Island Life

Tropics + Intertropical Convergence Zone + Rainy Season = TYPHOON SEASON!

On a lighter note, though, not all storms end with disastrous news.

With the many years of living in Guam and Palau with mega-typhoons over 200mph, my parents in Houston were well prepared for Rita. My siblings and I were more concerned about their house's ability to withstand winds over 90mph. Fortunately, they never seemed to go up over 60mph, and the winds weren't blowing continuously like a typhoon. So my parents relaxed while my dad baked cranberry cookies to go with their ice cream to end the night.

Some of the best childhood memories I had were during the typhoon seasons growing up in Palau and Guam. They were times when you truly appreciated your family and neighbors as well as having a roof over your head and whenever there was running water and electricity. When friends and family came together we'd spend our time reading, playing games, listening to the radio, my dad would play guitar while we sang along and I'd play the flute. And you could sleep as much or as little as you wanted.........heh heh heh heh....zzzzzzzzzz....

My dad called me Saturday morning just as I was reading his email. Yaay! What joyful news! Here were his messages:

Subject: RE: The Longest Hurricane
Date: Sat, 24 Sep 2005 06:57:37 -0600

Yes, indeed we are alive and well - and dry - this morning, thank God!! Here in the city we had a fairly quiet night. Winds were gusty and there was some rain, but it never reached hurricane intensity. The power went off several times through the night and each time came back on within 30 seconds - may have something to do with us being two blocks away from a major power substation (location, location). So we're up and running as normal this morning and already starting to disassemble our two-days worth of storm preparations.

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers through this. It may not be over yet. Rita still has 100mph winds over East Texas, there is still the possiblitliy of lingering rains, and there is yet the ordeal of getting everybody who evacuated back into town. Hopefully that goes smoothly and we can get back to normal here by Monday. We have clients at three hospitals in Beaumont, Port Arthur, and Lake Charles who may need our help.

Peace,
Ron

Subject: RE: The Longest Hurricane

Date: Friday, September 23, 2005 8:45 PM

So we're all set for the storm here. In fact we've never been so prepared for a storm before…. Because of the heightened sensitivity after the Katrina disaster, this one got everybody's attention - we started preparing Wednesday afternoon, businesses closed Thursday and we've done nothing else but get ready for two days. On Thursday morning the reports predicted a 175mph storm making a direct hit on Houston and we seriously thought of evacuating. So glad we decided not to! The storm's path swung East and now we're only expecting maybe 60mph winds tomorrow morning. Nevertheless, we've moved furniture away from windows, covered everything with plastic, and have several days worth of supplies on hand. I've duct-taped all the doors and put sandbags against them because the storm is going to sit for 2 or 3 days after it makes landfall and drop a couple of feet of rain.

Houston is a ghost town - so many people evacuated. It's bound to be chaotic getting them all back in on Sunday, with the rain and possible flooding.

Meanwhile folks up the coast are having to scramble on short notice and it sounds like they're doing a great job of evacuating people. Gov't is bound to get better at it as a result of lessons learned each time - and it may be something that we need to get good at, as populations and development continue to grow along the coasts, and global warming continues to affect weather and sea levels. It's interesting to see the difference in Gov't action between Louisiana, Houston, and Beaumont. Louisiana was the worst, with people all up and down the chain of command unable or unwilling to work with each other. Houston was better, with the State politicians aligned with the White House, although we have a Democratic mayor who apparently had some disconnects with the State over the evacuation plan. Beaumont did the best, with City / County gov't solidly aligned with the State and Federal politicians. They apparently had a military air-lift to evacuate some folks.

What's really needed is to figure out how to transcend politics and take care of the people - all of them (….us).

The wind is picking up. I'll be able to keep connected here with a dial-up connection, I think, after the power goes out, so I'll send you all an update in the morning.
Peace,
Ron