Another Hanley report from west Houston
The rain has finally started here about 6 pm. Wind has been sporadic andWhen I saw all the cars pulled over looking for gas, I thought of that scene in Patton where his tanks ran out of gas as they made contact withthe Germans. Yet the people on the side of the road seemed calm and relaxed witht he situation. People were vititing in large and small groups. I saw two couples sitting onthe center media having what looked like a fried chicken picnic.
intermittent around 20 knots gusting to maybe 30 knots. Just now starting
to hear the noise of the hurricane. Everyone here has power still in West
Houston. We've heard about 18000 lost power in the Galleria area due to
wind blowing down limbs. I would expect we will lose tree limbs here, but
very few trees will break off or fall over.
Everyone has plenty of water, food and power. We are having steaks tonight.
Everyone will sleep in the same room on the west side of the house. Some
strangers and hurricane thrill seekers drove around the neighborhood earlier
today, but we were all outside so we think they got the word that looting
would be counterproductive. One carload of drunk youngsters clearly had a
party atmosphere and was clearly not given a welcome mat.
To put the evacuation in perspective, we just moved the equivalent of the
entire US Armed Forces (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines are 1.4 Million
people, all Reserves and Guard are another 1 Million men) 300 miles with all
their armored vehicles, airplanes (some evaced by Houston Intercontinental
airport) and trucks in less than 48 hrs. Since it took 200,000 men 2.5
weeks to get to Baghdad after 2 months minimum preparation, that is a pretty
impressive feat. And everyone on the road has been gassed up and is on
their way, apparently. The only traffic jams are in Ennis on I-45 and west
of Brenham on 290. Looks like the Houston folks did pretty good with only a
small amount of problems due to the massive evacuation.
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