(no subject)

The good news: thanks to a family friend, a heavy jacket, and a rug, Mini-Me is sulking in the carrier.

The bad news: It is now headed straight for us. Worse, all highways great and small are bumper to bumper. It's taking hours, literally goddamn hours, to get from here to downtown. We're five minutes away frm being herded to Lufkin and it ain't going to do a damn bit of good because traffic. is not. moving.

It's not supposed to actually hit until something like 1 AM Saturday, so it's not, y'know, right on our ass, but we still need to get the fuck out of here.

(no subject)

HAY GUYS I'M STILL HERE

Dear Gub'mint:

You fuckers said you'd turn southbound lanes northbound on the Big Three at o-dark-thirty this morning. You're JUST NOW getting it done on I-45. You've got old folks in Baytown sitting on school buses with no AC because you've got some humongous clusterfuck in progress with regards to their destination--Lufkin or the convention center, PICK ONE, GO, AND GET THESE OLD FOLKS OUT OF THE HEAT. There's a mandatory evacuation in progress for pretty much everything down here, but you can't goddamn jolly well evacuate people when there's NOWHERE FOR THEM TO GO. There is no gas, there are no clear roads, WE ARE NOT HERE FOR FUN. GET OFF YOUR ASSES AND DO SOMETHING BEFORE I DECIDE TO HOTWIRE A TANK OR SOME SHIT.

Fuck you very much,
Me

...really, I'm more annoyed than scared at this point, because they're talking now like it's going to mostly poop out by the time it hits. The general consensus is that it's going to hit as a cat 3, which will still tear shit up, but not catastrophically. HOWEVER, I THINK I SPEAK FOR MY FELLOW PASADENIANS WHEN I SAY I'D RATHER NOT HANG AROUND AND FIND OUT KTHXFUBYE.

In cat news, Spazz is still bopping around the carrier in the living room and being his usual big dumb lovable self, while Mini-Me has calmed down considerably in the garage. She's still in the carrier, she's eating now, and she's stil bitching and growling at me, but it's more the "look, you're annoying me, leave me alone" grumbling than the batshit insanity of last night. She's not screaming and attacking anything that comes near, so she's definitely better.

Mom has pretty much insisted I go with Dad when he goes, and he's waiting for the contraflow thing to happen too. I admit I-45 is already starting to look better. It's not great, but it's better. Once we leave the chance of my having intarwebs is slim to none. I might make a phone post or two, but if I don't post for a while, assume I am on the road.

Thanks for all the good thoughts, folks. Believe me, they're very much appreciated.

(no subject)

GOD BLESS MSNBC.

They were just grilling some cunt from TXDoT about why, when the order was given THIRTEEN+ HOURS AGO, the major arteries leading out of Houston were still not opened up fully one-way. Said cunt claimed I-45 was one-way all the way up.

BULLSHIT. THAT IS A LIE. THAT IS A COMPLETE AND TOTAL GODDAMN LIE. Bits of it have been opened up, to the tune of a lane or two on the other side of the highway, and it hasn't done a whole hell of a lot of good, but no. I-45 is not, I repeat, NOT ONE-WAY ALL THE WAY UP, AND THIS BITCH IS LYING.

Said cunt has also dropped what I believe may be the first "we're not going to play the blame game" bomb of the Rita clusterfuck festival. So hey, I'll play the blame game! TXDoT was ordered to make this happen. TXDoT did not make it happen in any kind of timely manner. Therefore, this whole shitstorm going on right now with the traffic is 100% TXDoT's goddamn fault.

She's just been made to look like a jackass on national TV, though, so it's all good. Well, aside from the fact that we can't get out of here, anyway.

So unless something drastic happens to the traffic situation soon, we're not going to be able to go anywhere. Mom's next-door neighbors tried. They had to turn around and come back, because they were. not. moving. We have a full tank of gas, but that's not the problem--the problem comes when we run OUT of gas after going 1 MPH all day and night and none of the stations have Drop One of gas left. Better to ride it out here than in a car in the middle of I-45.

(no subject)

“We try to evacuate early enough so people don't get in traffic jams like this, but this is a good thing — it's a good thing that people are paying attention.”

Can someone explain to me exactly how this is a good thing? I mean, yes, it's good that us common folk were paying attention, but how, precisely, does that do one lick of good when the twits in charge fuck it all up?

"People" not including the ones in charge of things. This traffic nightmare happened because people were paying attention to the evacuation warnings... but the people in charge of coordinating shit dropped the ball. Big-time. There were supposed to be fuel trucks stationed along the highways starting yesterday. They're just now rolling out. The freeways were supposed to go into contraflow mode this morning. They've barely started. It's taking some people an hour and a half to go less than a mile--hence, my aunt turning back and heading home two hours and about a mile and a half after she left.

To add insult to injury, the Texas National Guard is heading to Austin--AUSTIN--where they might get a few raindrops out of this. A big-ass convoy of Guard vehicles mysteriouly gained relatively unobstructed passage down I-10 a couple hours or so ago. Get this: they've been recalled from Louisiana and the Katrina cleanup to deal with the Rita shit. However, they're not staying down here where they're going to be needed most--they've fucked off to Austin until the storm passes and then--then-- they'll be coming back. When? Saturday night? Sunday? Next week? Who th' fuck knows?

And Gee Dubya hisownself is coming down to survey our preparations for the storm tomorrow. Isn't that reassuring? Gosh, I know I sure feel better!

I hope the bitch scrapes his ranch right off the slab.

Do I seem to be repeating myself here? Do I kind of sound like a broken record? Probably, yeah, but that's because the point needs to be made and driven home hard that a hell of a lot of the people who are going to end up riding this storm out in their homes are NOT DOING SO BY CHOICE. They are doing so because state government and TXDoT fucked up, failed to consider the effect of literally millions of cars on our perpetually-under-construction highway system, and failed utterly to take the necessary measures to alleviate those effects.

I'm done.

Mom says I need to write this down and publish it. I might, if I can get through it without using the word "fuck." Which may prove to be difficult.

(no subject)

Mom just got off the phone with one of her friends. This friend left her house at 4 AM. Around 3 PM, her battery died--in the middle lane of five. Some kind folks pushed her off to the shoulder, where she got a charge for her dead battery. She turned around and came home.

The trip home, from the point it took her eleven hours to reach, took TEN MINUTES.

People are pulling off into parking lots, pitching TENTS, and camping out.

Yeah, I think we're definitely going to be better off here, and if Dubya declares that our preparations are AOK I may end up having to choke a bitch.