Thank goodness that is all our Chantilly neighborhood is having to do. Sticks, branches, and brown pine needles cover our yards and street. There are no big branches or trees on houses and when I step out the door to listen, I hear no telltale sound of power saws at work. My next door neighbor called us from out of town this morning, and we happily told her that her big pines were still erect and she has power and water. "Now you can relax and play cards for one more day."

The city and county governments are telling people who evacuated not to come back for a few days. They are asking large employers to keep operating with essential personnel only for Monday and Tuesday. Schools will not open on Monday and Tuesday so people won't have to hurry back. The reasons for not returning are:

* Some areas have live power lines down creating fire and electrocution hazards. In Galveston, the plan is to turn back traffic at the causeway because so many lines are down.
* Many residential areas don't have power. Just two neighborhoods over from us, Heights Hospital is having to run on a generator.
* The roads need to stay clear to move emergency equipment and FEMA resources to the areas that need them.
* Except for the weather, the same conditions exist today that existed yesterday and the day before: no gasoline or blocks-long lines for the few stations that are open; the grocery store shelves are still emptied and most of the stores are closed. Police had to break up fights at one gas station where people at the end of the mile-long line were paying people at the head of the line to let them in. The people in between took umbrage.
* The bayous are rising. It takes upcountry rain awhile to reach us down here, but gravity always prevails. Hopefully, the Braes, Buffalo, and White Oak bayous will stay in their banks, but if the storm stalls upcountry and rains continue, we could see the results here.
* The intense hurricane winds that drove down from the north for hours forced Lake Livingston waves again and again against the 2.5-miles-long dam on the south. That battering has compromised the integrity of the dam. To keep it from giving way, engineers have started releasing water from the lake into the Trinity River below the dam. They anticipate releasing 180,000 cubic feet per minute over a couple days. The downstream result will be the same scale flooding that occurred from Tropical Storm Allison a few years back. Liberty County, which was just evacuated, will probably be evacuated again.

Nevertheless, motorists are filling the highways on their way back to the Houston and coastal areas. Outside San Antonio and Austin, I hear reports of traffic gridlocks that match the ones that existed here in Houston day before yesterday, only in reverse. They say 183 is a parking lot. It is even going to be as hot as it was on Thursday and Friday. The high is moving back our way. Since gas still isn't available in the small towns along the way, I guess motorists will be stuck on the roadsides again in 100 degree heat. Talk about rode hard and put up wet.

Well, that is pretty much it for now. The tape is off the windows and I'm using some of the water we stored to water my plants. We are incredibly blessed and are grateful for it.

Of course, we are at the far western edge of the storm. One hundred to 150 miles to the east, the story is very different. Beaumont has had 100 mph winds for several hours, and there is flooding in Orange and as far north as Jasper (85 miles inland). FEMA is set up in the Astro Arena here in Houston and ready to roll as soon as the weather permits. The Red Cross has shelters in place here already, and as soon as they know where they can set up in Southeast Texas, they will probably head there.

Every once in awhile, I hear a deep thrumming sound, not unlike the sound of a light saber being unsheathed. I'm betting it is the wind working on the power lines out back. We could still lose electricity. Hang in there, power lines. My two cats have remained totally calm throughout the last hours of rain and wind. As a matter of fact, John Thomas is begging to go outside. I think it is because there has been no thunder or lightning.
It's strange to have all this weather and no donder or blitzen.

The phone keeps ringing as friends and family call to check on us. Mike is handling calls as I have gone totally voiceless again. I'm hoping my appointment with the ENT is still on for Monday. Be it voiceless and coughing, I have to get back to work. More later, unless it stays boring and uneventful here, which is my fervent hope.

Rita has made landfall in Cameron, Louisiana, somewhat off to the east. But this is not a time to get complacent. We have several hours to go, and there is always a chance of tornados. Plus, with landfall, we may now begin to get stronger gusts. Galveston is doing okay, but there have been fires in the historic Strand area with three buildings being burned. In downtown Houston, about 8 miles southeast of us, wind has blown out some windows of downtown structures.

