BTHO Rita

well i guess everyone's talking about the same thing, this damn hurricane. at first it was like, damn you rita, you're ruining was supposed to be a kick ass weekend, haha. Cuz Friday was gonna be Midnight Yell with the Shags, then on Saturday my WHOLE family had tix to the TSU game and they were all excited, and Sunday I was supposed to go on a field trip to San Antonio with my vertebrate class. well, needless to say, everything is cancelled. even class tomorrow. so what began as an annoyance has become something more frightening. my mom told me that half the people on our block at home in Sugar Land are leaving, and i was like, wait, WHAT? on OUR street? how bizzare is that? and she said that some people had boarded up their windows. wtf. i guess that's when i started to stress a lot. and they went to go fill up their cars and gas stations in SUGAR LAND were out of gas completely. and the kroger by my house had no water, no batteries, no bread, nothing. at first my mom and my dad and my sister were just going to stay, but as Rita gained strength and become a huge Cat5, they changed their minds, and decided to head up north to stay at my sister's house in Ft. Hood. The only reason she was in Sugar Land in the first place was because she was going to the Aggie game with my parents. so when Rita roared up to 175mph winds and half our block was gone already, they decided to leave too. They left last night at about 3:30am with the two dogs and not too much stuff, hoping that that time of the morning it wouldn't be as bad as it was during the day with the traffic. so. three hours later in bumper to bumper traffic, guess how far they got? the first tollroad on beltway 8, which is only like 15 mins from our house. Three fucking hours. And so they decided to turn around. Because they couldn't imagine how bad it would be to be on the road (parking lot?) for 10 hours and run out of gas or overheat and be stuck, cell phones barely working. Not to mention that my sister is 3 months pregnant and there's no way we want her going through all that stress and heat and exhaustion. so they went home. but how scary for the people who are travelling with 5 kids and HAVE to evacuate. they have no choice, they have to be in that gridlock, and what do they do if they get stuck? that's what's scary. oy. at least Rita has been downgraded, although a Cat4 is no joke either, but still, its better than a 5. But now they're saying that it could still strengthen a little before it hits. its like so surreal cuz i have nothing to compare this to, they say hurricane force winds and i can't even picture anything like that. hopefully it will be ok and it won't be as bad as they've been predicting. so yea. i've been stressing for my family lately. and everyone else i know who's in sugar land/houston. so stay glued to the news the next couple days, kids, and keep in touch with your fam back in H/SL. Hope everyone will be just fine.