This Just In . . . . (The Bitch-Slapping of South Texas by Rita; Part VI)

As the realization hits me that we really, truly dodged the bullet with Rita, I find myself overcome with unequal parts of disappointment and relief.

We drove to San Marcos (40 miles north) this afternoon to shop for Julian's birthday present. (Fifteen. Fifteen!!! Can you believe that?!?) On the way we stopped at Costco in San Antonio and witnessed a wonderful example of human compassion. One of the familes in line had a variety of household supples in their carts; pillows, clothing, blankets, linens, and a refrigerator. When they tried to pay with a white Visa card with a Red Cross on it (one of the cards they're handing out to Katrina Evacuees) the cashier called the manager. You could see the consternation and fear on their faces, wondering why the manager had to be there -- until the manager explained "We're not letting you pay retail price for these -- you only pay Wholesale when you have one of these Red Cross (or FEMA) cards."

So they walked out of Costo wiht $1,500.00 of goods for less than $750.00. Made me tear up right there and get the sniffies.

Meanwhile, the shelves of the stores are getting bare. (See the Link above). As the Katrina evacuees start setting up shop in their new homes in San Antone, the Rita evacuees are buying groceries for their host families whilst they're here; as well as groceries to take back to Houston/Corpus Christi/wherever with them. (With most of the stores closed where they came from, they're being cautious and taking stuff back with them.) So I think it'll be a very profitable and happy 4th quarter for San Antonio retailers, but a lot of fun shopping for groceries the next few days.

I'll probably be working more than a few shifts the next few days at the Baptist Church Shelter for Katrina Refugees. More than a few nurses evacuated San Antonio when Hurricane Rita seemed aimed at the city (or were federalized by FEMA or local Health Departments) which makes Shelter Help at a premium.

Isn't there some kind of Chinese curse that says "May you live in Interesting Times?" Heh-heh-heh.

Ah, who am I kidding? I'm loving this!

~~JD~~

This Just In . . . . (The Bitch-Slapping of South Texas by Rita; Part V)

What a difference a day makes, indeed.

Pastor Al from Indiana called this morning. He, his wife Betty, and his brother are holed up in a hotel in Schulenburg Texas; halfway between Houston and San Antonio. They were kind of humbled to think God had found them somebody to offer their home to them this far from Indiana, and incredibly grateful. Well, we're all just servants, and i was glad to have been of (potential) service. So they're fine, and may head back to Corpus Christi tomorrow or Sunday, depending on what Rita does in the next 12 hours.

The clouds are again rotating above San Antonio like they did for Katrina; just a LOT closer this time. As the storm has shifted farther to the north the winds have started shifting to the northeast and coming in pretty quickly -- about 20-40 mph gusts. The clouds have filled the normally clear-blue cloudless South Texas skies; rotating counter clockwise overhead.

Awe-inspiring, really.

We're all watching this very warily of course. This damned storm could quite easily take a left turn when it makes landfall and still give San Antonio hell.

But, for now, we appear to have dodged the bullet.

The best part of all is: I'm facing a Saturday where all the shopping, laundry, cleaning, and chores have been done already. Plus I've got a case of chilled Coors in the refrigerator and 2 bags of chip and dip.

I feel a "Lord of the Rings" marathon coming on . . . .

~~JD~~

The View from I-10 Eastbound

The Westbound lanes of IH-10, usually empty during the morning commute, are full of refugees from Galveston/Houston area. The sun rises through a murky mass of impending cloudbank from Rita; still hundreds of miles away but whose cloudtops are easily visible from San Antonio. (Pardon the blurriness; shot on the fly during the morning commute.)

The View from Sam's Club in San Antonio

Thursday afternoon 9/22/2005: It doesn't look too unusual until you notice everyone has 2 or 3 cases of bottled water in their carts. Bottled Water! Also, due to the limitations of my camera, you can't see the lines -- 8-10 people long each.

This Just In . . . . (The Bitch-Slapping of South Texas by Rita; Part IV)

It's 3am, and I can't sleep. I swear I can feel my ears pop with the lowering barometric pressure.

Spent yesterday doing laundry (if the power goes out you can't wash clothes -- and we usually do laundry in Casa Largo on Saturdays -- right when Rita should be coming ashore. See Previous Post "Hurricanes and Moral Quandries . . . still don't Help Me do the Laundry!")

About noon I went to get some shopping done -- same reason. Wal-Mart had Guards! on the bottled water!!! Apparently it went fast when Rita started aiming at South Texas, and one store had some kind of trouble when the water ran out. They were limiting customers to one case each; so i had to make a trip to Sam's Club to get another case. Wal-Mart was in short supply of bread, tuna, peanut butter, and cold remedies, as well as water.

