Running From Rita - Part 4

We are still at the house. Email exchanges with friends here in Houston indicate a lot of people are still at their houses, uncertain about the traffic. Unbelievable stories about how long evacuating is taking. Lots of news coverage on TV and so forth.

I found this interesting paragraph on a CNN story:

• Houston resident Tim Conklin told CNN that he had been in bumper-to-bumper traffic for 13 hours and had only gotten about 48 miles. He said the drive to Dallas, where his father-in-law lives, usually only takes about four hours.

13 hours to go 48 miles is the 4 mph average walking pace. Wild.

My primary concern is that if we get out on the freeways and have to drive at less than 10 mph for an extended period of time, we'll run out of gas or our car will overheat. And it's hard to find gas in the city. I imagine it is similarly difficult along the freeways.

Good news for denizens of southwest Houston and for the treasured ducks is that the meterologists keep inching the projected landfall to the north and east.