Sure, a hurricane is scary. But heading out with 5 million other people to cities that don't have room for an extra 5 mil, in 100° heat, with gas at near $4 a gallon, and knowing we will run out on the way and that the stations will also be out-no thanks. I'll take my chances with the storm. If I lived nearer the water, it might be different.
We drove west on I-10 out of Houston on Wednesday afternoon, some two days or more ahead of Rita. It took us five hours to reach Austin, almost twice as long as usual. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have left that early, but a sister-in-law had gotten stuck in a highway jam for over twenty hours during an East Coast hurricane evacuation a couple of years before. She had waited too long before leaving.