Texas Wildfires
Hurricane RitaOn this morning's TV news show, there was a story featuring meterologists discussing predictions of severe weather events in the country in the near future. They put up maps showing areas most at risk for earthquakes, wildfires, hurricanes and tornados. Texas was in the big, fat middle of 3 of those maps, making a terrifying trifecta of wildfires, tornados and hurricanes, reminding me of General Sherman's quip, " If I owned hell and Texas, I'd live in hell and rent out Texas."
Last night I ossified myself watching a reprise of Hurricane Katrina on the Discovery Channel. As hurricane season approaches, the politicians are fussin' and feudin' about who should be in charge of future evacuations of heavily populated areas like Houston-Galveston. The governor wants to centralize authority in (you guessed it) his office, but local city and county officials don't want to agree to that. The mayor of Galveston, Lyda Ann Thomas (love that Texas name!), did a superb job evacuating that city in advance of Rita last summer, providing transportation for the poor, elderly and ill well ahead of projected landfall of the storm. I vote that we put her in charge.
I need to lay in emergency supplies--including a detailed map of the state showing all the little back roads that can take you out of town while avoiding the heavily traveled highways. Better an unnecessary stay in San Antonio or Austin than being trapped in an evacuation while trying to get El Jefe's aged father, Dutch, out of harm's way. This summer I plan to stay a step ahead of the crowd.
I need to lay in emergency supplies--including a detailed map of the state showing all the little back roads that can take you out of town while avoiding the heavily traveled highways. Better an unnecessary stay in San Antonio or Austin than being trapped in an evacuation while trying to get El Jefe's aged father, Dutch, out of harm's way. This summer I plan to stay a step ahead of the crowd.
10 comments:
I think you are so smart for thinking ahead.
And you know you can always come to Plainview if you need to. You can ever drive the towncar of justice while you are here.
Well, Mindy beat me to it on the invite. Tell ya what, you can stay at my house (I got the guest room) and you can eat at her house (she's a better cook than Jackson, although he ain't nuthing to sneeze at).
Look--you all can come stay with me if the mondo hurricane hits and I'll come stay with you if The Big Quake shakes the LA Basin. Deal???
PCIT--it's a deal. With Portia getting married and Babs in graduate school I have plenty of available bedrooms for guests.
Thanks Mindy and Rach! I hope I don't have to take you up on it.
I think everybody should move to upstate NY. All we get is snow. And there's hardly any traffic.
Sigh...We just got our roof fixed from the last weather event!
Sometimes I think I will just lay in a store of food and water and get one of those camper potties and hunker down this time around.
And there is always Atlanta.
If you can stand the "humidity."
humidity for us is "suffocating sauna" for others.
you could of course come to boring Finland :) -we dn't know what any of those natural hazards are, and there are no traffic jams either :)
I think I win! High altitude---7000 ft---means safety from the storm surge. It's mostly desert, so flooding is not an issue. And traffic? Only when the Utah Navy is passing through on weekends; and between 5:00 and 5:05 PM when the phone company lets out. Oh, and the cattle and sheep jams are seasonal; spring and fall only.
Patty,
Actually I spent 4 years in Ithaca at Cornell. It is beautiful up there, but I couldn't stand the never-ending-winters.
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