I wasn't here during the bad part--when people lined up for water, ice, MRE's and gas. Temps were 96-98 everyday. Those with generaters only used them at night--no gasoline for almost a week-- so they were hot all day. Those with pools couldn't get in them because they were full of limbs.
People were all the same; no matter one's financial situation, they all stood in the same lines.
I lived in Houston when Alicia hit but it wasn't as big as Rita. Rita and Katrina both came in as catagory 3. We are 70 miles inland--never expected anything like this. The heavily populated areas south of here were really hit hard.
My mother has dementia and I put sun-glasses on her and she enjoyed the ride. About 20 miles from our destination she said, "I want to go home now. I want to sleep." And then the car died! DEAD! I had a cell phone and AAA; called my brother who came to where we were. By the time we got our stuff into his car, the wrecker was there. Turned out the battery cable had come off and nothing else was wrong with the car.
I slept well that night!
My cousin lives near Beaumont and it took them 5 hours to go to their farm which is a 45 minute drive under normal conditions. The roof blew off, the beds got wet and they had to sleep in lounge chairs until they could get out.
The guy who's contracting our repairs went 50 miles north and the roof blew off where they were and their house here wasn't harmed. There are a lot of funny stories like that. A man I know took generators to elderly people and when the lights came back on, he went to get one and the elderly woman's son got after him with a baseball bat because he thought he was trying to steal his mother's generator. Son took the generator back to Dallas with him.
Everybody has a lot of firewood! LOL!