IKE continued

Officials told people who refused to evacuate the mandatory evacuation area to write their names and SSN on their arms. You know, just in case. This request convinced a couple people to leave. I may write "John Doe" on mine just to be a prick. Twenty thousand people did not evacuate Galveston. They are cutting off emergency services at 21:00 this evening.

I'll be honest, the storm didn't look that bad when the reporter was standing down the street from a house where a guy refused to leave. That is bad. The storm is just now making landfall. The worse has not quite begun. The storm is a bit faster and bit weaker than reported a couple hours ago. The wind estimates were over 90 mph at our house when checked early in the AM. They dropped to 71 mph. Last check they were at 80 mph. I have no idea what that all means.

The motion radar on intellicast is annoying. It is a while out of date. The map that says where the hurricane is, the one at the top of this blog until 8:00 Sunday, is not updated very often.

First comes the storm surge. Then comes the rain bands. Then comes the wind and an even higher storm surge. Then comes a couple of beautiful clear dry days in which we can all recover. Then comes the political blame game and finger pointing. then come the lawsuits.

We have three wind-up radios. New batteries in the flashlights. the camping toilet is ready. We have all the clean water we can store including both bathtubs. We have food that you don't need to cook and some that you do need to cook. We also have a camp stove and some propane. Not enough to last for long. It will keep us going. It will get us started.