Insanse amount of people coming into SA...

[SPURSX3]

I have family coming in from Houston tomorrow, they HOPE to make it to San Antonio...they may be routed to go to some other city if they cant get to I-10.

My older sister was going to track down my two older brothers over there, she wont get a chance to, they basically started locking down access to houston and each suburb after 6pm today (9/22/05), so she had to go home to get her stuff together before she was locked out...Hopefully my Bro's got arrangements to get out already, or are already out...I know they will be ok.  I have faith God will see them throuh this.

Another freaking wierd thing happenning is we are running out of gas across the city, it started on the south side and now it's up on the northwest part of town where i live, not as bad though we still had some Plus and Super, but they were starting to run short of that too!!

there are evacuation routes from ALL texas coastal cities into San Antonio...i know they will also force people elsewhere...but we are already getting people BACK INTO shelters that had just started to clear people out...they even openned up MORE SHELTERS!  

I didnt have a bad feeling about all of this until i had heard about my brothers, but i think the surge of people here at once is gonna make for some awful problems.

they are saying the winds are at 175 MPH!!!  and the low pressure is still dropping on it which means it will get even stronger, the weather service says Rita is officially the third strongest hurricane in recorded history - is that true???  They showed a computer projection of what it will look like after the surge hits, and Galveston is completly gone, I dont know how true that projection could be, they seem to really over do it, you would think Steven Speilberg [sp?] created that program.  Anyway, the seawall is setup to stop a seventeen foot surge, so I am not sure if the program i saw took that into account or not.  It's pretty stressful waiting to see what happens and how life is gonna change in this city, thinking about family members and all.  I hope this storm powers down before it makes it to Texas...

[SPURSX3]

just got a call this morning from my sis saying that they are stuck in Houston, it is gridlock on the highways there, people are starting to run out of gas while they wait on the freeway and there is no gas in houston either.  the mayor is suppossed to be trying to open up more routes to get out, but people are running out of gas waiting.  they took 3 hours just to get a 4-5 miles on I-10, they decided to turn around and wait to see what routes the mayor opens, they are already running low on gas.  I told them to try and get out when they have a better route today, i hope they listen and get moving.  i understand about the gas, but if this storm is as bad as it they say it is there is going to be a lot of flooding in houston.  

[rickortreat]

It is a logitical nightmare to move that many people out all at the same time.  The roads aren't built to handle it, and if you let the people decide, too many will try to leave "just in time" and you get this gridlock situation.

Do you think the officials could have done something about this like establish which hours you should leave, based on the last digit on your car's license plate?  You know 1's leave at 8 AM, 2's leave at 9...  Or would that be too complex for the government to figure out?

San Antonio is affected since it is the only major city near the largest part of the Texas coastline.  It would also have been a good idea to make sure all the stations up frorm he coast would be well-stocked with gasoline, as a precaution prior to the mandatory evacuations.

It may turn out to be unnecessary to even evacuate Houston.  The Storm might not even hit there.  With a little luck, it will hit in between Galveston and Corpus Christie and miss the population centers.
 

[SPURSX3]

hmmm...looks like Rita is wobbling EAST of Houston...het to say it, but with all the congestions in Houston irght now, and my family being stuck there, i would rather it hit louisiana now...