Living In The Cone Part XI: "Playing Flinch"

When I was in High School, some of the guys used to play a game called "Flinch." The idea was to punch your friend/victim on the arm as hard as you could; then do it agin, but pull your punch short so that you didn't actually hit them. If your friend/victim flinched when you struck, you got to hit them harder. If they didn't they got to hit you.

Adolescence and hormones breed idiocy; I know, I know . . .

Hurricne Ike is a Classic case of "Playing Flinch." Ike was aimed at the Corpus Christi to Victoria Texas areas, but 24 hours before landfall (when the shelters were crammed with Corpus Christi evacuees) the storm turned away and headed for the Houston/Galveston area instead. Consequently the shelters, still jammed with Corpus Christi evacuees, are still accepting Houston/Galveston evacuees because there's not enough vehicles to send the Corpus Christi people home.

This is not a FEMA problem. It's just that nobody has every imagined trying to evacuate three major urban areas at the same time. FEMA has done yeoman's work anticipating evauating for a single major hurricane. The ambulances that evacuated some of our guests came from Stockton California and Eureka Oregon.

So I'm working my butt off here. This is my seventh shift in a row; my tenth in eleven days. I' working 16 hours tonight because we're starting to run out of volunteers.

Loving it, too, by the way.

~~JD~~