then Eduouard (don’t remember exactly where it came in, but it just fizzled into nothing), then Gustav (did some significant damage in La., but wasn’t the “killer storm” that was predicted). So now, I am watching the news about Ike and thinking, “oh, bother”. I think it’s going to go in a good bit south of here, no matter what they say. Call it denial if you want; it’s my position and I’m sticking with it! I don’t want to tie everything down again and go to all of that trouble, so I think I’m going to be in denial at least until Wednesday…and maybe by then it will turn and I won’t have to do anything. :)</p>
<p>You are right about the concerns for those in NOLA and S. La., cathymee. Think about if you had evacuated by bus 2 weeks ago, stayed in a shelter for several days, and had just gotten home. You would not want to do it again. I am sure lots of those people would not leave, so I hope it doesn’t go that direction.</p>
<p>well, I live in the Midwest, after having grown up in Houston, and this summer’s hurricane season has impacted me more than any when I lived in Houston.</p>
<p>At the end of July, after many, many changes in reservations, reroutings, and chaos, I made it down to the Rio Grande Valley for my aunt’s 90th birthday party, which was planned for the Saturday after Dolly. Had to fly into Corpus and rent a car. Just as I pulled out of the airport and hit the road to drive down to the valley, I got a call that the party was cancelled because the facility they were to have the party at had no power. Talked to my aunt and she told me to come on down anyway, which I did, and we did have a small gathering (about 30 who were already in the area), but another 30 or so did not come. It was a mess, but I had an A/Ced place to sleep and that’s all I cared about.</p>
<p>So now, my cousins (the daughters of my aunt) were planning on coming up my way for a visit in a couple of weeks, as part of a long road trip to see several family members throughout the country. I bought tickets to a Broadway show here in Chicago, and bought tickets to the last Sox game of the regular season. With Ike now, they don’t know what they’re going to do as they don’t want to leave the Rio Grande Valley until they know their mom (and other family members) are safe and won’t be impacted by Ike. I don’t know if they’ll be able to retime their trip to make it here for the days I have tickets. Ugh! I did better off with hurricanes when I lived down there.</p>
<p>Terwtt, that is to darn bad. I lived in the valley and we had to evacuate a few times but mostly had flooding because of the resacas in Brownsville. One time I remember fish literally swimming across the top of the road that separated two streams! Another time when I was able to float my car down the road with the help of a few policeman…Let’s hope it moves in over farmland…</p>
<p>There were some areas pretty badly flooded in July and I know they had only managed to pick about 60% of the cotton crop before Dolly. We took a drive over to Pt. Mansfield (my relatives have a fishing cabin there), so we got a good look at the flooding throughout the area. The levees were doing their jobs, but it meant some roads were impassable (even the ones with bridges). I suspect it has mostly dried out by now, but I doubt all the repairs have been made buildings. I’d say, from what I saw, one out of every two or three homes had roof damage.</p>
<p>Ike is now a category 2 hurricane and expected to strengthen further in the next 24 hours.</p>
<p>Good thoughts headed to those in Ike’s path… Saw on TV someone using their bare foot, pushing inches and inches of sludge out of their front door in Haiti.</p>
<p>Aaaargh! The other day I said I had decided to ignore Ike. Now it’s looking like it will come in SW of Houston and they are projecting 75-100 mph winds at my house. =:-0 </p>
<p>And, because the track has been changing so much, there have not been extensive evacuations like in previous storms-that-didn’t-come-here. They have not even evacuated Galveston Island! So that means that tomorrow, the roads out of here will be packed. </p>
<p>I thought of heading to my mom’s, west of San Antonio, but all of Corpus Christi has evacuated to San Antonio, so I think that would be a bad idea. Based on our experience with the hurricane Rita evacuation, we know that the gas stations will sell out of gas. I know it’s not likely we will get hurt or anything, but for one thing it will be really scary and for another thing the power will probably go down and that means no a/c and it’s 95 degrees here! AND, with no power I can’t go online.</p>
<p>I just though of something…what if my wireless internet dish gets blown away??? This is bad!</p>
<p>ooooh, timely. Make sure and keep us updated on how things go. Maybe you should start off in the middle of the night (less traffic, or won’t it matter?) We’ll keep our fingers crossed that you (and especially that wireless internet dish) are ok!</p>
<p>timely - My family is boarding up their home and business in Victoria, prepping and storing their sailboat and coming here to Houston to stay with us, rather than try to drive inland. The roads are a nightmare toward SATX. </p>
