Riding Out Rita...
Tuesday Night
 
Me and TJ watch endless updates on Hurricane Rita's where abouts with great anticipation. Soon after, dad announces that we will evacuate to Arlington on Thursday night after mom gets off work.
Wednesday
9:36 am
No word on school being cancelled yet. Therefore, I must go. Notice the number of cars out on the road. Evacuees high tailing it out of here or regular morning traffic? I say traffic.
11:31am
Asian Tom notifies everyone that school officially closes at Noon. Its about freakin time.
More traffic...
Took the rest of the day to prepare for the hurricane: taping up windows, getting documents together, wrapping up electronics, moving everything we can upstairs, and packing our bags for evacuation.
9:43pm
Making sure I pack the essentials.
9:57pm
I finally finished packing.
10:03pm
If only I can get this sucker closed.
10:05pm
Crap. I forgot my yellow asics.
Didn't get much sleep. We finished around 1am. Didn't get to go to sleep until 2ish. We all woke up at around 5am. The plan was to pack up everything and stay at Methodist hospital while mom worked and leave for Arlington when she got off since mandatory evacuation for our area was at 6am.
Thursday
9:04am
Still watching the news...
 
Rita.... that's alot of woman.
After seeing how insane the traffic was to Dallas, my dad thought it would be better for us to stay here at Methodist since they were opening the hospital to their employees' families and mom would be able to help out when they needed her. Me and TJ were ok with this cuz we got wristbands!
Yes! Wristbands!
This is where me and TJ stayed. There were children everywhere.
4:13pm
The first signs of Rita.
Rita is coming!
Rita is Coming!
Friday
What a horribly boring day. 70% of the day was spent watching the news. Me and TJ wanted to stay up to watch the storm but, since we were in the room reserved for employees' children, our curfew was 8:00. Suck.
 
They turned off all the lights at 8:30. The children kept on screaming at each other and wouldn't go to sleep. We couldn't sleep so we did some homework.
Saturday
2:30am
Hurricane Rita makes landfall in southwest Louisiana.
9:27am
After breakfast, me and TJ went outside to see the massive flooding and to experience the major wind speeds.
Don't they know how dangerous it is to be walking or driving around in flood waters?
30 mph wind speeds, 50 mph gusts
3:38pm
Time to go home!
On the way home....
 
Here's the extent of the damage to our home:
 
This is the first hurricane we've ever been through. It was a pretty intense. The only other hurricane experience I've had was in 8th grade in Ms. Bleyl's science class. We had this project where everyone had to build a miniature house that can withstand "hurricane force". The day our houses were due, we set up our little neighborhood behind the school. Then, Ms. Bleyl and the other science teacher proceeded in teaching us the destructive power of a hurricane. My classmates and I watched in awe as they attacked our houses with high pressured water and air hoses, bowlings balls, and even other houses. They even went as far as stomping on the houses. Thus, this is what I thought a hurricane was like. I must say, I'm somewhat disappointed. While driving back into the neighborhood, there was no evidence of house-sized bowling balls, houses being uprooted and thrown at other houses, or even houses that looked like they were crushed by a giant foot. Thanks alot Ms. Bleyl.
One last thing....
Hey Donna, this is what i'm wearing to your wedding. | 
