Braised Lambchop
a nurse trying to work while suffering with chronic pain - she rambles a bit

The family I referred to in my last post arrived early this afternoon in Bartlesville. It looks like Houston is going to be spared the worst, but Beaumont and Port Arthur are in trouble.

They're very tired, but the kids apparently aren't too tired to hang out tonight with my son, and the phone calls are flying. Lots of kids left here a couple of years ago to go to Texas and they don't get to see each other often. Too bad the circumstance isn't a good one -- but a visit is a visit to high school kids.

Texas's officials, that's who. The geniuses didn't turn the interstate highways outbound-only until 2 pm this afternoon. At that point traffic was backed up 100 miles on I-10 and I-45 going out of Houston.

From The Dallas Morning News site tonight:

HOUSTON – Rita's predicted aim shifted eastward toward Beaumont on Thursday, perhaps sparing Galveston and Houston the worst.

But officials here worried that the clogged roads and lack of gasoline could trap people in cars when the Category 4 storm packing 145-mph winds comes ashore Friday or early Saturday.

"If the hurricane comes in at a certain angle," said Houston Mayor Bill White, "being on the highway is a death trap.

(snip)

At 10 p.m., Rita was centered about 350 miles southeast of Galveston and was moving at about 10 mph. Its winds were 140 mph, down from 175 mph earlier in the day. Forecasters were expecting a slight northwestward turn before landfall near the Chambers-Jefferson County line early Saturday.

"We feel a little sense of relief," said Galveston City Manager Steve LeBlanc. "The projected path now puts Galveston on the clean side as opposed to the dirty side." But Mr. LeBlanc and others were cautious, warning that Rita is a big storm and the exact path remained unclear.

(another snip)

The shift in Rita's track set off a scramble in Beaumont – 80 miles to the east – and Jefferson County, where officials until early Thursday morning had been preparing for the side effects of a storm expected to hit Texas more than 100 miles to the southwest, around Matagorda.

"They didn't want to overreact," said Beaumont police Officer Crystal Holmes, spokeswoman for city emergency operations.

Schools and most offices and businesses already had closed Thursday and Friday, and residents had been advised to prepare in case the need to evacuate arose. Arrangements had been made to haul out people without personal transportation or with special needs.

The new track putting Beaumont closer to ground zero caused officials to start a rolling evacuation Thursday, beginning at 6 a.m. at Sabine Pass on the southern end of the county and at noon in Beaumont on the northern end. The result was massive traffic jams on U.S. 96 and 69 to the north and Interstate 10 east and west. I-10 already was filled with people fleeing the Houston area.

"Traffic is flowing, but it's [flowing] slowly," Officer Holmes said late Thursday. "We've got some angry motorists. We've got people running out of gas."

She said state troopers were running up and down the road "assisting motorists as best they could to get them off the freeway and to a fueling location." Officials also turned U.S. 96 into a one-way road out of Beaumont on Thursday afternoon to try to ease congestion.

It was "a very rude awakening," said Delores Peralta at Pat's Spirit and Wines on U.S. Highway 96 just outside Silsbee. It had taken her and her husband, Larry, 4 ½ hours to drive about 20 miles.

Their story was similar to that of most of the evacuees. For much of the day, the line of vehicles was moving at a "snail's pace," as Ms. Peralta described it, with cars periodically stopping and parking alongside the road, drivers and passengers getting out, stretching their legs and taking their dogs for a walk.

One of my son's friends lives on the Texas Gulf Coast, just south of Houston, as do many of my friends who work for ConocoPhillips (several live in a suburb called Clear Lake, which is also the location of the Johnson Space Center -- south of downtown Houston and near Hobby Airport). Her family left their home Wednesday night around 11 pm on their way to Bartlesville. Tonight, 18 hours after leaving, they were just to The Woodlands, a town just north of downtown Houston. We're having a July-like heat wave in this part of the country this week, so temperatures on the highways were over 100º F this afternoon. Every car down here has air conditioning -- it's a requirement for safety, and the stranded cars are running out of gas and have no way of getting more, unless the Texas DOT really steps in to save the day.

I hope to God they get those stranded motorists out of their cars in time, or the Katrina death and damage toll will look like the fuzz on a peach.

It's 1 am here now. I'll post again when the girl's family reaches their destination, and they still have 600 miles to go in truly disastrous traffic conditions. The only ones at fault for their delays are the Texas DOT officials and Rick Perry, the governor.