RITA - Reports from Houston

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Dear friends and family,
Rita has been a fickle woman. She turned away from us and we were not at all disappointed to have her go another way. Of course, we've got enough bottled water to last 2 weeks & batteries for a lifetime.
Our son & family called their friends that stayed in the Houston area & received reports that the power went out for a short time but was up and running. They headed home about 2 hours ago. They wanted to beat the traffic they had to deal with getting here. It normally takes 3 1/2 hours from their home to ours but took them 9 to get here. All of the gas stations,
restaurants and stores were closed down along the way. They were fortunate because there were some people that had been on the road almost 24 hours coming in from the Galveston/Nassau bay area.
I want to thank you Floridians for your Survivor Tips. Especially Jerry Ranger offering a place to stay. Only thing, we would have had to drive a northern route to swing down south to Florida because the normal I10 route goes through Houston and is destroyed in some parts in Louisiana.
Our family from DeQuincy, LA (just outside Lake Charles) aren't able to plan their return just yet. We are trying to stay in touch. Rumors have it they have been hit hard. We are going to keep an positive outlook on things. The news here told us we would catch some of Rita at a level 1 with winds up to 100 mph. It goes to show you how our news media can sometimes (?) be over zealous, our weathermen can only guess with a hurricane, how unpredictable
these storms are and it's in God's hands. Hopefully, our DeQuincy family received at most minimal damage.
I need a day to catch up on washing linens, etc and will be back to the old routine and responding to emails in no time.
Val
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The easterly course coupled with the weakening storm and, our western location resulted in essentially zero effects in Cat Spring. We did have some breeze overnight (10 knots) and, perhaps 0.25 inches of rain ... not nearly enough to result in a lifting of the burn ban which has been in effect for the past several weeks due to our extremely dry conditions.
So, all in all, good for us.
John & Toni