Thursday, September 11, 2008

Heading to H-town (H is for Hurricane)

It looks like our buddy Hurricane Ike, or "HI" as I like to call him, is heading directly for Galveston and Houston in an apparent effort to drive up the price of oil. I have been watching the news and looking at satellite images; it promises to be a pretty big storm. Yet, after the massive gridlock evacuation attempt before Hurricane Rita, the authorities in Houston are recommending people not evacuate.
So, after speaking to my mother today, I decided to go down to Houston and ride the storm out with her! I asked a couple of other professors to cover my classes, and after driving through rivers in Honduras I'm brimming with over-confidence in my ability to drive in high water (in a minivan?). I'm getting my camping lantern and borrowing Jono's LED headlamp. I'm filling the ice chest with ice which is in short supply in H-town. I'm grabbing the floaty noodles and rubber torpedoes. And I'm putting fresh batteries... in my camera!

Does this sound crazy to you? Am I nuts?

Or am I just desperate for blog fodder?? Check back soon to find out...

3 comments:

Lucie Manette said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Grafted Branch said...

Head West man! Head west!

I must be watching a different channel than you; I thought all of Houston was bailing out of the city.

God be with you, you crazy engineer.

Redlefty said...

The vast, vasty majority of Houstonians are staying here. We don't want to experience traffic gridlock again with a storm bearing down on us.

Remember that well over 4.5 million people live in the Houston area, not even counting Galveston and the coastal cities. Evacuating a million or two isn't a big percentage of the people.