easjer
09-28-2005, 11:03 PM
Spurs_Fan_in_Exile (hereafter referred to as J) and I are getting married Saturday in New Braunfels. We live in Houston, and of course were worried about Rita. Because on Wednesday, it was a Cat 5 looking to be a direct hit, we decided that while we'd be fine in our apartment, we weren't certain that we'd be able to get out of town in time for the wedding if there was severe flooding.
So we decided to leave. With our cat, who does not travel well. It took hours to prepare the apartment, we had to kill all of our plants, because we didn't have a secure place for them. We had to pack for the wedding, and relocate things in the apartment in case the glass broke (just after we'd finally gotten the place into shape, damn it). I finally crashed about midnight (since I was the primary driver), and we got up just before five. We were on our way at 5:30 exactly.
We live on S. Gessner in Houston, and were supposed to take I10 to 46 to NB (my mom's house). Now, S. Gessner is pretty far out (next to the beltway, the outer loop of Houston). We got to the highway in normal time with a full tank of gas. From there it took about forty minutes to get on the highway. Once we did .. . we sat.
We sat for hours. At one point, we traveled 3/10 of a mile in two and a half hours. It took us 12 hours to get to Katy. We got to Brookshire after 16 hours, and that's when we had to pull over because of low gas. It's also when our cell phone began to die. Now, it normally takes us 20-30 minutes to get to Brookshire (22 today). We were on the road forever, and we ran out of gas. The heat was stifling, we had to turn off the air conditioner for fear of overheating. There was no way to get off or turn around. The cat began overheating and panicking, but refused to drink water (he was panting heavily, drooling, etc). We let him out of his carrier, and he climbed all over, on me at one point. We kept dousing him with (warm, as we forgot ice) water, to cool him, and he scrambled up my arm to avoid that, as he hates water. Unfortunately, there was no way to scramble, but dighis claws deeply in, at which point I completely lost it, and screamed in severe pain, and began sobbing hysterically. It took nearly an hour to get calmed down, fortunately J was driving at the time and much, much calmer than I was.
We managed to let my parents know where we were, and they in turn let's J's family know. Everyone (including the radio) kept telling us it would be fine - they were sending tanker trucks out and DPS out and filling people up with gas. Sure. They never hit us . . . apparently, if we'd made it to Sealy, we would have found them, but we didn't have enough gas. No matter - after we pulled over and turned the car off, it died. Battery went caput.
Nine hours later, attempts to flag people down (one group stopped and let us use their cell phone while waiting for the rest of their convoy to catch up) to give us a jump, fitful sleeping on my part, anger on J's part and a now remarkably resigned and calmed cat, we tried the cell phone again and managed to get a call out to J's brother in Houston, who kindly (at 3 in the morning) came out, gave us a jump and gas and guided us through back roads back into Houston, and 25 hours after we left, we arrived home. We showered, bathed a very angry cat, and slept.
In the end, we didn't even get rain at our apartment, but that nightmare did mean that we didn't have to deal with traffic coming back in, and that I got a full two and a half weeks off work because the university was shut down until I went on vacation for the wedding/honeymoon. So that's cool. Because we had initially planned to stay, we had plenty of supplies, and were able to get gas Saturday by waiting patiently in line for about thirty minutes.
But never, ever, ever again.
We can't wait to move back here, were hurricanes don't happen. But all is well that ends well, right? Hopefully the tuxes will arrive in Houston (we'd asked them to be sent to SA when we thougt a hurricane would hit us, and they are trying to get them back in time), but if they don't . . . hell, it'll still be a great day. Compared to that nightmare, everyday is a wonderful day. Definitely took the worry out of the wedding for me!
:lol
So we decided to leave. With our cat, who does not travel well. It took hours to prepare the apartment, we had to kill all of our plants, because we didn't have a secure place for them. We had to pack for the wedding, and relocate things in the apartment in case the glass broke (just after we'd finally gotten the place into shape, damn it). I finally crashed about midnight (since I was the primary driver), and we got up just before five. We were on our way at 5:30 exactly.
We live on S. Gessner in Houston, and were supposed to take I10 to 46 to NB (my mom's house). Now, S. Gessner is pretty far out (next to the beltway, the outer loop of Houston). We got to the highway in normal time with a full tank of gas. From there it took about forty minutes to get on the highway. Once we did .. . we sat.
We sat for hours. At one point, we traveled 3/10 of a mile in two and a half hours. It took us 12 hours to get to Katy. We got to Brookshire after 16 hours, and that's when we had to pull over because of low gas. It's also when our cell phone began to die. Now, it normally takes us 20-30 minutes to get to Brookshire (22 today). We were on the road forever, and we ran out of gas. The heat was stifling, we had to turn off the air conditioner for fear of overheating. There was no way to get off or turn around. The cat began overheating and panicking, but refused to drink water (he was panting heavily, drooling, etc). We let him out of his carrier, and he climbed all over, on me at one point. We kept dousing him with (warm, as we forgot ice) water, to cool him, and he scrambled up my arm to avoid that, as he hates water. Unfortunately, there was no way to scramble, but dighis claws deeply in, at which point I completely lost it, and screamed in severe pain, and began sobbing hysterically. It took nearly an hour to get calmed down, fortunately J was driving at the time and much, much calmer than I was.
We managed to let my parents know where we were, and they in turn let's J's family know. Everyone (including the radio) kept telling us it would be fine - they were sending tanker trucks out and DPS out and filling people up with gas. Sure. They never hit us . . . apparently, if we'd made it to Sealy, we would have found them, but we didn't have enough gas. No matter - after we pulled over and turned the car off, it died. Battery went caput.
Nine hours later, attempts to flag people down (one group stopped and let us use their cell phone while waiting for the rest of their convoy to catch up) to give us a jump, fitful sleeping on my part, anger on J's part and a now remarkably resigned and calmed cat, we tried the cell phone again and managed to get a call out to J's brother in Houston, who kindly (at 3 in the morning) came out, gave us a jump and gas and guided us through back roads back into Houston, and 25 hours after we left, we arrived home. We showered, bathed a very angry cat, and slept.
In the end, we didn't even get rain at our apartment, but that nightmare did mean that we didn't have to deal with traffic coming back in, and that I got a full two and a half weeks off work because the university was shut down until I went on vacation for the wedding/honeymoon. So that's cool. Because we had initially planned to stay, we had plenty of supplies, and were able to get gas Saturday by waiting patiently in line for about thirty minutes.
But never, ever, ever again.
We can't wait to move back here, were hurricanes don't happen. But all is well that ends well, right? Hopefully the tuxes will arrive in Houston (we'd asked them to be sent to SA when we thougt a hurricane would hit us, and they are trying to get them back in time), but if they don't . . . hell, it'll still be a great day. Compared to that nightmare, everyday is a wonderful day. Definitely took the worry out of the wedding for me!
:lol