Rita's Bearing Down and the Parents Are Leaving H-town

I woke up this morning to news that Rita had been upgraded to a Category 4 hurricane so I called my dad to see if he and my mom were planning to leave Houston today. My mom had previously indicated that they would leave as soon as it became a Category 4, but this morning, my dad said that they would wait until Thursday afternoon. I didn't like the sound of that and so monitored the situation all day.

Once Houston Mayor Bill White announced the beginnings of mandatory evacuations for parts of the city and Rita was upgraded to a Category 5 storm, I spent most of my free time this afternoon trying to get through to my parents on their cell phones. Since Katrina hit Louisiana, I have been no stranger to busy signals as I have tried to call both Roxi and my brother in Lafayette. The influx of refugees coupled with downed phone service across the southeastern part of the state has overtaxed the rest of south Louisiana's telephone system. It appears that it has now spread to Houston as well.

I finally received a call from my dad late this afternoon and he told me that the office that my parents work in closed this afternoon at 2:30 PM and they will be heading east to Lafayette before dawn tomorrow. There will still be plenty of traffic to contend with but at least they might get a jump on some of Thursday's evacuation rush. It might prove to be all for naught, but I feel much better knowing that they will be getting out of the downtown area before Rita decides where she will make landfall.