First in a brief (I hope) series on our experiences on the eastern side of Houston during Hurricane Ike. There is a slim likelihood I can keep posting during the power outage tonight, but don’t count on it. That requires the Verizon wireless network to stay up, and the saying about snowballs and hell comes to mind. If you’re coming here from Brendan’s site, you might be put off by the fact that I use a nom du plume (or du guerre as I sometimes think, sardonically), and won’t be showing or talking much about myself and my family, but I am a career civil servant, and my elected masters probably wouldn’t care much for my opinions of them. This is normally a blog about politics, often local, you see, and I also participate in a group blog over at blogHOUSTON.

Now I’ll summarize the situation for any new visitors: I am in Evacuation Zone C (“Cat 4 or 5 storm only”), approximately 26-28 feet above sea level and maybe a mile north of the Ship Channel. My family is very well prepared for a storm, having a generator, portable A/C, sixty gallons of gas (plus what’s in the vehicles), thirty-plus gallons of water, plenty of canned food, some mosquito repellent, and even suntan lotion for those pleasant afternoon sojourns on the roof waiting on the Coast Guard helicopter and watching the neighborhood float away. (Odds of my remembering to grab it at the time? Nil.) There’s a large dog, and a 2/3 wild, but co-dependent cat. (She’s weird. Squalls to be petted, but don’t pick her up or try to bring her indoors.)

Two of us require some medical support, one critically. and therein starts our problems this morning. We will lose power long before we can possibly run the electric generator, thanks to the danger of carbon monoxide. We had a backup plan, but a small-scale power failure a few weeks ago made us realize that it would only be adequate for a few hours; not enough time. Ike is much larger than an ordinary hurricane. We might have 12 hours of hurricane force winds — so we grabbed a power inverter and a 12 volt battery and set it up yesterday.

Unfortunately, while it provided enough power to run the oxygen generator, it couldn’t start it. So my odyssey today was to secure a new inverter, if I could. After some calling around, Harbor Freight on the North Freeway turned out to have one twice as powerful and agreed to hold it for me, once I explained the situation. So while I was out and about, I carried my trusty camera with me. (Well, it’s not very trusty, it’s a Sony.)

And after I rest a bit, I’ll post those pictures, along with my thoughts.

4pm: and I’m back. Wow, I was really shagged after a day and a half of preparing. And not in the good, Austin Powers way.

Traffic was very light at 9:10 a.m. It felt like 7 a.m. on Sunday morning, if that. This is I-610, approaching Hwy 59.

And this is I-45 N. just north of I-610, 9:30.

I guess they didn’t need the contraflow after all. Today, anyway. Would have been nice to have it yesterday when folks needed it. I’m seeing almost no boarded windows. About 10 a.m., after I have the inverter, I found all the people at Home Depot:

That’s not the end of the line; due to traffic, I never saw it. Hey guys…. isn’t it a bit late right now? Notice the increasing clouds. At this point, there is a good stiff breeze out of the north, probably 15 mph+ Small flags are standing straight. Shortly after this, I stopped to check the instruction manual to verify the size of cables I needed, only to find that the more powerful inverter required bigger cables. Well, duh. I stopped searching for photo-ops and started searching for auto parts stores. Nada. I-45 North has an unusual density of auto dealerships, but it’s too expensive for parts stores. Drove back to Harbor Freight. One of the guys helped me find the smaller of the two sizes I needed, but they were out of the #2AWG. They were able to direct me to an Auto Zone on airline drive nearby. While I didn’t get a picture of that, the parking lot was full. Grabbed a cable and spare spark plug for the generator. Notice: a cable. Thought it was a 2-pack…oops. Took some more pics on the way home. It’s now 11 am, and boards are starting to appear here and there.

Given the number, I suspect the BK picture was from my first stop at Harbor Freight, but I am seeing a few more boards. By the time I get back to my home turf, it’s just past 11 a.m. and my plan to grab lunch for all of us got a hard dose of reality: most fast food restaurants are closing down. The rest are hugely crowded, both inside and drive-thru. Microwave burritos it is, folks. Gassed the car back up, to replace the morning’s drive. Very crowded at the station.

Got home. Wind has slacked off. Fix lunch, eat and then start the final preparations. Discovered my error with the battery cable. Back out, to a local AutoZone, and grab one. More stores closing, but there’s a lot more cars on the road now.

Walgreens is one of the few places still open that sells necessities, so they’re busier than I’ve ever seen them.

A few more houses in my neighborhood are boarding up. One thing I notice — apartment complex parking lots are full. Bearing in mind this is zone C, it’s pretty obvious that almost no one has left. I have no idea about Zones A and B at this point, and I’m not driving down there to find out.

This was one type of place that always seemed to be boarded up. And the liquor stores too. Oh, good, the porn and liquor is safe — can’t say we don’t have our priorities!

Got back home with the second cable, and after some labor, we got it to work. Then we moved the last few items into the garage, and moving some obstacles that would form dams to water flow around the house. We get a lot of drainage through our yard here. Finished up around 1 p.m.

And now for the afternoon post…