Traffic was remarkably light. Really weird. Applied Rain-X to both cars' windsheilds. That stuff really works great; and it's too late to apply it when it starts to rain.

Got an e-mail from my former church in Indiana; our former pastor is in Corpus Christi with his brother and seeking shelter inland. I e-mailed them back to call us if they need anyhting. We'd be happy to put them up in our tiny apartment.

Picked up my weekly quota of comic books and extra Coors and chips. Gotta do something if the power goes out.

And I still can't sleep.

~~JD~~

This Just In . . . . (The Bitch-Slapping of South Texas by Rita; Part III)

MSNBC'sw Website captioned this "Thousands of cars slowly make their way out of Houston, Texas, on Wednesday to escape Hurricane Rita." I'd say that's about right.

Rita is still a Cat-5 storm, and has started to shift to the Northwest. While that's something of a relief (since we won't be hit head-on) I'm feeling more than a little guilt as she sidles up towards already-devastated New Orleans and the bulk of the Katrina refugees in Houston.

So, that's a bad thing. Fotunately Texas has a no-nonsense governor in Rick Perry who started evacuating those refugees earlier this week to Arkansas and (sigh) San Antonio. And unlike New Orleans' Mayor Ray Nagin (who seems terrified that he'll lose his constituency and is trying to re-populate his city frantically) Perry has expedited placement of the refugees in permanent housing through Section 8 vouchers and Housing Loans for refugees. Lotta these folks are here to stay, whether Ray Nagin likes it or not.

The sun also rose this morning; with apologies to Hemingway. The high overcast is reflecting glare everywhere and makes the sky appear bright white. Governor Perry has ordered the Southbound Lanes of I-45 and I-10 to be turned around at 9am to double the flow of traffic outbound from Galveston; which means it's getting VERY serious.

And Fox News has just reported that draining groundwater from the aquifers und Houston has lowered the elevation of the city fifteen to twenty feet in the last century; which could be catastrophic if Cat-5 Rita comes ashore there.

An interesting aside for the Global Warming conspiracists lurking out there. Several years ago I visited the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, where they have the U-505 German U-boat on display. I asked the tour guide why there was so little German U-boat activity in the Caribbean during the war. He replied the Germans were terrified of hurricanes; that a U-boat could only stay submerged 12-16 hours, and if they had to surface in a hurricane, the crew would all be killed. This made little sense to me (Hurricanes? How often are there Hurricanes?) until I heard on the TV Joe Bastardi from Accu-Weather saying that his father (who was also a meteorologist) saying that there used to be a LOT more hurricanes in the gulf in the beginning of the 20th century. Houston/Galveston had hurricanes in 1900, 1909, 1918, 1926, 1935, 1946, and 1954 -- then no hurricanes until 1983.

Apparently the cycle has swung around again; and considering the sunspot cycle just completed a major upswing a year or two ago, it seems likely we're starting back toward that cycle again.

Just don't spout the pop-psych answer of "Global Warming, Dude!" I'm not in the mood right now.

~~JD~~

This Just In . . . . (The Bitch-Slapping of South Texas by Rita; Part II)

Traffic was stop-and-go all the way home both ways tonight; a far cry from the usual San Antone commute. I'm glad I have the day off tomorrow; it's bound to be a cast-iron BEAR driving through town tomorrow.

Some interesting changes in the weather as Rita (I keep wanting to type "Katrina") has advanced to a solid Cat-5 storm. Already. The sky seemed grayer than usual on the drive home tonight, but nothing really unusual for late summer haze over South Texas. When night fell was when we noticed it was a solid high overcast. We've been watching the full moon for three days now; but there's no moon tonight, and the sky's reflecting the city lights in an errie glow.

Plus there's no wind with high humidity and high 80's -- a bit too warm and humid. The weather channel's radar is showing feeder bands bringing thunderstorms ashore in Corpus Christi already. Wow.

I have that weird little gut feeling I get when my predicitions are about to come true; and I still have it. Nothing but bad vibes coming from the near future and Rita.

I'm filling the cars' gas tanks tomorrow (just in case we lose power for a few days) and buying candles and lantern fuel. Also a couple of cases of bottled water, just in case. I'm pretty much counting on working all weekend; either in the Katrina Shelters or at work (in case somebody can't get in -- which is quite likely.)

My first real hurricane. I'd be excited if I wasn't full of foreboding. Frankly more than a bit scared, too.

~~JD~~

This Just In . . . . (The Bitch-Slapping of South Texas by Rita; Part I)

All computer models are predicting Hurricane Rita will hit somewhere between Galveston and Corpus Christi Texas Friday or Saturday. She should be a minimum Category 4 storm (like Katrina) and possibly a Category 5. Just a little Texas history here; in 1946 a Category 5 storm hit Victoria Texas (about the same place Rita will hit) and charged inland to San Antone, destroying much of the city.

