From Yahoo!:
Forecasters said Rita could be the most intense hurricane on record ever to hit Texas, and easily one of the most powerful ever to plow into the U.S. mainland. Category 5 is the highest on the scale, and only three Category 5 hurricanes are known to have hit the U.S. mainland — most recently, Andrew, which smashed South Florida in 1992.
I know St_Salieri is in Houston, and that there are others in Texas (Tx_Voodoo, where are you?) This is where I give the lecture I give my mother when I tell her to evacuate.
In a contest between you and mother nature -- mother nature wins. You can't save your house. You can't save your property in the face of a storm. You accomplish nothing by being there (except being miserable, because it is a miserable experience as I remember from my childhood). Either your home will survive or it won't... and it will do so regardless of your presence. You have no power over this. None. So -- GO.
I know Houston isn't immediately on the coast, but having seen the damage sustained in my hometown after hurricanes Frederick and Ivan, I know that considerable damage can be taken a hundred miles inland of a hurricane (and those were just threes). I know that the news has been completely focused on New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina, but the damage actually reaches far, far inland. It's more than just New Orleans and Biloxi. So while Houston isn't in the same kind of danger that Biloxi was, I still say, if you can evacuate, guys, please do. Take a long weekend and go somewhere further inland. Visit friends or relatives. Rent a hotel room. Or, if you don't have a place to stay, towns inland do open free shelters. They always do.
There's nothing to be gained in "toughing out" a storm. It's misery that serves no purpose. Homes survive or don't based entirely on the storm, not on your presence. So please, if you can, just leave, head inland, and return when things have calmed down. I know that's more easily said than done, but I have a history of throwing verbal hissyfits about this to my parents, so I'm bringing it here to those who are in the path of this storm. There's no honor in staying. It's not grit or toughness. It's just setting yourself up for a long, awful day/night (at best), and 'really bad things' at worst.
Head inland. And, if supplies are your worry, you can buy them inland and carry them back when the storm has passed.
Here's hoping that this storm weakens. But, truly, this is a case of it's better to overreact than to under react. Go. Just, go.
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