Swing is in Houston as is a great deal of my family. The phones are
locking down as they are swamped... so are the cell phones.
Communication is spotty at best. We will probably not hear from him
for a while.

Sadly, my people there just got their lives together after their 5
Billion dollar flood about 5 years ago. It took 2 1/2 years to
finalize their insurance claim no their house loss.

Voluntary evacuation of non ambulatory people started yesterday, and
continues. According to my sister, they are thinking mandatory
evacuation for everyone in Houston by tomorrow night. I am not sure
how they will get out; many stations are out of gas, many cars are out
of gas, and there is gridlock everywhere.

The run on food started at the first of the week, and now the banks
are closing as they cannot manage their lobbies and hundreds of
customers. ATMs are out of money in some areas. All the bottled water,
batteries, flashlights, radios, etc. are pretty much gone. The plywood
ran out yesterday and the particle board today... so no more "boarding
up". Realistically, if you are in the path, nothing will help anyway.
Plywood is only good for the perimeter areas of the storm.

If the roads are passble, my family will be coming here to San Antonio
(210 miles inland from them) as soon as they can get out.

From our experience her with Katrina evacuees, we are expecting about
20,000 or more people here by the end of the day Friday (we are one of
the emergency plan evacuation cities for the southern coastal towns),
which is when it should start hammering the coast. We have just had as
many as 12,000 here in our shelters with Katrina and can handle more on
a short term basis, so at least the lights are on in our shelters and
we know where they can be put for a few days.

Everyone seems to be pitching in.... those like me that have seen Carla
'61, Beulah '67, and Celia '70 first hand, up front and personal
remember the profound damage. No one that has seen the damage or knows
anyone from those storms is staying anywhere near the coast, so all of
us in the surrounding cities (200 miles away in Texas isn't considered
far) are collecting food, pillows, blankets, toiletries... all the
stuff we were getting together about 10 days ago.

If you have never seen it, you cannot imagine what a 15 - 20 foot tall
solid wall of hard driven water can smash to pieces. On the coast, the
rain starts, then the wind and flying debris, small tornadoes pop up,
the hurrican proper smashes into you, then in comes that gdamn tidal
surge. It smashes down buildings and uses the debris as super grinders
to chop down other buildings, trees, houses, anything that gets in its
path as long as the wave has steam.

Sorry... I just realized I am beginning to ramble more than normal.
They verified a couple of hours ago that they were now seeing sustained
winds of 175 mph... no matter what, this storm will be a violent
killer.

We are fine here as they are only expecting 4 - 6 inches of rain on
Saturday and maybe winds of 45 with some gusts of 60 mph. Not a spot
on the ass of what our neighbors are facing.

I know many are "given out" with Katrina funds and charities, but I
know these folks will need the same kind of care and concern to make it
through this. Kind of ironic to think that Houston was one of the
largest refugee shelters for Katrina; now when the Houston residents
are through this, many of them will be faced with nowhere to live, and
will in fact be refugees themselves.

I think I'll go hug the LOML, and call my elderly parents and tell them
their grandkids will be here soon.

Robert