We had our closest brush with a hurricane this past weekend with the sequel to Katrina: Rita. It was looking pretty perilous for a while, but after several discussions, we decided to stay in Houston and ride it out.
I was getting all prepared to document the event: I was downloading satellite imagery to assemble into a movie of the storm's progress; I had the video camera charged and ready to go; I had our digital audio recorder available. I'd made recordings into all of these devices leading up to the Friday night landfall, and then...
...we all went to sleep. The next morning, we saw some strong winds still blowing, but minimal rainfall and just a few downed branches. We still had electricity, cable TV, and our internet connection. Except for all our preparations, missing three days of work because Houston was closed, and a surreal trip to SuperTarget the day before the storm (SuperTarget.mp3, 3.4MB, 7.5 mins), nothing really remarkable happened.
But I think we learned a few things. I learned that the general rule is "run from water, hide from wind." Based on that rule, we handled the approaching storm correctly. I also learned that putting together the plywood window barricades this winter is a must-do project, regardless of our access to a truck to get the plywood here.
Comments (2)
Looks like you made the right decision. We're glad nothing major happened. We had a huge influx of "evacuees" into Austin. I was kind of hoping it would at least rain here, but the 100+ degree high pressure zone parked over central Texas scared Rita far away.
Posted by Brian | September 27, 2005 5:29 PM
Posted on September 27, 2005 17:29
Soup or Target? I'll take the soup.
So I installed a new version of quicktime because the one I had wasn't showing any video from your mp3 file. Doh!
I was glad to see the storm pass well East of Houston. Glad for you at least. Sorry for those it hit.
Only six miles to Soup or Target? You could have taken a bike and a backpack. When I used to bike to work in Virginia my ride was six miles each way. If there was any sort of traffic incident (hurricane Floyd, accident on I-95) then it was much faster to be on a bike than in a car.
I'm closing in on my 300MB limit for your site. I may actually have to pay for my own web space! The horror!
Plywood barricades... in all the 20, 30, 40 years your house has stood, has it ever lost a window to weather? So you are spending hundreds of dollars and many hours of labor to protect your insurance company from the remote chance of loss.
At least that is one way to look at it. Though I'd probably do it if I were you. It was on my list of things to do in League City. Never got around to buying the plywood before leaving Texas.
I've become interested in the psychology of risk assessment. This interest was sparked by one too many conversation like this...
Random Person: I'd never rock climb, it is way too dangerous.
Me: How dangerous is it?
Random Person: Ummm... ummm... really dangerous?
But risk assessment is also what causes us to spend hundreds of billions of dollars fighting terrorism (and not very well, but that is another story), and spend much less on traffic safety, or actually backslide on pollution control. Asthma deaths are less dramatic, but the victims are just as dead.
Mass evacuations are dreadfully expensive and dangerous (that bus fire killed more people than Rita), and hurricanes are also dreadfully expensive and dangerous. How much do we as a nation spend on hurricane forecast technology? Are we good at risk assessment? Are politicians? Are voters?
But I digress. See you soon!
Jeff
Posted by Jeff | September 27, 2005 11:40 PM
Posted on September 27, 2005 23:40