Ninth Ward Levee Topped By Rain Water: This morning, water poured into the Ninth Ward of New Orleans once again. Rain from Hurricane Rita went “over a dike that had been used to patch breaks in the Industrial Canal.” The waterfall is now 30 feet wide and water is waist-high in most of the ward.

A point of clarification: Topping does not equal breaching. Topping may cause a breach because of scour at the base of the levee/wall; this depends on the volume and strength of the water. A true breach of the Industrial Canal would be unfortunate.

—

Hurricane Rita / Houston Update: The gang up here in Kingwood (north suburb of Houston) spent all of yesterday afternoon and early evening preparing the house for high winds related to Hurricane Rita. Current predictions put the hurricane just northeast of here. We expect loss of power, strips of rain, street flooding and a bit of wind damage to trees and windows. Our preparations included: cleaning the house and garage, stocking all cars in case of an evacuation, gathering of pet supplies and carriers, organization of all non-power-requiring appliances and full-on inventory.

Just so everyone knows, we did not decide to stay in Houston out of childish bravado, but due to the sheer impracticality of leaving. With no gas in stations between here and San Antonio or Austin, and roads bumper-to-bumper with frightened evacuees, it is unfeasible to leave. Being on the road, especially with a herd of animals, while the hurricane hits is an exercise in idiocy.

As if the nerd quotient at txyankee’s house isn’t high enough (three people sitting around the dining table and one upstairs, all IMing one another), he has set up a webcam that overlooks the backyard. If you want a look, please follow these instructions:

While my computer is on and we have power/internet, I am going to show the backyard through my Yahoo! Messenger account. If you get on there and look for me, I am a_regulr_guy (no a in regular!!). It’s set for everybody to see it. Find me as a friend and then I will “accept” you.

The rain approacheth. (For reference, we’re right on the Harris Co. – Montgomery Co. line off Highway 59)

Hurricane Rita Evacuation: Never a dull moment here at Evacuation Central in Stepford! Rita appears to have turned northward, evidently skipping Galveston and Houston altogether (too early to tell), but downtown and south Houston are in a tizzy.

By The Bayou, arrived last night with Boris, the iMac and all of his perishables in tow.

Yes, we’ve decided to ride it out in the wilds of northern Houston (or as txyankee just said, “ok, ok, Kingwood, 77345”) because we’re, in the words of D,

about 60 miles in from the coast and about 75 ft above sea level. We’re also about 4 ft up off of the street here. There is a lake just south of here, but it’s been created by a dam – no worries. The storm surge will not affect Kingwood, but the heavy rains will and we expect all the million-dollar homes right on the lake flooded while the rest of the town is ok. Other Houstonians are coming to stay with us and we expect the cat population to get as high as 8. People-wise I think we’ll have maybe 6. Food and water is available for everyone, pets included, to last about a week. We also have a fresh tank of gas for the grill and a power inverter that we can hook up to a car to run small appliances, like the coffee maker and our iPods, the essential things during an emergency! We also seem to have a fully-stocked wine cellar and liquor cabinet.

Moreover, I am sick of getting in a car and … going … somewhere. Hurricane or not, we’re staying put!

txyankee, ByTheBayou, D, Bucky, Satchel, Frik, Frak, Yoda, Olet, Boris, and me (and, quite possibly, Rusty and his cat, Nibbles) = one heck of a hurricane party. Still footage forthcoming.

With all of the state’s problems, I really don’t want Rita to hit southwestern Louisiana, but some of us have had enough of high-speed weather systems for a while.

—

Mathematics From A Distance: Matt Ludwig of UW-Madison Geology & Geophysics alerts me to a distance learning program for higher-math students displaced by Katrina. Suffolk University has “established the Distance Calculus – Hurricane Katrina Relief Effort.”

Students from Louisiana, Mississippi, or Alabama whose studies have been disrupted by the hurricane and its aftermath, are invited to enroll in one of our Distance Calculus courses for Fall 2005 semester – free of charge – with the tuition fees being waived by Suffolk University.

Distance Calculus offers Calculus I, Calculus II, Calculus III, Vector Calculus, Differential Equations, and Linear Algebra courses, all taught on-line, through Suffolk University in Boston. Credit earned in these courses can be transferred to a student’s home institution.

It’s too bad I’ve taken all of these courses or I’d sign up to keep my mind pleasantly occupied at a time like this. What a great use of the internet – a hurricane evacuation is no reason to stop learning!

Two Category Fives In One Season: Why? Read this short but informative piece on the reason for Katrina and Rita going from 0 to Scary in a very small period of time.

—

Rita Upgraded To Category 5: Hurricane Rita is now a Cat 5 storm and her path has turned slightly southward. The eyewall is projected to hit coastal Texas at Port Lavaca / Victoria in the early hours of Saturday, September 24.

Again, it’s too early to know the exact location of the landfall and its intensity for certain.

Hurricane Rita’s Three-Day Cone

—

Rita Help Blog: Those of us who teamed up for the Katrina Help blog are back at it for Rita. The Rita Help blog has the same M.O. as before: a blog for getting out vital information pertaining to Hurricane Rita, including updates, resources and aid organizations. This time, two hurricane Help bloggers, Patrix and me, are in the path of the storm.

