Guess who's back? Right!

Well that was an interesting few days.

I've got some damage to my roof and about half my fence is down, but I've got power (returned on Sunday), water (returned on Monday), TV, internet (returned on Wednesday), and a roof over my head. That's more than can be said for a lot of people around here, some just blocks away. I'm doing what I can for those less fortunate than me, when I have time. It'll be a long expensive road to recovery for this area.

For pictures I've taken over the last few days, here's a map of the area showing what's where, (or go here for just the pictures).

Thanks to everyone who commented in the last couple of posts, for all your good wishes. They certainly didn't hurt.

In answer to Jim, who asked about Katrina and Rita in 2005: That actually played a huge part in how things were handled for Ike in 2008. Hurricane Rita targeted Houston about a month after Katrina hit New Orleans. Hundreds of thousands evacuated New Orleans and came to Houston for shelter. So Katrina's flooding was very fresh on the minds of Houstonians (even though had Katrina hit here, we wouldn't have flooded because we're above ground, unlike New Orleans), and as a city, we panicked (not me, though). Millions of people fled our city, leading to traffic jams with hours-long backups (imagine 18 hours to go 200 miles). In the aftermath of that storm - which took a late northerly jog and hit well east of Houston - there were a lot of lessons learned, some good and some bad. Houston did much better this time at planning for and reacting to Hurricane Ike, but at the same time too many people remember getting burned by evacuating "for nothing" from Rita in 2005 and stayed put when they should have gone. Too many decided to ride out the storm and assumed that this storm would change track just like Rita did, and got caught when it didn't. Galveston, for example, had about 95% evacuate for Rita but only 60% for Ike. And when they ignored the evacuation order and the storm hit, the rescue workers had to say "I'm sorry we can't send anyone out, you'll have to wait til morning" when those who stayed called 911 in the middle of the night.

As with all major disasters (ObLSH: Karate Kid once fought Major Disaster), there have been screwups and miscommunications from the federal, state, and local levels, but that's to be expected no matter what's going on, and no matter where it happens.

It's a good thing "Legion of 3 Worlds" #2 isn't out this week. Our comics are delayed by UPS til Friday. My comic shop guy said that UPS told them that they are more backed up now than at Christmastime.