Rita seems to be scouring East Texas and West Louisiana. We (North Texas around Fort Worth and Dallas) haven't seen a drop of rain, no wind, and only high clouds here. That's good for all of the Houston and Galveston folks who evacuated to the Metroplex, and easier on the Katrina folks who are already here. Our yards could have used some of that rain, though.
We're now at a situation of All Dressed Up and No Place to Go, but the preparations for a heavy storm won't go to waste. Everything I did to make it easier to leave if I had to (I live on a creek) or bought to use as emergency supplies will stay in place. They needed to be up to full strength anyway.
It had to be the Roadtrip from Hell for all of those folks stuck on the freeways headed north from Houston, but important lessons need to be learned from this. Is it reasonable that it should take that long to travel the distance when that many people are all trying to go at the same time? It was slow and miserable, but they did get out. Is money going to be spent to build more roads, or to devise a better evacuation system, or is it going to be determined that bugging out is always miserable work and spend the money on other services or technologies in this gulf region to restore wetlands or build barriers?
Lots of Monday morning quarterbacking soon to follow.