Hurricane Rita: Preparations are underway at txyankee‘s for the imminent landfall of Hurricane Rita, now a Category 4 in the Gulf of Mexico. The first Rita-related casualty in Houston occurred late last night as txyankee performed battery inventory and accidentally dropped a C cell on my big toe. Near miss, near miss! Even funnier was the response I received from the lads on asking how large a generator I could get for $150, “One just powerful enough to plug a blender into. You can make margaritas!” A great idea, now what about wireless internet access?

Alright, enough slapstick. Mandatory evacuations have been called for New Orleans and Galveston. Houstonians, meanwhile, begin to worry/panic and employ themselves in various stages of preparedness including frantic shopping, boarding up windows, and planning pathways of evacuation. Strangely enough, txyankee’s Stepfordian neighborhood is located right by a hurricane evacuation route.

Houston Hurricane Evacuation Route Map

A number of locals called or emailed me to ask if I’m evacuating again and what should they do. This is my advice, with which I may start a nationally-syndicated column known as Dear Hurricane Girl,:

• Watch the hurricane’s path, strike probabilities and intensity,
• listen to what your local officials say about protection and evacuation,
• buy necessary provisions as we are right now (like liquid propane gas for the grill and lots of water),
• shore/board up your house. Be warned that plywood is getting scarce in and around Houston right now.

In the end, if you fear the worst, take everything that is important, place it in your car and go as far from here as you possibly can, especially if you have friends who will take you in. Just remember to breathe and stay hopeful through the experience.

txyankee just called to let me know that local home stores are nothing short of pandemonium, and that there are no generators to be had. Now, we concentrate on stocking up on grillables and pet food.

Are You Ready? – FEMA’s list of preparedness strategies from checklists to shelter

—

Shell Contact During And After Rita: Shell offices in Houston are closed for the rest of the week. My boss just called to ask what my plans are for this hurricane. His next tasks are to get all of our new computers at Two Shell Plaza in downtown Houston moved to interior offices and to secure our Houston facilities. We didn’t know whether to laugh or … to laugh some more.

Should Shell employees want the status of our facilities and employees during and after the upcoming storm, they are asked to call the Facilities Status Line at (713) 241-2005 or the EP Employee Line at (281) 544-2436. Best of luck to all of you! Please stay safe – we’ve done it once, we can do it again.

—

Light, Then Heavy, And Light Again: All is surreal. While frustration gallops in and out of center stage – even the meager plans that started to take effect a few days ago are tentative again – the ethereality is staggering. I respect Bill Murray, but not enough for us Katrina evacuees in Houston to star in our own version of Groundhog Day. Other evacuee friends and I may ride out this hurricane in our respective new homes (be they friends’ places or hotel rooms) or get in our cars and drive some more … what of those in shelters who are forced to move again? The prospect of another hurricane has to be toughest on those evacuees in Houston at the mercy of public aid. If they don’t go to Arkansas, as per Red Cross orders, they are on their own.

Mom called to tell me she’s thinking about me and that she expects my strength to shine through at this time. The dichotomous Hindu-scientist in her opined, “Perhaps this is when you work off your paavam (spiritual debts) from previous lives.” That’s one way to think about it.

While on the topic, does it mean something that the very first song on my iPod is Like The Weather by 10,000 Maniacs? And that I was practically skipping down Carondelet St. to that song on the Friday before the evacuation of New Orleans? It’s all my fault.

—

A Take On Reconstruction From Grand Forks: Scientist friend, Jeffrey, lived in Grand Forks at the time of their disastrous flood and went through some of the same things as NO evacuees. He writes from gay Paris (full comment here):

We lived for a month in neighboring communities, not really knowing when we could return to even see our homes. Nobody could confirm what kind of damage occurred to their respective homes, so there was the very distinct feeling of floating in limbo, a prolonged period of shock. When we returned oy, what a mess. The first thing to remember in the aftermath is: buy gallons of bleach, tall rubber boots, and watch out for infection. My parents had 7 feet of raw sewage in their basement …

To me, the thing that made the renovation possible was really grass-roots community spirit. Everybody seemed to look at their neighbor, who was also wading through shit trying to pull together some semblance of normality in what was once home, and just ask if they wanted some help. You were exhausted and shocked at the situation, but you knew, so was everybody else. I don’t remember a large scale group-hug organized by the politicians, but neighbor [helped] neighbor, and that made the reconstruction possible. So watch your neighbors back, and give him or her a hand even when you might feel too tired to do so. The shared experience will pull you back up.

—

Emile Francis’s Sousaphone Recovered!: (Thanks for the tip, Endoking!) Yesterday, the Houston Chronicle reported back on the status of the stolen minivan and antique sousaphone that belong to Emile Francis, a New Orleans evacuee in Houston. Houston police recovered the stolen van; the thieves hadn’t done a thing to the horn, fondly named Czar Sasha. I’m thrilled for Mr. Francis; good things do happen!