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RITA: Calm.

So I am at the house of my parents-in-law, in far NW Houston. On dial-up internet.

Last night was sort of anti-climactic. Low winds. Hardly any rain. Power still on (although it turned off a couple of times for a few seconds, and could still do so again).

What Katrina was for raising awareness and freaking people out, Rita will be to un-raising awareness. All those millions of people who evacuated are going to return home and feel silly their homes were not even touched. Branches didn't even fall around here. Pine needles hardly fell off pine trees.

As Rita "hit," we were playing basketball outside. Years ago, in Midland, Texas (which is West Texas) or Ponca City, Oklahoma (North Oklahoma), when I played basketball outside constantly, there were days-- and many of them-- with far greater winds than even the gusts last night. I played soccer as a little kid in far worse conditions than this.

I hope everyone in the storm's path is okay, but I can pretty much guarantee there will never be an evacuation of Houston so early and so complete.

Kristel's mom: "We're extremely disappointed. Poor excuse of a hurricane." But she is glad it got us to come over. Honestly, for all the preparation everyone around here did, including boarding up windows and stockpiling food and water, and otherwise running around paying way too much for things they don't need, there will be a lot of disappointed folks. I know it sounds weird, but if you've been bracing for a punch to the gut for a few days and it doesn't come, you'll just feel gypped.

Signing off for now, but I will try to report a little more on this before it's all said and done.

Posted by Will Franklin · 24 September 2005 09:09 AM

Comments

Posted by: Zsa Zsa at September 24, 2005 09:35 AM

Posted by: bullwinkle at September 24, 2005 07:14 PM