Which is where I am.

And, being a nurse, I couldn't evacuate if I wanted to. The Interstates heading northbound out of San Antone (I-10 and I-37) were clogged wall-to-wall with traffic this morning; making rush hour very interesting, indeed. (I may have to take the surface streets home tonight to get home at all.)

And to make it even more interesting, San Antonio's full of Katrina refugees. as well as coatal refugees fleeing Rita. My place of business is accepting patients from Corpus Christi starting tomorrow.

I may be off the Internet for awhile. Gotta go buy some bottled water tonight, if there's any left.

The Invisible Storm: Texas Steps Up and Kicks Ass in the Aftermath of Katrina.

The city of San Antonio Texas. The obvious allusion is that there's a Storm brewing; but it's more like an earthquake.

The line to unload donated supplies to the warehouses at Kelly AFB. It took me less than 3 minutes to get to the front of this line -- they work really, Really fast! Several of the folks in line were singing hymns as they worked, and a lot of the group joined in on songs they knew.

The line of volunteers (over 50) waiting to undload your vehicle of donations. I saw SUVs, vans, cars, station wagons, buses, and the occaisional 18-wheeler unloaded in rapid fashion. Ants should be this efficient. No messin' around here, bubba. Welcome to Texas.

The first thing you see on entering the warehouses the refugees call "home" is the Red Cross registration desk for Volunteers. Whilst I blurred the pictures deliberately to protect identities, thye actually DO move that fast and efficiently trying to get everyone signed up and working. This airman in particular had been at this desk almost 16 hours, and was looking forward to going home for abite to eat in 8 or 9 hours . . . and then working Saturday as long as they'd let him. "These are my People; I'm from Baton Rouge," he said. "They need our help, and I'm not gonna let them down."

The SECOND thing you see on enteing the the warehouse; row upon row of military field cots. Ugly but quite comfy, there are 175 cots stacked up so everyone can have more than one if necessary. The refugees comforts are being seen to very capably and humanely, indeed.

The Job Fair in progress 24/7 at Kelly AFB in the Refugee quarter. Major employers from all over San Antonio are screening and hiring folks on the spot for everything from truck driving to hair cutting to nurses to engineers. (By the way; I should mention that the refugees are housed in air-conditioned Motor Pool warehouses that ate roughly 100 yards wide by 500 yards long -- and there are FIVE of these monstrous hangars end-to-end full of people!) The Job Fair occupies the entirety of Hangar #2.

The DMAT Medical Teams (Disaster Medical Area Team, I think) who have the absolute WORST bedsidemanner ever. Most of these folks were activated against their will and sent clear across the state to San Antonio on short notice, and their attitude shows.

A view of one smaller shelters in San Antonio; called a "Special Needs" shelter because the occupants have more medical or other problems. Putting these folks in smaller shelters (such as this one ruyn by a local Baptist Church) allows them better attention so that hopefull these folks won't fall between the gaps of a social system stretched incredibly taut.

A few of my co-workers at the shelter I'm volunteering at this week (and most likely this month.) I've worked with nurses from Iowa, Alabama, Illinois, South Carolina, Florida, and even a few from Texas, imagine that!

The face of FEMA: the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In fairness as well as to counter the negative stuff you hear on TV; FEMA has never been designed as a "hands-on" relief agency, but as backup to the Agencies already in place (i.e., your local Red Cross, Catholic Chartities, Salvation Army, and local government.) The FEMA guys appear in their khaki army fatigue pants and navy blue polo shirts and ask what we need; and what we need appears the next day -- in massive quantities. You have to be very careful what you ask for. Yo ask for wheelchairs, you very well might end up with 50 of them. You complain about transportation problems and three brand-new 15-passenger Econoline vans are sitting in your parking lot the next day. You need water? You get three semi trucks full of it before sundown. We've learned to be specific and cautious in our requests.

Busy, Busy, Busy. . . . No Time to Talk Right Now.

I wish I could somehow convey with words the majesty, the grandeur, and the mind-numbing horror of a near-miss from Hurricane Katrina to my friends and family up north. The Refugees are pouring into San Antonio and the strain on the local economy is incredible -- and probably unimaginable.

I got the call we had refugees at work Sunday afternoon and headed in to work a partial shift to help out the weekend nurse. Ariane and I bought quite a few supplies at Wal-Mart (wet-naps, fleece blankets, band-aids, antibiotic ointment, and Tylenol -- and specific clothing for one of out patients -- shoes, pants, & underwear.) Friday I get off for Labor Day, and I'm heading over to Kelly AFB to volunteer some time.

I wish I could put this into words better. This was a dress rehearsal for something worse -- and God help us when THAT happens.

More later.

~~~JD~~~