<p>This storm is a big 'un…tropical storm force winds across a 400 mile area, so yes it will likely be a bit breezy here, but I think it’s better than getting stuck on the roads. I just hope my husband gets in from Wyoming before they close the airports. He was planning to fly Saturday, and then moved the flight to Friday afternoon…and now is trying find Thursday p.m. flights. I have a couple of big glass doors that won’t take TS force winds, so we’ll have to board them up just in case. And I am NOT that handy! ;)</p>
<p>overseas - Where in the Valley? I grew up there! Born in Mercedes, raised in Mission. Parents are from La Feria and Mercedes. Family still in Weslaco, Harlingen and San Benito. I remember a few tough storms down there myself!</p>
<p>Last June when I was in Houston for my high school reunion, my brother was telling me he was thinking about getting a new car. He and my oldest brother just bought a new bay boat this past spring and keep it at Matagorda Bay. So the one brother wants to get a car with towing capacity in case the other brother (who already has an SUV with a hitch) is ever out-of-town when a storm comes through, and they need to evacuate the boat inland. I told my brother, it sounds kind of silly to get a car with towing capacity just for an ‘in-case’ event, that if he really needed to tow the boat when the other brother wasn’t around, he could just rent something. I’ll bet they’re on their way to Matagorda right now.</p>
<p>ldmom - one of my friends here is heading to San Antonio tomorrow with her high school senior to look at Trinity. I told her to have all kinds of back-up plans available as a storm in one part of the state can impact other parts of the state in regards to accommodations, airports, etc. Do you think if they’re going to SA tomorrow, that they might have any problems? Is it possible all the hotels oversold and their reservation might not be honored?</p>
<p>I have quite a bit of family still left in the valley. (My mom and dad got married in Brownsville when he was stationed there.) Some of them lived in Donna; now I have cousins in San Benito (the one who’s coming here in a couple of weeks), McAllen, and my aunt in Harlingen. Two of my cousins are kind of institutions in education down there, have been teaching forever (but have now retired).</p>
<p>hey teri - I think SA will be safer as far as winds go…but they tend to flashflood. My mil returns from visiting family in France on Monday and my fil had planned to drive from SA to Houston this weekend to pick her up at the airport. But he has decided to stay put because he is worried about the flooding aspect. If your friends make the Trinity visit, they need to speak with their hotel and make sure their reservation will be honored. My mom tells me I-37 from Corpus Christi into SA is packed, as is or will be SH 87 from Victoria to SA. That’s why they are going to go up 59 to Houston instead. Unfortunately, San Antonio is the first big destination for people evacuating most of coastal South Texas…Valley, CC, Victoria… makes for a lot of people trying to be in the same place at the same time.</p>
<p>As far as that boat at Matagorda…I hope your brother is retrieving it. I think Matagorda is going to be hardhit. (We used to spend summers at Carancuahua Bay!. All of these coincidences…what a small world!)</p>
<p>Thanks, I hope you don’t mind I copied and forwarded part of your post to her.</p>
<p>I remember when I lived in the hill country (San Marcos and Austin), that flash flooding can be a huge problem. I remember the flood in San Antonio from 2002, as we drove I-10 from Houston on our way out to Ruidoso, New Mexico and saw all the damage.</p>
<p>Mandatory evacuations called for Brazoria County, southwest of Houston, so we just formulated an evac plan for me, my husband the LSU doctoral candidate, my brother the Rice grad student, and my two cats. Gassed up car 1-of-2 this evening, 2-of-2 will get topped off tomorrow. Made a list of everything we wanted to take with us. We’ll head to Dallas if my company decides to close the office Friday… I already got a day off for Edouard this year.</p>
<p>Man. In LA, the earthquake would just <em>happen</em> and you could deal with aftermath. The anticipation and all the false alarms are a little tiresome. This is DH’s eighth hurricane/tropical storm, and he’s really tired of all this. He evac’d for Katrina and Rita, both.</p>
<p>Luckily, this time, we have iPhones, so we’ll have internet as long as the cell networks hold on!</p>
<p>How prone is the Rice’s campus to flood? My son is staying put but I worry about his car parked on campus. Maybe he should drive east to Baton Rouge where we live?</p>
<p>Rice is about 40 - 45 feet above sea level, so there is no risk of storm surge. In the past, the Medical Center area has had flooding related to heavy rain, but there have been massive improvements to drainage and the bayou system in recent years. During Rita, the University asked that all students stay put because they felt their buildings were very safe and because only the lowest lying areas would potentially take a foot of temporary flooding in the event of a stalled system with heavy rains.</p>
<p>Plus…they have a bunch of really smart engineers over there. 
I’m sure all precautions are state of the art.</p>