Update on Ike

As Hurricane Ike approaches, evacuations and preparations are underway. We have been prepared for the storm, but I had a few things to pick up before it was too late. The store was very busy this morning with at least 6 customers in each line. Things went rather slow as the store was not prepared to handle the number of customers they had. At some point, there were sackers running the check-out lines. After my adventure at the grocery store, I went to find gas. When I dropped Cooper off at school, some of my friends were saying they were only able to find Premium gas the night before. I was hoping my "hidden" Shell station would not fail me. When I pulled in the station, it was busy, but only had about two cars at each pump. Since my tank was already pretty full, I added another $50 to insure I could make it far enough out of town and find more gas later.

I came home and did my dishes and started on the laundry. My goal was to do as much as I could while we still have power. Good thing you can't see dust in the dark!

Tony ended up leaving work at noon. He wanted to make sure he did not have to sit in hours of traffic with all of the evacuees. When he left at noon, there was a mandatory evacuation for Galveston, Matagorda and Brazoria Counties, and Zones A and B along the coast. In other words, plenty of people to share the road with. He ended up making it home in his usual time. This is what he would have sat in if he would have waited...

This is the traffic on I-45 northbound at 2:00.
It was bumper to bumper as far as the eye could see. I had to go pick Cooper up from school and thought it would be interesting to take some pictures. I was actually mad at myself for not taking pictures at the grocery store earlier. It's funny the things you think about documenting on a blog.
After taking an alternate route home to avoid the traffic, I was able to get this shot of the feeder too. It was also backed up. The last time I saw I-45 like this was when we evacuated for Hurricane Rita in 2005.
Cooper had a long day at school and was rather cranky when I picked him up. I was able to cheer him up a little when I told him Daddy was at home waiting for him. He fussed for a little while and then gave into his fatigue.

After arriving home, we had some cookies and milk and cheered up a little. The kids went upstairs and put their stuffed animals in their closets to protect them from the storm. Tony and I brought all of the potential projectiles into the garage.

Right now we are watching the news and keeping up with Ike's track. We are expected to have around 80mph winds as soon as late tomorrow night and into Saturday morning. All we can do is continue to watch and pray for our safety and protection until the storm has passed.