Mike talked to Jerry last night, and he said that Patty and Missy were at church serving meals to folks stranded in Trinity. Yea for your church!

The wind is picking up so I'd better send this while I can. 550,000 Reliant Energy customers are without electricity. We may well join them. Take care. We're fine.

As we walked toward one house, a car pulled up in the drive and a young woman announced to the people in her yard, "No ice and no bread." "We have ice and bread," we said. They said, "Can we buy some from you?" Buy? Please. We got to talking and out came the little not-so-lost chihuahua that Mike saw this morning. Three families and five dogs are staying in that house. A couple of the women decided to walk with us for something to do and to get acquainted with those who are staying. Across the street from them is a guy and his new wife, who is a building contractor. She had just gotten back from her business with a generator. She also said that she has a power saw, a big roll of plastic sheeting, and a big roll of roof felt on hand in her garage. Now that's a good neighbor to remember! Two other neighbors got to talking and discovered they were both in social work ministries. I love these kinds of people. They are such unconventional Christians in appearance and so straightforward in what they believe and do. We kept walking and knocking and folks came out in the yards to talk with one another. Everyone was pleased that we were checking and it helped everyone know that help is readily available if needed.

Toward the end of the block, I told Mike, "I'm going to check on Mr. Middleton. Surely his kids have come for him, but I'll go knock." The Middletons have lived on Chantilly as long as we have, if not longer. Occasionally we would walk with them as they walked their dogs around Oak Forest Park. They are older than us and we always had to slow our pace considerably to match theirs. Mrs. Middleton died of breast cancer a few years ago, but Mr. Middleton has continued to live with his five dogs in their house. He is 75, so I figured he was gone with his grown kids to Conroe. I knocked on his door and five yapping muzzles immediately snouted their way through the venetian blinds in a barking frenzy. Uh, oh. If the dogs are here, so is Mr. Middleton. Sure enough. He answered the door and as soon as he knew it was me, he came out to visit. No, he wasn't worried about the hurricane. No, he hadn't done much to get ready but he figured he would be okay. Yeah, he had food and water, but thanks for checking. Note to self: go check on Mr. Middleton after the hurricane.

Mike took a loaf of bread to the neighbors who didn't have any and they know where to come for ice when they need it. It is getting windier. That fool Rita now looks like she may come in through Galveston Bay anyway instead of coming in east of us. I'm going to vacuum the house and put the photographs of my precious Kevin and Madeline on the top shelf of my closet. Then I'm going to take what will probably be my last hot shower for some days to come. We're going to have to fill the bathtub with water in order to be able to flush the commode. All it takes is about 2 days without air conditioning, running water, and functioning plumbing to make a person wonder why Houston was ever settled in the first place. A good place for men and dogs, but hell on women and horses.

The estimated number of Texans evacuating the coastal regions is 2.5 million. Just three weeks ago, Houston took in 250,000 evacuees from New Orleans. Those New Orleanians who were still in the large shelters such as the convention center when Rita formed out in the Gulf and started this way were put on airplanes early this week and flown to Arkansas. The Coast Guard and the Navy are providing planes at Ellington Air Force Base and some airport over in Beaumont to fly out people. Several thousand people will be evacuated in those planes. But they have to be out of here by three this afternoon.

The McJiltons are battened down. This summer, Mike helped pull a man's pickup out of the sand down at Quintana Beach. In return, the guy gave Mike the rope they had used. Mike has now used that rope to help tie down our carport. We have lots of water and ice. I've got my last load of laundry drying, and I baked a batch of molasses drop cookies this morning just to keep busy. We have packed some of our artwork in my car, and we are parking the car inside my neighbor Cathy's garage. We have checked out the yards and houses of our neighbors who have left and tied down trash cans, turned a trampoline upside down so it wouldn't go boinging around and breaking things, laid down and secured a portable basketball goal, brought potted plants inside, etc. In a few more hours, we will turn off Cathy's water and gas. We ate steaks for breakfast that Cathy gave us as she was leaving. I have cranked our air conditioning way down in hopes of having some cool air for a while after the electricity goes out.

