After Rita

We're back home tonight, with full power and no damage. It took us 6 hours to drive from League City to Conroe on Wednesday. Today it took less than 2 hours to drive from Conroe to League City, and that included driving slowly after one of the clasps on our cartop carrier broke. We only lost a stuff sack that had a blanket and pillow in it. Luckily we had tie down straps and a chain in our spare wheel well. After that we had to drive a bit more slowly, but we basically had no traffic. As we drove down here, we heard them say on the radio that they didn't want people to return to Houston yet. By that time, it was a bit late, though, and we were on a back route that didn't have any service providers attempting to return that we could see.

We really dodged a bullet with Hurricane Rita. I hope that the experience of evacuating Houston allowed planners to gain some insight into holes in their evacuation plans, and if we have to evacuate again, things will go more smoothly. Meanwhile, we're going to eat canned soup and be glad that we didn't have any real problems.