Here Comes Rita
September 21, 2005
Wow... I've had my head down at work all week this week and have satellite radio in my car, so imagine my surprise when I turned on NPR this morning and heard someone talking about flooding and 50-70MPH winds here in Austin. Since I've lived in Austin (basically the last 5 years) the worst any hurricane has done is to bring some rain. I went to the grocery store this evening to grab some bottled water just in case things get bad, but as it turns out everyone else had the same idea and everything was sold out. I think I missed the last jugs of water by about 30 minutes or so. Instead I bought 5 3L bottles of soda which I'll empty and refill with water. I also grabbed an eclectic mix of non-perishable food items such as Triscuits, M&Ms, Tuna, Frito's, fruit cups, kudos, and an 8lb sack of potatoes. We'll see if the storm makes it here on Saturday morning as promised or not.
The last time I was in a hurricane was when I lived in Houston in 1983 and Alicia came through. It was pretty exciting when I was a kid - my family went over to a neighbor's house and I got to play with all the other neighborhood kids. Only strange thing was waking up in the morning with no power, the streets flooded, and all the trees outside bent almost parallel to the ground with the wind. Let's hope it doesn't come to that this time around.