Oddly enough, our winds won't come from the south. Rather, we will have winds driving down from the northeast. The weatherman is estimating gusts in our area of 75 mph., but as he repeatedly points out, he can only estimate. We have our enclosed hall and a southwest bedroom to stay in with lots of mattresses and sofa cushions for padding. We should begin to see rain and winds picking up about three this afternoon. My neighbors two doors to the west have taken different protective measures. They started drinking yesterday morning. There is weather proofing and then there is weather denial.

Speaking of denial, this morning some guy in Galveston took his surfboard and jumped off a fishing pier into the waves. A news crew saw him do it and called the police. The surfboard washed up, sans surfer. While the police scanned the waves with lights borrowed from the news crew, up comes the guy, sloshing in from the surf. He was looking for his surfboard so he could do it again. This was not a kid. This guy looked every bit of 50 plus years. Give it up, guy. The police arrested him because it is illegal to jump off fishing piers, not to mention really dumb. Another guy has decided to stay in his mobile home in Baytown (the name tells you where the town is located) because he just bought a big screen TV and he wants to protect it. On the other hand, we have people going out from their homes with gas cans filled to help people who are stalled.

Okay, guys. I'll write more later, but this is pretty much where we are. Just waiting for the inevitable. We'll be fine.

The highways are cleared out in Harris County, BUT there are motorists stranded all along the way. In Conroe on I-45, they have an estimated 1,000 cars stranded at exit 118. In Columbus on I-10, there are an estimated 5,000 cars stranded. The problem is that there is no gas available. Huge tank trucks in Austin are being retrofitted with refueling lines adapted to individual cars, and hopefully they will be on the road toward these areas by eight this morning. We are still staying, because although Harris County is cleared out, along about Ennis, Texas, the traffic jam starts again due to I-45 construction. And it starts again on I-10 at Seguin because that is where the contraflow lanes end and everyone gets back into three lanes going west.

Last night, Mike and I went to a site near the house to help with a project to get water out to people on the highways. Along with several hundred other people, we helped unload a trailer truck of its load of 24-packs of pint water bottles. Then we helped load them onto buses. A number of volunteers hopped right on the buses to ride out and personally deliver the water. It killed me that we couldn't do that, too, but Mike's torn rotator cuff is really hurting him, and I sure didn't want a relapse of the flu -- especially in the middle of the hurricane. This dang laryngitis and throat and chest stuff is hanging on. ppffft.

At least I got to do something. Eventually, 40,000 bottles of water were delivered to people as far north as Shenandoah, west to Katy, and northwest to Barker Cypress. What is particularly heartwarming is that the mayor issued just one announcement at seven in the evening for this project. And thirty minutes later, people from all over town just started showing up to help. We weren't sure what we were going to do, but we were willing to do it. Every race and every age, just jumping in to help. I am still ready to take in anybody who is too tired to go on, but i don't know how to get to them. We will get wind and rain, but we will be fine. It looks as if Longview, one place we had considered going, is now going to get a lot of rain, too. That's where Mike's mom lives, but she has lots of family with her now.

Our neighbor, Laura Beth, whom we have known for as long as we have lived here (I think she was two years old when we moved in), may come over tonight with her dog to just ride out the storm with us. Her mom and dad now live in Brownwood.

Mike hates chihuahua dogs, but bless his heart, he is out on the street now trying to rescue one that is wandering around looking lost. What is it with us and lost dogs? We own cats for heaven's sake!

TX DOT finally got I-45 and I-10 converted to use all lanes to get people moving out. I-10 is being opened to one-way traffic from Sealy to Seguin. But with 1.3 million people trying to get out of here, it is going to take a while to really unplug this mess. And as the storm wobbles to the east, more and more areas are being designated as mandatory evacuation zones. Meanwhile, the highways are just parking lots. Highway 290 will not be converted because they need an artery to bring resources in. It takes 20 hours to get to Waco. We can drive to Amarillo in 12 under normal conditions. Likewise, 59 North will not be converted.

The airports have run out of parking space for cars, and no one can fly out unless he/she has a reservation. Tickets are not being sold. The planes have just about reached capacity.

