Hunker Down!

Yes, there is a hurricane coming to Houston later tonight/tomorrow morning. We have been getting a lot of calls/emails from people wondering when we are leaving. We are not leaving. We are going to hunker down and ride out the storm. We are far enough north and not in a flood prone/low lying area that we should not experience any major problems. According to the latest reports we could get up to 8 inches of rain and up to 70 mph winds. We have got enough supplies (food, water, batteries, gas for the generator, etc.) to last us around 4 or 5 days. We have moved everything from outside into the garage or inside the house and are nailing down a few loose fence posts this morning. I am arranging everything this morning so that if need be we can be in the bathroom/closet for an extended period of time although we don't anticipate that we will have to do this. I like what the mayor said in one of the many press conferences from over the last couple of days..."this is not going to be fun, this is not going to be pleasant, but we will get through it." I paraphrased but I think you get the point. So far there have been tons of reports saying that the mandatory evacuations have gone very well. We are obviously not in a mandatory evacuation zone nor or we in a voluntary evacuation zone. My brother and his fiance, who both live in Deer Park, left yesterday afternoon to go to San Antonio around 2:00. They were not in a mandatory evacuation zone but their zip code is bordered on two sides by mandatory evacuation zones. Also, they were going to go to San Antonio this weekend anyway for Kim to get her bridal portrait done and for Eric to go to the UT vs. Arkansas game with my Dad. The game has been postponed but it looks like they will still have nice weather in San Antonio for Kim to get her bridal portrait taken. It took them about 6 hours to get to San Antonio where it ususally takes a little less than 4 hours from Deer Park.

We will have our cell phones but will be trying to conserve battery life so my Dad is our point of contact. We'll see you on the other side of the storm. For updates on the storm, this is the place we check most frequently along with the news: SciGuy Blog. He is a science writer for the Houston Chronicle and we always check in with him during hurricane season since he has what we feel is some of the best coverage without the hype.