Looting and Houston Hurricanes

Well well. After Katrina devastated New Orleans and Houston took in the lion’s share of evacuees, now Rita threatens Bayou City, aka Houston, my adopted home town. On the radio yesterday I heard Chris Baker, a funny local talk show host, discussing conversations he has heard from homeowners who are loaded for bear in case the looters come–“Some of them are hoping for looters,” he observed. He’s probably right. Kinda funny.

Wife and I started thinking of leaving Houston several days ago, despite the some scoffing of friends who thought we were overreacting. We booked a hotel room in Dallas a couple nights ago–one of the last ones, I think. Austin and Waco and San Antonio were already booked (Special Olympics in Waco; Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin; both events, I am sure, will be affected). We left yesterday at around 3pm–earlier than most. We decided to go to family’s home outside Baton Rouge, La.; the normally 6 hour drive took just slightly longer. Some slowdowns; not too bad. As we figured, not many people were not (yet) going east on I-10 out of Houston–most are going north on I-45 or 59. East takes you to Louisiana–N.O. is kaput and Baton Rouge has no vacancies–N.O. evacuees are there, plus there is an LSU football home game this weekend. I-10 is now a different animal. Anyway, we are here in Ascension Parish, just hoping Rita does not surprise us and follow us, and hoping we have a home, and a city, left to return to.

One amazing thing about this is how technology has changed everything. My wife is a petrochemical trader for a major company; I am lawyer for a small high tech company. We can both do our jobs remotely, if need be. Driving to my dad’s, since he has no internet connection, I called him on the way and asked him to go to the local cable company and rent a cable modem. When I arrived, I spent 15 minutes self-installing it and voila’, for $10 for the modem and $40 for a month of service, we have broadband here in podunk. Maybe telecommmuting–and 3 day weekends?–will come into their own. Hear hear!

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9:39 pm on September 22, 2005