Calm before the storm

With the weekend approaching everyone is nervous. They said “Rita”- a category 3 hurricane is heading for Houston. The costal county of Galveston (60miles south of Houston) has started voluntary evacuation. A day more into the week and more precise knowledge of the hurricane path and there may be a mandatory evacuation. Doesn’t feel right. Everything that you have built over years, over generations has to be left as is and the place evacuated.
Flood insurance is very common in the Gulf coast. But everyone hopes that the situation to claim insurance doesn’t arise in the first place. Right now we have hot weather and high pressure in Houston, which is good (anti hurricane conditions). I am just hoping that I don’t have to spend the weekend driving north. What I hope is being able to capture some pictures of the hurricane (which is highly unlikely). The storm chasers group isn’t going to chase this one.
Hurricanes, unlike the Tsunamis and earthquakes are a slow death. You actually follow their path while it’s approaching. That it will hit is a given, you hope its not you, not your house, not your city. Good thing is that the met department gives a 72 hrs advance notice to the residents of the prone areas. And those warnings are damm accurate. Couple of noticeable headlines: “Turn around, don’t drown” for those who refuse to evacuate and “Atlantic Storms may go Greek” because they are close to exhausting the names on the current list and would start using Alpha, Beta after that.


We stay at the black dot in the picture, less than 10 miles from the zone