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| Home >> Index Pages >> Informational Pages >> Discount Computer Systems >> News >> Directron.com Hurricane Rita Blog/ Watch >> |
Directron.com Hurricane Rita Watch / Blog (7)Hurricane Rita Blog / Watch: | Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6 | Page 7 | Page 8 | Page 9 | Page 10 | Page 11 |Copyright (c) Directron.com
How could a modern blog without multimedia? Let me try to post a MVI file that I recorded to show Pete's dog's balking sound. Let's see if it works on this forum.
I was about to apply for a patent to protect my intellectural rights on the idea of using thin, non-sticky films to protect windows against Category 5 hurricanes... until I saw what 10mph wind did to it... Maybe, the idea is still a good one; but I didn't apply it correctly. For example, I didn't CLEAN the window first. Not all of the films came off like that.
Friday Evening It's Friday eveing, I decided to stick it out in North West Houston. A few drops of rain, some light winds. Seems like things might be ok.
Hey, Josh, I am glad you are doing alright and sticked to your plan to stay. I called you a few times and didn't get through. Here is a picture to show you why the entire west Houston is missed by Rita! It looks like not only Rita missed Houston, it may have missed the entire state of Texas (as far as the landfall of the eye is concerned). The landfall of the eye seems to be aimed right at Lake Charles right now - where Jacob and Lee "evacuated" to yesterday. Jacob is now back in Pasadena on east side of Houston. I pray that Lee and his farmily will be doing alright tonight where-ever they are in North of Lake Charles after their second evacuation. Well, enough hurricane preparation practice and drills for me. I am going to sleep now to get some rest for the two days of work and anxiety and get ready for the "hurricane recovery" - undo all those preparations we made. Moving furniture back, un-packing, etc. etc. Of course, I would rather do those tasks than fighting flooding, losing the roof, ... For those who did travel out of town, this may be the time to come back. If you wait until Sunday when everyone comes back at the same time, you may get stuck in the traffic for another 10-15 hours. Hopefully our governments can help manage that process better this time. I'll TRY to get some pics of the "damages" in our areas tomorrow morning. I'll also post some initial thoughts on lessons to be learned about Rita. I am sure we'll hear and share many more stories on Monday. Good night!
It's now 4AM, and Rita made landfall just east of the TX/LA border a few hours ago. Right now, in the north/south respect, Rita is even with Houston, so the storm is halfway over. So far, there have been a few branches slowly sliding down the street, but not lifted into the air. Power has flickered twice, about half a second each time, and we lost cable internet for about 45 seconds. Overall, I'd say that the utility companies were ready and equipped to reroute power and other services fairly quickly, and I'm impressed by that. Average sustained winds at Houston's Hobby airport for the past hour have been 38MPH according to METAR, rain in the last hour has been 0.02 inches. Hardly any kind of threat, the only threat has been the wind, which has been rattling windows here occasionally. I agree with Michael, though. It will be interesting to see what all "damage" she did in the morning... like how many people need to pick up two or three branches, and I'm not being sarcastic, that seems to be all thats happened so far. Judging by the weather channel wind map, the storm is currently a touch over halfway through, which means that winds will be diminishing, however, the storm is breaking up, so we may have slightly heavier rains on the way. The forecast for Saturday does say rain in the morning, and just cloudcover in the evening for Houston, however, so I'm happy to say that the worst is already likely over. Directron.com Information Technology Systems/Network Administrator (713)773-9898 jacob@directron.us
The wind in the backyard woke me up at 3am. I turned on the backyard light and saw nothing unusual, so I went back to sleep. The kids were sleeping upstairs on the southside. None of them was bothered or scared enough to get up. This is the picture at around 8pm just when it turned dark last night.
Another pic of our palm trees being hit by Rita when it was almost dark.
I got up at 7:30am to assess the damage by Hurricane Rita... Wait a second. We didn't experience a hurricane! All we had was a tropical storm, that is about it. I did find a fallen tree branch from across the street. We didn't experience electrical flicker at all. My computer stayed on and my friends can see my computer on through MSN and Yahoo IMs through out the night. Officially we have dodged the bullet!!!
Well, another "damage" to report. I saw several of my invented window "protection film" laying around the backyard. The wind didn't even blow them too far. I did find one piece in the front yard though.
Our other website, http://www.axiontech.com/, is still running at this moment. It just indicates that there has been electricity in the office the whole night. We host this site ourselves. If there was an extended electricity blackout, that site would have been done. Lee and Jacob did a good job backing up all the data and made a hurricane plan in a hurry on Wednesday. We made the server room "water-proof" by placing plastic bags on top of the ceiling and with boards covering the server racks. They powered down all non-essential computers and kept backups in separate locations. The only thing that is "regretable" is that they evacuated TOGETHER to Lake Charles on Thursday early morning. We should back up them too! So they should have split. Luckily, they did split when they had to evacuate again from Lake Charles. Jacob is back in town, so everything would be just fine as far as restarting our network is concerned. Lee may still be in Northern Lousiana. I'll call him later to check. They also backed up most people's computers in the office onto the server on Wednesday. They also had a shut-down procedure deviced in case we need to turn Axiontech.com off remotely. I backed up all my data on my computer in the office onto a USB drive. I brought the drive home, wrap it around with plastic bags, and put it away in a safe spot. I am sure Pete, his sisters, and dogs would do just fine in the office. They must have the AC on throughout the night. I'll report on their status later. The wind has shifted direction. It's now blowing from NorthWest.
I'm glad everything is turning out ok, Michael...but why the hell would anybody evacuate to Lake Charles directly in the path of the hurricane?
Farewell, Rita This is the remaining of Rita about one hour ago. I am going to drive around and to the office to survey the damages. I'll post more pictures here. From this picture you can see why the wind has changed direction. We are now in the tail end of Rita. Chris: Jacob has a relative in Lake Charles. On Wednesday, Rita was supposed to hit south west of Houston (Houston was supposed to be on the bad side of Rita). So at that time Lake Charles looked fine as an escape route although most people are going north. My words to them at that time was it was still too early. "I would wait until Thursday noon or so to decide." Being from Indiana without relatives in this area, Lee and his family decided to go with Jacob.
Even if the hurricane didn't hit Louisiana, that state's infrastucture is fragile to say the least...however, we all do what we must. Good luck Michael, I hope everything gets back to normal for everyone as soon as possible.
I drove around our neighborhood and saw a few fallen trees. These are all within one mile of our house.
This branch fell across the side walk. This is the only oaktree that I saw having this problem. The branch stem seems to be sick and old. All the other fallen trees are of other types.
I don't know the name of this type of trees. I have seen them fallen whenever there is a minor storm. This one fell onto the street. It's too heavy for me to move it even though I brought gloves and ready to try that.
Here is another one of the same kind of trees. You can see the golf course.
Here is another poor tree that got pulled from its roots. I think someone can easily restore this one. It's better to be leaning than being broken.
Here is a pecan tree that got folded. During the fall in October and November, I often see people picking up pecans under these trees. These are big trees. This one that got broken by Rita has been dying anyway. Maybe this is natural's way of cleaning up things.
Amazingly, I didn't see any palm trees fallen. These trees are built for tropical storms. Did you notice? Palm trees do not have branches. That must be a perfect design to survive in the tropical areas. And, as always, you can post a question on the Directron Help Desk! (duck093005) Hurricane Rita Blog / Watch: | Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4 | Page 5 | Page 6 | Page 7 | Page 8 | Page 9 | Page 10 | Page 11 | |
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