Luxury Camping

My Dad figured out how to manually light the pilot light on the gas water heater, so now our house has warm running water, in addition to the flushing toilets and gas stove that we had before. Even without power, the hot shower and the bowl of oatmeal that I ate this morning make me feel like I'm at a really nice camp site. The cooler filled with ice, soda, milk, cheese, and our leftovers from any meal that we make only heightens that feeling. My Mom keeps wondering if we should be spraying bug spray more liberally, given the amount of standing water still in the immediate area. I keep wondering if we should be doing more hiking and maybe making S'mores at night.

I'm back at work this morning. There is power and internet here, although a strange lack of employees. I work in East Houston, but a lot of the employees live south, closer to Galveston. I'm hoping that their houses or cars weren't damaged in the storm. For me, the bad part about having to drive 20 miles each direction is that I'm going to need gas fairly quickly. There are limited gas stations that are open and all of them boast long lines of cranky car owners.

It's all to be expected, though. The local city government tried to keep people away from their homes as long as possible. The "All Clear" message hasn't gone out yet and as of the last time I checked, only 37% of Houston has power. Galveston is still completely underwater, yet there is a primal urge to return and survey where you have staked all your hopes and dreams.

The national (and now even the local) media has come down very, very hard on the people that chose to not evacuate, even after the mandatory evacuation order was issued two days before the storm. I understand why they didn't leave, though. People are wary of the media since it's wrong so much of the time. We evacuated for Hurricane Rita and at the last moment the storm veered east and slammed into Beaumont, TX. Even for this storm, they had predicted a 20 foot surge into Galveston. The highest storm surge was recorded at 13 ft. So imagine you live on the island and your house is on 17 foot stilts. Would you evacuate, knowing that so very often the media is wrong? Yes, there both the mayor and the governor called for an evacuation of all coastal areas, particularly Galveston island. Yes, about 40% of the island's inhabitants either couldn't afford to evacuate, didn't want to live in a shelter, physically couldn't evacuate, or just simply chose not to. But let's not call these people "knuckleheads". I'm talking to you Governor Perry.

More people died on the freeways from dehydration and car accidents during the evacuation for Hurricane Rita in 2005 than died from damage caused by the storm. It's understandable why people would chose not to participate in another evacuation. Unless you've been in a car for 40 hours in 100 degree heat with no air conditioner, sleeping on the side of the road, and forced to sit in a gas line for hours on end, perhaps you can keep your judgements to yourself. I wish the search and rescue teams the best of luck. They have done an outstanding job rescuing more than 2,000 people. I'd also like to congratulate the 60,000 people that didn't need rescuing after choosing not to evacuate.