Gerry Charlotte Phelps

LIVES SAVED FROM KATRINA AND RITA BY U.S. PROSPERITY

We got lucky, here in Austin and almost everywhere else in Texas.  Rita went mostly somewhere else.  We are concerned about the people she pounded, working to help them and continuing to pray for them.

Saturday morning the roads from Austin to Houston were packed again, but they were going home.  Galveston can keep people out: there is only one bridge in.  But Houston has thousands of ways to sneak in.  If people want to go back, Houston really cannot stop them.

There is a big festival in Austin this weekend, with 65,000 tickets sold, and people had hotel rooms reserved.  Hotels had to ask the Texas evacuees to leave because their rooms were reserved for others.  It looks like many of them decided just to go home.  Word is there are no hotel rooms available in Texas, Oklahoma or Louisiana anyhow.  So there literally may have been nowhere else for them to go, and they didn't want to wait for something else to be arranged - which would not be easy to do for some 2.5 million evacuees!

My sister (in the NW corner of the Houston area) said Saturday morning that evacuees were coming back in at the rate of 10,000 an hour.  She also said their power went off at 3:30 a.m. Friday night.  They were told there were 750,000 homes without power, and that it would take 2 weeks to restore power.  But today, Sunday, only 300,000 homes remained without power.  (Not bad, Houston!)   

You can literally watch us all learning daily and hourly from Katrina and Rita, from the President on down.  It will make us better prepared to handle the next big one, whether natural disaster or attack. 

It also fits what I wrote earlier (see "THE BEST DEFENSE AGAINST NATURAL DISASTERS? PROSPERITY!, under the category "Katrina/New Orleans," August 29, 2005.)  National prosperity is the best protection against disasters.  A more prosperous country benefits from better early warning, buildings and other infrastructure built to higher codes, better protection from disasters, more and better-trained responders to disasters, more money for rebuilding, and everything done faster than if the country were poorer. 

We cannot stop natural disasters and many man-made ones.  But by working to make this nation and others more prosperous, we also help save innumerable lives in future disasters.  Promoting national prosperity, here and abroad, is one of the most caring, humane things we can do.

HURRICANE RITA CHANGES HER MIND

Austin's freeways were clogged all day yesterday.  Not at a standstill, but northbound especially full and very slow.  Gas was rationed at some filling stations.  It was hard to find some things like bottled water.  For most of us, the day was jam-packed with protecting ourselves from whatever Rita might bring.  We hoped at least not to be surprised, to be prepared for the worst of whatever might happen while hoping for the best.

Then Rita changed course, turning a fraction to the right.  And suddenly, three of Texas' major cities - Houston, Austin and Dallas - were no longer under the direct path of the eye of this huge hurricane. 

Now others are threatened, but not so many millions as before.  Will Rita change her path again?  How much longer will she have that possibility?  We pray for the others, and continue to watch.

WAITING FOR RITA

Now that Rita has morphed into a Category 5 Hurricane, she definitely has gotten our attention.  Here in Austin, while we are over 200 miles from the Gulf coast, we are expected to be in Rita's direct path.  Sustained winds of up to 85 are expected in Dallas - after Rita is weakened by traveling 200 miles north to Dallas after hitting Austin.  Higher winds, 80-90 mph or more, are expected here.  Not much, compared to what will hit the coast.  But I saw the 70-80 mph left-over winds of Hurricane Carla blow over an enormous oak, which had to be somewhere between 200-400 years old.  That much wind can do a lot of harm.

Austin, like Houston and other Texas cities, is full of New Orleans evacuees.  Our downtown Convention Center is one of the places they fill.  I am always wondering if I am passing one. What must they be thinking?  They must be feeling pursued by one hurricane after another.  After losing so much, how awful for the ones sheltered near the Texas coast to have to run from another one!

My sister in Woodlands, a suburb far northwest of Houston, is planning to stay in her house.  A veteran of the Corpus Christi fishing scene, this will be her 6th hurricane.  She is freezing containers of water to keep her fridge and freezer cold, and cooking up frozen food.  We know we might not be able to communicate for several days, even by cell phone, so I call her a lot lately.

Meanwhile, I went to an H.E.B. supermarket this afternoon, meaning to miss tomorrow's crowds buying emergency supplies.  No chance!  No parking, and all grocery carts were in use.  A worker came up with a skimpy 5 carts and i managed to get one during the turmoil.  Inside was nutty.  Polite, but nutty.  Still lots of water, but no more flashlights and few batteries.

For the most part, Austin should do OK.  Flooding if Rita "parks" or moves very slowly.  Trees down.  Power out, maybe a week or two.  (My sister has been informed to expect 2 weeks without power in Woodlands, a very high-tech place.)  Possible problems with water and sewage.  If there is enough rainfall upstream, surplus flood-water may have to be released from the series of dams upstream, flooding Lake Austin and low areas. 

But it will not compare to what will hit the coast, or to what hit New Orleans and the Mississippi and Alabama coasts.  We will still be among the lucky ones.  While we may not be doing much else but trying to manage for a couple of weeks or more, the infrastructure will still be there.  Few businesses will pause for long. Life will return to normal in a few weeks.  If only the people on the coast had that option!