Saturday, September 24, 2005

So far... 'Hurricane Rita'
Still here, right out side of Houston, at a time I thought I wouldn't be, we're waiting to see how things will unfold.

We’d planned to leave for my uncle’s house in Dallas, but when we couldn’t fill up the tank of my dad’s car (we procrastinators) we started to lose the idea. And when we heard of the terrible traffic…

Get this, if you haven’t heard already, there was a traffic jam over 100 miles long going out of Houston headed to Dallas on Texas’ I-45 North.
People spent hours and hours only trying to get out of town and only managed to move 10-15 miles. The usual time to get to Dallas is about 4 hours, but Thursday it took people a solid 24 hours. Simply outrageous. I don’t see how those people did it; 12 hours is forever to me.

At school, Wednesday, I heard there were fights at the grocery stores and I know there were some fights at the gas pumps yesterday.

I saw a classmate, at the Wal-Mart down the street from our neighborhood. My, mom, older brother and I were there getting some non-perishable items, water and other things we’d need. Or at least what was left from when others had all ready come.

There were “tailgate” parties out side of gas stations and grocery stores and anywhere else people could take a brake from the heat and lack of AC in their cars.

Also, good friend of my mom’s and her daughter came over to ride the storm out with us because they didn’t want to be alone so I guess we’re having our first “hurricane party”.

I tell you I’ve never heard of such a term until a girl in my English class, Wednesday, told of her many hurricane parties back in Florida, where she is from originally.

I can’t believe that at 4:00 AM this morning in the dark someone was out on one of Galveston Island’s beaches (Galveston Island was the first area called to evacuate) trying out the surf. A policeman tells him to leave and he ‘doesn’t comply’. The policeman arrests him and he says:

“What’s a surfer gotta do to get arrested?”

A woman, after having so much trouble and stress in her situation states, “I just wanna buck Rita in the face.”

And another, “About now, I feel like fixing Rita a glass of iced tea and just sitting for awhile.”

On the window of a neighbor’s house it reads, ‘No Rita, only Margarita’s’.

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