Rita is Here

Time for an update.

So it's 2:00 p.m., Friday, September 23, 2005. My sister's birthday. Happy Birthday Sis! Remember in my last blog that I said it would probably take Beth 8 hours to get to Austin. It took her 28, yes, TWENTY-EIGHT hours to go less than 250 miles. For her it was a nightmare. I was too scared to sleep. Never in my life do I ever want to go through what I experienced in the past 36 hours. There are many, many thoughts and emotions associated with it and Beth and I will spend many hours trying to sort them all out.

For now, the important thing is that Beth is safe. Dante and Picasso (our 2 mini-dachshunds) are safe. I LOVE VOLKSWAGEN!!! and they will get a BIG letter of THANKS from me in the near future. Beth drives a Passat, and when she left our home her gas tank was full. When she got to Bastrop (30 miles outside of Austin) 26-27 hours later, she still had 1/4 of a tank of gas. The batttery in her car is dead due to the extreme heat, duration of the trip, and not being able to go faster than 10 miles an our for 28 hours, but she didn't get stuck on the side of the road without gas. I am eternally grateful.

I am going to be at LBJ County Hospital until the storm passes. We have some critically ill patients that will be our help should we lose power and backup generators.

Regardless of what you may hear on the TV and radio. IT WAS ABSOLUTELY IMPERATIVE THAT PEOPLE LEAVE WHEN THEY DID! If they had started the evacuation 24 hours later, many, many people would have needlessly lost their lives. They system worked. Maybe not 100%, but it worked. We wil lnever know how many people were
spared because they made the decision to leave, even if they did sit on I-10 for 16+ hours.

Time to get down to business. Take care, and I'll again when I can.

Because of His grace,

Jeremy

Rita is coming...and she's not bringing Tequila

Gulf Hurricane, Take 2

It's Wednesday night and I felt the need to blog before Rita makes her presence known. Rest assured that the citizens of Galveston and Houston and the surrounding areas are taking Rita and her fury extremely seriously. It is taking 5 hours (normally a 1 hour trip) to drive from Galveston to downtown Houston.

Beth plans to leave for Austin tonight in the middle of the night. It will probably take her 8 hours to make a normal 3.5 hour trip. She is taking the dogs and a few keepsakes and heading for higher ground. This storm is so big that I'm sure Austin will get plenty of rain.

Me, you ask? Well, as an intern in the medical field, I am reporting for duty. My team is on-call (admitting patients for the night) starting Friday morning at 7:00 a.m., a few hours before we start to see effects of the hurricane. We have been told that we will stay in the hospital perhaps untilSunday or Monday depending on the storm, since the other residents won't be able to make it to the hospital. Even if I have the opportunity to leave Saturday morning, I won't. Beth and the dogs will be taken care of and I'm sure that they will need help in the hospital.

Say a prayer of us. That the casualties will be few and the damage minimal. Pray for patience as people spend many hours in the car trying to get out of harms way.

Time to batton down the hatches. See you on the other side.

Jeremy