I've been playing the "Do I evacuate for Hurricane Gustav?" game since
Friday. Fortunately, yesterday we determined that Gustav seemed to be headed to
New Orleans (about 5 hours from me) and is making landfall near there as I write, so we decided not to evacuate. However, I'm still in the hurricane watch
zone, which means that we'll get tropical storm winds (40-50 mph) later tonight
or sometime tomorrow when the storm heads this way.
This means that we may lose power tomorrow (Tues.) and I will be out of touch until
it's restored.
As unpleasant as that is, I'd rather be doing that than having to evacuate
for 3-4 weeks for a hurricane..
Been there, done that, and don't ever want to do that again.
It's been an exhausting weekend. My stress level has been tremendous, and I finally feel some relief this morning. All the towns in this area are like ghost towns since the mandatory evacuation, as all the businesses are closed (even Walmart, and Walmart only closes one day a year -- Christmas Day), so it's just like when we returned after Hurricane Rita, except that we still have power and utilities thus far.
You can't buy gasoline, food, ice, or anything else, for that matter. A dusk to dawn curfew is in effect for my county, which means that you'll be tasered and apprehended by the law if you're out and about after sundown. One of my Twitter buddies suggested to go out and have some fun since I didn't have to evacuate. What people don't realize if you've never gone through an evacuation is that you're strongly encouraged to remain at home if you choose to stay, and besides, nothing is open anyhow. All the employees of the businesses left when the evacuation order was issued, and it's kinda hard to stay open without any employees, although a handful of local businesses are trying..:)
What this area learned from Hurricane Rita in 2005 is the power of the Internet. The television stations are putting their broadcasts on their websites so that evacuees can get local information about the storm effects in this area. That was a major missing link in 2005. Few of the evacuation cities carried updates on the areas hit by the storm, so it was almost impossible to ascertain damages and the local state of affairs from evacuation cities of 300 or more miles away.
For Rita, the media did set up local discussion forums so that neighbors and family members could leave messages for each other online to find out if houses were still standing or if power was restored. That was a godsend at a time when there was no information flow, and some forums were set up again this time around.
Entergy, our electric power company, now has an online map that gives detailed info on power outages and when power will be restored. In 2005 that was the info that we needed to determine when to return to our homes. And, the TX Dept. of Transportation now has a website set up with traffic cams on all the evacuation routes so that you can see how badly the traffic is backed up on the evacuation routes.
For those residents without the means or ability to evacuate themselves, the National Guard and other state and federal agencies were here bussing or flying people out. However, unlike during Rita, these people were wristbanded with a bar code so that concerned relatives and friends could either call a number or log into a website and determine where their loved ones had been sent. There was much confusion and chaos during Rita and relatives lost touch with family members for weeks on end because of the haphazard evacuation that took place then.
As stressful as this weekend was, this was a very good run through for the real thing for me. I've moved since Rita hit, so I needed to again put together my office and personal evacuation list. This event also gave me the opportunity to bookmark potential evacuation hotels in northeast TX and in Central AR where I can call and make hurricane evacuation reservations. During Rita Eric and I sat out the storm in an emergency management shelter, courtesy of my brother, who was on the emergency management team at the time, and helped keep the emergency management teams fed. I've also updated my hurricane evacuation bookmark list so I can check out traffic, power restoration, and media sites for area updates.
Now, I fervently hope I don't have to use this info anytime soon...LOL
Been there, done that, and don't ever want to do that again.It's been an exhausting weekend. My stress level has been tremendous, and I finally feel some relief this morning. All the towns in this area are like ghost towns since the mandatory evacuation, as all the businesses are closed (even Walmart, and Walmart only closes one day a year -- Christmas Day), so it's just like when we returned after Hurricane Rita, except that we still have power and utilities thus far.
You can't buy gasoline, food, ice, or anything else, for that matter. A dusk to dawn curfew is in effect for my county, which means that you'll be tasered and apprehended by the law if you're out and about after sundown. One of my Twitter buddies suggested to go out and have some fun since I didn't have to evacuate. What people don't realize if you've never gone through an evacuation is that you're strongly encouraged to remain at home if you choose to stay, and besides, nothing is open anyhow. All the employees of the businesses left when the evacuation order was issued, and it's kinda hard to stay open without any employees, although a handful of local businesses are trying..:)
What this area learned from Hurricane Rita in 2005 is the power of the Internet. The television stations are putting their broadcasts on their websites so that evacuees can get local information about the storm effects in this area. That was a major missing link in 2005. Few of the evacuation cities carried updates on the areas hit by the storm, so it was almost impossible to ascertain damages and the local state of affairs from evacuation cities of 300 or more miles away.
For Rita, the media did set up local discussion forums so that neighbors and family members could leave messages for each other online to find out if houses were still standing or if power was restored. That was a godsend at a time when there was no information flow, and some forums were set up again this time around.
Entergy, our electric power company, now has an online map that gives detailed info on power outages and when power will be restored. In 2005 that was the info that we needed to determine when to return to our homes. And, the TX Dept. of Transportation now has a website set up with traffic cams on all the evacuation routes so that you can see how badly the traffic is backed up on the evacuation routes.
For those residents without the means or ability to evacuate themselves, the National Guard and other state and federal agencies were here bussing or flying people out. However, unlike during Rita, these people were wristbanded with a bar code so that concerned relatives and friends could either call a number or log into a website and determine where their loved ones had been sent. There was much confusion and chaos during Rita and relatives lost touch with family members for weeks on end because of the haphazard evacuation that took place then.
As stressful as this weekend was, this was a very good run through for the real thing for me. I've moved since Rita hit, so I needed to again put together my office and personal evacuation list. This event also gave me the opportunity to bookmark potential evacuation hotels in northeast TX and in Central AR where I can call and make hurricane evacuation reservations. During Rita Eric and I sat out the storm in an emergency management shelter, courtesy of my brother, who was on the emergency management team at the time, and helped keep the emergency management teams fed. I've also updated my hurricane evacuation bookmark list so I can check out traffic, power restoration, and media sites for area updates.
Now, I fervently hope I don't have to use this info anytime soon...LOL
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