A prelude to Hurricane Ike: Remembering Rita

Hurricane season is always interesting here in Houston. Every year we watch the storms that enter into the Gulf of Mexico and pray that they will not come near us. It makes me kind of guilty paying that the storm will turn and hit someone else, but in all honesty I would prefer these storms to affect someone other than us. I guess that's the survival instinct that me. This year it looks like we may not be so lucky, and that Hurricane Ike will make a direct hit on Galveston. As we prepare for this storm, I want to make an entry about what we experienced with Hurricane Rita in September of 2005 as this greatly affected how we will respond to the coming of Ike.

Here is what I wrote about Rita:



Since moving to Houston 16 years ago, and have witnessed a lot of destruction from tropical storms and hurricanes. We have always been blessed in that most of this has been from news reports on TV, or helping others in our area who have been flooded. 2005, however, was very different for our family. After watching the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, we were a little nervous when Hurricane Rita came into the Gulf of Mexico and continued to move towards Texas. Living in the hurricane zone is an interesting thing. You watch the storms as they are tracked each night on the news. Sometimes it looks like it will head right for you, but it always seems to turn and hit someone else. Rita was no different. We watched for several days wondering if the projected path for Rita would stay on line and miss the Houston area, or if it would turn and hit us. As the storm drew closer, the fear of what might happen increased. But we continued to hope that once again the storm would not affect us.

As time went on, it looked more and more likely that Rita would make landfall close our area. After several days of waiting and watching, I finally got around to taking stock of our food supplies. I have always struggled with keeping my food storage at constant levels as I am really good at rotating my canned goods out, but not so good at replacing them. Once again, this was the case. Although we had plenty of staples like rice, oats and flour, my canned goods were very low. Unfortunately, I had now waited too long to do this and by the time I went to the store, the shelves were empty. It was the eeriest feeling to walk up and down the isles at places like Wal-Mart and Costco and see 95% of the shelves empty. It was just like scenes I have seen many times on TV--there were no canned goods, no cereal, no bread. The bottled water was mostly gone, and what was left was extremely expensive. At the first store, I got a little nervous. After the third, I was starting to panic. At the fourth store, I found some spaghettios and tuna, so that is what I bought. I knew we would be ok--we had gassed up all our vehicles as well as a couple of 5 gallon gas cans to use in our chainsaw (which Greg had purchased in preparation for this storm), we had wood to cover our largest windows, we had our 72 hr. kits, we filled our water barrels, and we had enough food to get us by--but it was extremely scary to know that there was no way to increase our supplies. And I felt extremely stupid for not preparing sooner.

We continued to watch the news to see how the storm was progressing. They began evacuating Galveston and the coastal cities, which turned the highways into parking lots. People were sitting in the cars for hours and not making any progress. They continued to run their engines because the temperatures were around 100 and they needed the air conditioning. Because of this, many ran out of gas on the highway. We watched closely, thinking this meant we would definitely stay put as there seemed to be little hope of being able to evacuate. This, however changed when it was announced that Rita was expected to hit Galveston as a category 5 storm. This meant winds of more than 155 mph and a very high storm serge. The last storm to hit Galveston was Hurricane Alicia in 1983, which was a category 3 storm. Its winds were high enough to blow out windows in sky scrappers in downtown Houston--which is about 50 miles away. We live 20 miles north of Houston, but knew that a direct hit on Galveston by category 5 storm would cause some severe damage in our area. We sat with our children trying to decide what to do, when we got a call from our Bishop saying our Stake President had sent out word encouraging everyone who could evacuate to do so. We started boarding up our windows and trying to come up with a plan. My husband Greg was in the bishopric at the time and wanted me to take the kids to Austin while he stayed in Houston to help with the clean up after the storm. But as we talked about it, we felt like the best thing would be for our family to stay together. So we loaded up my van with our 72 hr. kits, our portable water and all of our photos and scrapbooks. My husband planned to return to Houston once the storm had made landfall in order to help with the clean up, so he loaded his truck with his chainsaw gear and the extra gas and we evacuated in two vehicles.

In an attempt to avoid the worst traffic, we tried to take back roads to the highway. We were joined on these back roads by thousands of others. We were traveling in the evening, so when traffic stopped, we turned off our cars and rolled down the windows to conserve gas. At this point, gas stations were out of gas and those who still had some had long lines of people hoping to be able to fill up their tanks. There were several times we thought about turning around and going home, but we pressed on because we had prayed about a plan and felt good about it. We were lucky--a trip that normally takes 2 1/2 hours only took us 10. Others we know weren't so lucky--some were on the road for 24 hrs (which by the way is how long it usually takes us to drive straight through from Houston to Utah), others drove for several hours only to turn back because they lost hope of getting anywhere.

We evacuated on a Thursday evening and then spent Friday in Austin with our Bishop's family and our daughter who attends college there. Saturday morning we got up and watched the news to see what had happened. In the end, the storm turned and missed Galveston. As soon as we heard there was no damage to our area, we got back on the road in an attempt to beat the traffic back home. This time the trip only took about 4 hrs.

So once again we were protected from the storm. But this one taught us some great lessons. First of all--listen to the Prophet and prepare now. Make sure you have your food storage--because you don't know when you'll need it and if you wait too long the stores will be empty. Make sure you have an up to date 72 hour kit--they will be worth their weight in gold if you ever get stuck on a highway for hours in gridlocked traffic. Make sure you keep your car gassed up as part of your emergency preparations. Gas stations can run out of gas--and in an emergency it will take a long time for more gas to be delivered. It took at least a week for stores and gas stations to be back to normal here in our neighborhood--and we didn't get hit by the storm. Listen to your local leaders and to the spirit for guidance in an emergency. When the call came to evacuate, we held a family council and came up with a plan that we then prayed about. Once we felt good about our plan, we acted on it--even when doubts arose about whether we were doing the right thing. We knew that the Lord approved of what were doing, and didn't let fear or doubts cloud that confirmation. In hindsight, it seems as if we should have just stayed home. However, I think if we had to do it all over again we would still evacuate. We listened to the counsel of our priesthood leaders and took our plan to the Lord. If nothing else, I feel like the Lord was teaching us. In the case of this hurricane, we had ample warning and time to prepare. Many emergencies give no warning, and the require you to prepare before they happen. I believe that is why we are constantly counseled by our leaders to be prepared. The scriptures tell us that when we are prepared we shall not fear. I felt the fear of being unprepared for an emergency. Hopefully the lessons I learned from Rita won't be forgotten, and our family will be able to feel that promised peace no matter what we have to face.