Praise God, the storm is weakening ever so slightly. We'll take what we can get. It is also wobbling off slightly to the east. Poor New Orleans is starting to get rain. Landfall might now be closer to Beaumont than to Houston, but it could change directions yet again and come back west. We are not in a storm surge area and we are not in a flood prone zone. Our neighbors, Lisa and Becky, and their five cats are staying put, too. Yes, we will have wind. But given the choice of riding out 75 mph winds in my car on a highway or riding it out here where we can sit in the inner hall -- I'll take the house. If we have problems with our house, we have the key to yet another neighbor's house. We will be fine.

We have taped the windows, cleaned yard debris out of the way of runoff water, tanked up on water and food, and are keeping in close contact with several members of our church who also have decided to stay -- mostly due to the traffic keeping them home. It is hot and dry outside, but in the last couple hours we have started having light cloud cover.

I expect we will have power until at least late Friday night, so we will stay in touch. Hugs to all.

Because they are flood prone, a huge swath of Houston and Harris County are now declared mandatory evacuation areas due to the expected storm surge. So thousands and thousands of more cars are expected to join the gridlock out there. We are well outside those areas.

We do not flood. Even in Allison, the water came up only about six feet into the yard and we are talking rain falling by the foot, not the inch. However, the wind could be a problem. A month ago, we had an arborist and his crew come and trim back our trees, removing the heavy limbs, bracing an oak, etc., in preparation for a hurricane. But our neighbors have trees -- seventy foot tall pines, and they have not had their trees trimmed and braced.

Mike does not want to leave the house although he admits, "I don't know what I think I can do if a tree falls on it." Scream bloody murder? Get real wet? Our neighbors are doing different things. Most are staying, some are going. My neighbor Cathy and her boyfriend are waiting until noon to leave, because the boyfriend is a judge and he wanted to arraign anybody who got arrested last night so they could get out of jail and leave, too.

We have set back gallons of water and will freeze more containers in our two refrigerator freezers. I've set back newspapers to line my bathroom floor to catch the inevitable commode backup that occurs when the sewers get too full. We have some food set back, and Mike has gotten out our propane camp stove so we can heat food and boil water. But if it looks like we're going to be without electricity for more than a few days, I'm coming to SOMEBODY's house after the storm -- with my cats. Fair warning. I've done this heat and humidity and no water or electricity thing for two weeks back in 1983. I was young and resilient then. Not now.

Yes, we have a contingency plan. Sarah lives 12 miles northwest of us in an area with few trees. She doesn't flood either. So, I may leave tomorrow morning with my yowling cats (or this evening, depending on the storm's progress) and go sit out the storm with her. Her neighbor left, so I can put my car in the garage. Hopefully, Mike will join me, but I am hearing of other families where the wife and kids are leaving and the husband is staying.

We have kept the car's tank full of gas. Mike went to top it off awhile ago, and he was the next to the last customer that they were going to serve.

I still have laryngitis and the more I talk, the worse I feel. So I am not going to be making many phone calls. I will continue to check email frequently, so if you want to tell me that I am crazy or whatever, please do it by email.

We are continuing to pray about this and appreciate your prayers as well. And please pray for the folks out in traffic, especially those who have run out of gas after sitting for hours and hours in standstill traffic and who are still in harm's way.

God is Sovereign. We will be careful to act wisely. The rest is just stuff.

We may give it up, crate up George and JT, put us all in the car and leave. Can we sleep in your barn tomorow night, mister? I-45 North is already packed with evacuees from Brazoria and Galveston counties. Wouldn't you know that there is construction on the bridge over the San Jac river that narrows northbound lanes to two lanes on the bridge? There is talk of closing southbound lanes and turning them into northbound lanes. I haven't seen any reports on I-10 yet.

HISD and most other school districts are closing. The mayor has asked major employers to please cut back to essential personnel only. Galveston is evacuating citizens (with their pets) by the busload. They are noting names of people as they get on and where they are headed so families can stay in touch.

The storm itself doesn't worry me as much as the aftermath. I don't think the house will flood, and we had all our tree work done last month in preparation for this storm possibility. It is the lack of water, overflow of sewage, and no electricity for days and weeks afterward that I do not look forward to.