August 29, 2013 (Thursday)
On this day in 2005, Hurricane Katrina came ashore near New Orleans, Louisiana, with disastrous results. It had winds of 100-140 mph, affected 90,000 square miles in several states, and killed nearly 2,000 people. A total evacuation of New Orleans was ordered, but 1/4 of the 500,000 residents of New Orleans had no access to a car. The Superdome was the refuge of last resort, but it could not handle the huge number of people and the doors were locked. The levees broke and the city, much of it under sea level, was flooded. Some people were on their rooftops for days awaiting rescue. Conditions were deadly.
I was living in Houston at the time, and listened on radio to the news about opening the Astrodome to receive busloads of refugees from New Orleans. I listened with awe as Houston residents were interviewed. They had driven to the Astrodome to take some of the people from New Orleans home with them.
On the heels of Katrina came Rita, less than one month later, the strongest storm ever observed in the Gulf of Mexico. It traveled into East Texas, mostly east of Houston, but preparations for Rita were frantic. With fresh memories of Katrina, people evacuated in great numbers and the highways were glutted with cars running out of gas and having other problems in the intense heat.
The next storm to barrel through Houston was Ike, which reached Galveston on September 13, 2008, with a storm surge of 15 feet. It brought total destruction to the Bolivar peninsula, with widespread flooding, loss of life and property. I stayed at home and listened to the gusts hit the house all night. The storm had been on course to hit Rockport, where I was visiting, so I drove Janet’s mother, Alta Albers, to Pearland. Then the course changed, and the eye passed directly over the Fake home in Pearland.
September is the month of highest probability for hurricanes here on the Texas coast. Everything looks calm right now, but…