We Texans are a stubborn bunch. Decades after the spelling reform, we still celebrate "diez y seis" instead of the unlovely "dieciséis". This gave my Spanish teacher no end of amusement, but she was a haughty Mexican with more than a touch of the fundamentalist to her so I felt justified in ignoring her scorn.
Every year St. Anthony Marie de Claret's in Kyle throws its big fundraiser, a Diez Y Seis festival. The waves of Austin's exurban growth are lapping at Kyle, and you pass new subdivisions between the tracts of ranchland on the way there. The church building Sara and I were married in was used for bingo this year, a new steel-and-limestone sanctuary having been erected across the parking lot.
They'd sold out of tamales this evening, so I had to settle on a couple of tacos de bistec and half a gordita. Something about sitting in the church hall with your belly full of simple beef dishes makes your worries melt away. Fussy babies, obnoxious technical trends, and even the niggling frustration of things you've lost around the house all fade into the muted accordion and guitarrón beats trickling in from the parking lot.
Posted by Ben Brumfield at September 18, 2005 06:39 PMBen, are you folks hanging in there or evacuating from Austin or what? All OK with you?
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at September 22, 2005 01:26 PMThings actually look pretty worrying. My folks live between Port Arthur and Orange, and I just got back from a trip to help them evacuate. It took me thirteen hours to travel the 250 miles from there to Austin, and only an hour and a half was the hundred miles between my hometown and Houston. I'll write about that experience in a separate post after I get some sleep.
It looks like our worst case scenario involves the obliteration of a beach cabin on Bolivar Penninsula, combined with storm surge and flooding of my parents' house, which is nine feet above sea level. (It's twenty miles inland from the shore, but the area is surrounded by marshes, brackish lakes, and tidal pools.)
The area has called a mandatory evacuation, and my parents (who were on vacation and only arrived at their house at 2:30 this morning) just called as they left. They say they're the only ones they see on the roads: the whole area's deserted. If you listen to All Things Considered today, you'll hear someone who's in precisely their predicament -- trying to get from Port Arthur to Austin via crowded evacuation routes that permit no east-west traffic.
It's probably better the storm hits there than Houston, given the population involved. But please pray for a weaker Rita.
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at September 22, 2005 02:41 PMUh...best of luck to you and yours, Ben. Keep us posted.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at September 22, 2005 03:47 PMMy mom called at 6:30 this morning. They're about seventy-five miles inland, stuck on US-96 south of San Augustine (see evacuation map). It's a two-lane road with both lanes converted to handle northbound evacuation traffic, and they've been on the road for fourteen hours.
The traffic is stop-and-go, but mostly stopped. The shoulders are full of people pulled over sleeping, out of gas, or broken down. The sixteen-year-old van my father's driving may join them soon, as it seems to be having problems with the fuel filter and has died a couple of times.
At least my parents have a couple of long-range walkie-talkies. They've come across several people who'd gotten separated from their travelling companions, with no way to get back in touch until each gets cellphone access again.
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at September 23, 2005 06:08 AMIsh. How is your own Internet access? Is there anything the rest of us can do from elsewhere?
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at September 23, 2005 06:52 PMWe're fine here in Austin. They're only expecting light winds here, so our concerns are for our home.
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at September 23, 2005 08:59 PM