Thursday, September 22, 2005

Mini Rita update


Motorists walk through stalled traffic on Interstate Highway 10 in Orange County on Monday, Sept. 12, 2005. A wreck, a fire and construction compounded problems along the major transit route.

Mark M. Hancock / © The Beaumont Enterprise

I don't have any current images of hurricane preparations at my home (therefore none to post here). However, this image from last week should let folks know what it's like down here. Motorists are sitting on the freeway wasting gas.

If they don't get moving more rapidly, they'll be sitting in flying beer cans as Rita has a little fun. Let's hope it doesn't get that bad.

All routes out of town are completely clogged and have been since before sunrise. Many routes have been converted to one-way out. The travel time from Houston to Dallas is 24 hours (for a 4.5 hour drive). Cars are running out of fuel along the way and being abandoned on the road.

Because everyone is evacuating, there is no place to get fuel here (nor food or anything else). Consequently, it's not fun for most folks.

We are currently hosting PJs from The Associate Press, The Dallas Morning News, The LA Times and our sister papers The San Francisco Chronicle and The San Antonio Express-News.

I'll post some images during the actual storm if I can.

Fayrouz is riding out the storm with us as well. She expects to be blogging semi-live starting later today. She's already lived through wars and sandstorms (Iraq), bushfires (Australia) and a small tornado (U.S.), so a huge hurricane should make life complete. :-)

Enough for now,

Please see Mark's Hurricane Rita visual timeline.
 

3 comments:

Bryon Houlgrave said...

Stay safe, and have fun at your PJ party.

Donncha said...

Good luck over the next few days.
I saw Beaumont mentioned in the paper I bought this morning and my thoughts immediately went to you and your wife.
Hope you'll be ok, I'll be keeping an eye on your blog for updates!

SusanA said...

I admit, I've been watching after you too :-) Best of luck to everyone. Keep charging those batteries.