[Coco] Me and Rita or is it Rita and I?

[Dave Kelly]

It is eerie out there.  Almost scary.  Surreal.  Like a movie.

Yesterday we could not get out of our community. To describe where I 
live. Look at a map of the Houston area. North is Conroe. Northwest is 
Hempstead. I live halfway between those two. Six miles south of 
Plantersville off of Texas Hwy 1774.

We are not on one of the proscribed evacuation routes. The out bound 
traffic was backed up from who knows where south to who know where 
north. You could go south all you wanted, but you didn't because you 
would never get back. Our  neighbor ran off and left his wife. She works 
for the Planterville fire department and had to stay on call for 
emergencies. About 4 1/2 hours hes back. Made 20 miles and turned 
around. Thirty minutes back to the house.

Today I decided to drive around if I could. Hwy 1774 looks normal for a 
Friday at 1 o'clock. So I go into town, Magnolia is 6 miles. 
Plantersville is a crossroads of 105 and 1774. Magnolia is a town of 
1100 in the city limit and 200,000 in the surrounding developments. But 
really wild as the coyotes are preying on small pet in one of the 
subdivisions and wild pigs are rooting up the flower bed in another.

As I'm driving south on 1774 I think for a while I was still growing up 
in west Texas. We had sand storm back in the 50's that would block out 
the view of the street from the front of the house. Where they are 
building the new high school the dust blowing off of the unfinished 
parking lot obscured the highway.

Just passed this new school on the side of the highway is a large oak 
tree. Every summer since I moved up here there has been someone parked 
under that trees with a pickup load of watermelons.  We have a hurricane 
coming in and there are cars stopped and people buying melons. On down 
the road the quater mile to town.

Here the streets are normal, the parking lots are empty. I don't mean 
just a couple of car like on Sunday or at 3 in the morning, I mean 
EMPTY. The pharmacy EMPTY.  The grocery store EMPTY. McDonalds EMPTY. 
Burger King EMPTY. The gas stations, Exxon, Shell, Shamrock, EMPTY and 
roped off.

Go back home where any sane person should be. My daughter and her 
husband have a show to do in Austin and the show emailed everyone and 
said it would go on rain or shine. So they left this morning.  So its 
just me and my old tom cat.

Luckily, I am on the clean side of this big wind. I did not get a drop 
of rain from the NO blow.  I am far enough inland and elevation enough 
that it would take tsunimi of epoacal proportions to reach me. About 300 
feet above sea level and 120 miles from the gulf. Our greatest concern 
here are stray tornados. Most of the tornados will be on the dirty side 
of the big wind. NOAA is forcasting 30 mph winds today and 60 mph 
tomorrow and 13 the next day. Most of our trees appear to be in midlife 
so they should be fairly sturdy. I did move my  car to a clearing just 
in case.

I noticed that some of the other people that live in this community are 
also staying.  I've got a set of those big dominos for old people, big 
spots and  easy  to hold with old hands. And big enough to not blow 
away. Maybe thats what we'll do tomorrow.

Dave