The Great Texodus

Friday, September 23, 2005

Friends:

My family and I (my brother, his four kids, my husband and I and our two children) evacuated safely to the Ft. Worth, Texas area. We caravanned in three cars. My stepdad is in Jefferson Parish. He went back a few days ago to work on his house ($80,000 worth of damage). There is a mandatory evacuation but he hasn't left yet. It's hard to get in touch with him because of the difficulties we are having with the cell phones.

My in-laws decided to evacuate with my mother-in-law's sister to Louisiana. They stayed overnight in Lake Charles and when they woke up, there was a mandatory evacuation of that area. They headed for Baton Rouge, to stay with my sister-in-law. Thank God they are safe now.

Evacuating was a nightmare. We left in the middle of the night so that the kids could sleep through the drive. We knew it would take a while. As soon as we heard about possible evacuations, we filled up our tanks. Once we left, we were stuck in gridlock traffic, just like what is pictured on the news. Fortunately, we are "professional evacuees" and we were armed with two-way motorola radios. They have a 12 mile range. We all had one and stayed on the same channel, communicating as we drove and keeping together.

Hearing that I-45 to Dallas was packed, we decided to take an alternate route. We took 290W headed for Auston to I-6N and then I-6 to I-35. The hardest part was getting out of Houston. It took us three hours just to get out of city limits. Once we were out, we found out about Business 290 and took that. It was a good move. We cruised at 50mph. It ran parallel to I-290 and we could see the ribbon of headlights standing still.

There was no gas to be found anywhere! Every gas station was out of gas. We were worried that we would get stranded. So we began driving without air-conditioning to save on fuel. Once we got to I-6, we found a small gas station that still had gas and we all filled up. Sigh of relief! I hadn't eaten all day (worked frantically to pack and ready for our second evacuation in less than a month) so we decided to stop at a 24 hour Jack in the Box. It was 2:00 in the morning. A burger never tasted so good!

After driving for another couple of hours, my brother was feeling tired. He needed a nap. We were passing through a small town and saw a 24 hour McDonalds. He wanted to park in the lot and take a 45 minute power nap. But the Pizza Hut parking lot next door was empty so I suggested we park there. It was darker and less noisy. So we parked and set our alarms. When we awoke 45 minutes later, the entire parking lot was full of evacuee nappers! I guess everyone else thought we had a good idea.

I wish I could describe how we feel at this point. We are beleaguered, frustrated, and relieved at the same time. We are now at the convention center getting disaster relief assistance. It's the hurry-up-and-wait game again. I am sending this from the Internet Station at the convention center.

We are, fortunately, in a beautiful nearly empty, 6 bedroom house. My mom was transferred here to Ft. Worth and rented a house with her former boss, Tracy. Tracy has two girls who are 7 and 13. So here we are again, a houseful of people. This time, there are 13 of us under one roof (15 if you count their cat and dog). We have three full bathrooms. We are equipped with air mattresses.

I tried to bring as much as I could with us but I had to leave some of what little we had accumulated back in Houston. Right now, it looks like Houston is going to get the western side of the hurricane, which is good for the city. We hope to be able to return. There will still be wind damage, some rain, and it is likely power will be out. But it's better than sustaining a direct hit. Unfortunately, Eastern Texas (Beaumont and Port Arthur) as well as Lake Charles are in trouble. We watch the storm with baited breath.

I just found out that three levees near the lower 9th ward in New Orleans have breached. The city is re-flooding. What a nightmare!

My cell phone again is not working. Cell towers are overloaded. I cannot call out and can receive some incoming calls. If you have my cell number, please try to call me. We do not have a land line at the house. I also don't have Internet access. I am thinking about getting Verizon Broadband Wireless Internet. It's frustrating to be incommunicado with the world. I will try to update you as much as I can.

Thank you all for praying and loving us through this ordeal. I will certainly have a hell of a story to tell when this is all over.

Much love,

Dianne