Damn this traffic jam...It hurts my motor to go so slow...Damn this taffic jam!

My next email, around 9 pm:

Hi everyone,

Well, as some of you noted in your emails to me, you hoped that the traffic was not as bad as seen on TV. Actually, it was worse. We went 2 miles in about 1 hour, then got off the freeway because we needed to use the bathroom, called some people who had been watching traffic on TV and they told us it wasn’t moving faster anytime soon. We then decided at that point to come home and try again later tonight after they figured out how to move a million cars off the freeways.

The secondary problem was that we had used a ¼ tank of gas while sitting in traffic because it was 100 degrees today and we needed to run the A/C. Even in the A/C, the cat was panting and we needed to wrap her in a cold towel to cool her down. There have been many, many people who have run out of gas while sitting on the freeways, which isn’t helping the traffic-jams any and we didn’t want to be four of those people (S, her sister & fiancé and me) and 2 animals ( in two separate cars)! Hence, as I said, we have come home and made a number of alternative plans. The one we are going with as of now is to stay with some friends here in Houston who have an older model, sturdy house that has hurricane shutters on the windows. They also have a generator and lots of food and supplies. We dropped off most of our stuff already and are going to stay at my apartment tonight and head over there in the morning around 8 or 9.

Another alternative is to wait a few more hours to see what happens with the traffic and then try again for College Station. I am not thrilled with either of these options, but at this point, I’d rather not be stuck in a car on the freeway…that was hell on a different scale than that of New Orleans. Of course, I will let everyone know something when we make a decision. In any event, it is still very muggy, about 85 degrees, but the stars and moon are out, the clouds will probably roll in overnight and the winds pick up tomorrow afternoon.

The positive news in all of this, well, for us at least, is that the hurricane is tracking more eastward, which means we will get weaker side of the storm, as of now anyway. Well, that’s the only update I can give for now, but I will try to keep everyone informed as best I can. I will tell you that we are trying to be as safe as possible, but again, it isn’t likely we are moving out of the city.