Back home from Rita road trip

Hello all, I made it back from a trip out of Houston that was quite an adventure. The family and I made the decision to evacuate and head south instead of our original destination of San Antonio. And man was that a wise move to make. The horror stories I heard Wednesday of people heading west and north made we wonder if we should even leave at all. Of course my wife would never go for that with two kids and all so we packed up our personal belongings, hopped in the car and hoped for the best. Traveling south was a gamble because at the time Rita was still projected to land in the Matagorda area which is just due south of Sugar Land. I was amazed that at 4am the roads were at a complete stand still. It took us four hours to reach the town of Rosenberg which normally is a 20 to 30 minute drive. The scene on Highway 59 was amazing and very chaotic. The average speed was anywhere from two to five miles per hour, there were cars out of gas and broken down on the side of road and people driving with their eyes closed from a night of driving. We actually saw two incidents of individuals falling asleep behind the wheel. Every artery onto 59 was packed with all gas stations with tremendous lines if they even had gas at all. It was at this point where I actually became very nervous knowing I had already used a quarter tank of gas and only traveled 30 miles. What would the future hold for us? Would we run out of gas? Would the bumper to bumper traffic extend to Victoria...to Corpus Christi or longer. Would we get caught in the path of the storm? Would we need to locate a shelter?

Well all our worries diminished as we passed Rosenberg where the traffic thinned out and was able to travel over the speed limit. High fives were in order here only to arrive at our next problem....NO GAS.

We stopped at gas station after gas station only to find people waiting in line for gas at pumps that didn't even have gas. Even though the pump had a no gas sign, people were so desperate that they would attempt a transaction anyway...thus creating a line. After topping off at a station further south I was able to make it to the comfortable home of my parents in San Benito, Texas.

I arrived home yesterday to a few leaves on my driveway. Go figure. Better safe than sorry, I guess.