The... Sort Of... Calm Before the Storm

OK, it's not calm at all, it's chaos. But tonight it finally seems a little less 'end of the world'.

Things I didn't think I'd be doing the night before a Category 4/5 hurricane - prying the bell off a cat collar. Our cat is indoors and doesn't wear a collar, it wouldn't last a day on her, but I bought one anyway at Petsmart earlier this week, along with a makeshift tag and extra cat food. Just in case. The collar is black and has stars and moons on it. And a black bell. They all had bells (is that a law or something?) but with the help of a pair of jewelry pliers I managed to get the damn thing off. A collar is bad enough, but a bell would drive her completely insane. One of the first things I did get when we brought her home a few years ago was a nice, comfy carrier (my husband used to transport his cats in pillow cases), so at least we've got the cat covered for the storm.

When we found out this weekend that Rita was most likely coming for us, I went out hurricane shopping Monday night. It seemed pretty busy, and they had a lot of your basic survival stuff out in the main aisles, but then I went to the Walmart closest to the Astrodome. After 9 pm, at which time of night there may as well be a disco ball in the store because that's where the party is always happening. But even more so the last few weeks. There were lots of disoriented and very exotic people strolling the aisles looking for basics and bargains. I went there to get a waterproof, fireproof filebox ( knew they had them) and Sparky asked me to get a little battery operated TV ("they're only about $15).

I found the filebox ($37 bucks and weighs a fricking ton), then went and looked for handi wipes (on the hurricane preparedness list and I needed some anyway), but the shelf was wiped clean. I wandered down to sporting goods and found a cheapie big flashlight to add to our collection for a mere $3.50, then went towards electronics. They had a big kiosk full of batteries, $4.87 a 4-pack... hmmm, I could probably find them cheaper as Sam's Club, but figured I'd better grab some anyway, we were low. Just for the heck of it I picked up a package of paper plates, one of paper bowls, but they were sold out of plastic utensils. Oh well.

Around the corner to electronics and they had a floor to ceiling display of little cheapie DVD players, boomboxes and portable TV combos. Wow, the storm was just announced and they've already got a huge display (of course it occurred to me later that they had been selling this kind of stuff for weeks to the evacuees, duh). They only had one style with a TV (radio & CD combo), damn, it's $35. I was very short of funds Monday night, I hadn't been doing as many auctions on Ebay as usual because of all of the Katrina depression, and Sparky hadn't given me much cash (he decided to pay the monthly bills a few weeks early and I owed him half of that amount), and I needed to go to the grocery store this evening also, but OK, we'll need a little TV if the power goes out.

Then onto Kroger's to get real food... all of our normal backup canned stuff had been donated to other causes the last few months (and some of it was near expiring from last year), so I got some soup, veggies, tuna (bleecch, only for emergencies), some Jelly Bellies (they had buttered popcorn flavor, yeah!), crackers, blueberry Pop-Tarts, a box of granola bars, and some real food. I figured we'd eat up some of our frozen food this week in case we lost power. All of the gallons of bottled water were already gone (happens every hurricane), but they had my Evian so I grabbed a couple of six packs and also some Starbucks Frappuccinos. And a box of cat litter and two 12 packs of toiler paper.

But when I got to the checkout I decided to unload the small items first in case I didn't have enough money, and of course I didn't. So for some stupid reason, I put back one of the Evians, plus the cat litter, Starbucks and one of the toilet papers. I was sending Sparky out for his own bottled water tomorrow anyway, I'd just add that to the list. Wow, big mistake. The next day the hurricane panic really kicked in here in town. Sparky got lucky and actually found some bottled water (no Evian, though) at the dollar store, but that was all he bought.

Out I went again Tuesday after dinner, but now it truly was chaos. Wide-eyed fear and panic everywhere. The first stop was Petsmart, where people were panicking and buying crates and carriers (and cat collars and even cat leashes), and huge bags of pet food. Next came Sam's Club, to get a couple of prescriptions and things like batteries (my parents had asked me to pick some up for them also), but when I turned the corner onto Fannin, the cars were backed up just trying to turn into the parking lot... which looked like Memorial City Mall at Christmas time. There were no carts, of course, but when I walked through the doors I realized I wouldn't be carrying anything heavy because a herd of something had tramples and ransacked the big battery display, which now consisted of only empty boxes strewn all over the floor. Crap. Lots of AAA and 9-volts, but that was all that was left. And all of the lanes were open, but there every single lane had people waiting with full baskets as far as I could see. So I grabbed some croissants and a box of cheesesteak sandwiches and went to check out at the pharmacy, which had all three of my prescriptions ready. My doctor's office had woke me up that morning to tell me they needed to "see me" before they could refill my asthma inhaler, to which I replied "you know there's a hurricane coming this week, could I see her next week instead?".

So then it was back to Kroger's, which had almost as many people in it. I could barely maeuver through the store, but at least they had some carts left. I grabbed another toilet paper, my unscented cat litter, the Starbucks again, but the entire water aisle was empty. No Evian, no Perrier, not even that stuff in the blue bottles. So for some odd reason I picked up a case of cream soda for me (yeah, that's a good substitute for water), which is weird because I hardly drink sodas, but in retrospect Coke would have made a lot more sense, and I got more Diet Mountain Dew for Sparky. He had said the dollar store had "tons of batteries this morning" (why the hell didn't he get any??), so I went there, but they were all gone.

I was getting sort of shaky from not eating, and all of the waiting in line, and just people everywhere, but I decided to make one more try at batteries at Home Depot, which was on the way home. They actually had some AA's, which both me and my parents needed, but no D's or C's of course. And people were buying plywood (this is Houston, no one boards up their windows, how weird...), and all of the flashlights were also gone...

I finally got home (damn I forgot to buy ice, more errands for Sparky) and just kept thinking of more things we needed. Monday night it had been "just another hurricane", but Rita was growing bigger and bigger and predictions were now for a Category 4 or even 5 storm. I've been through lots of hurricanes, even worked through Alicia as a security officer, but never anything that big. We have all new storm windows in out house, we're up pretty high, Sparky even had the forethought to have the trees trimmed, and a dying one (which stood next to the house and the power lines), but still... a Category 4? Yikes.

By Tuesday night, poor Sparky, who had been watching the TV coverage all day ("worst storm ever... bigger than Katrina!") was just a bundle of nerves. And he kept asking me questions like I was God, "What will happen? Will our house survive? Will we flood? Where are we on the map on TV? Are we all going to die?"... I don't know, no one knows!!! Please take a Lorazepam (I got them refilled also) and calm the fuck down. But we never considered leaving, we love our house too much. We've got way too much stuff. And our parents are in town, mine just down the street.

He went out Wednesday and found some ice and enough C batteries (at yeat a different dollar store, he likes thos joints) to make me and my parents feel better (his damn TV takes 10 of the things), then came home and woke me up every half hour (sigh). Wednesday night he refused to let me go out foraging for more food (and Evian) again, and I was too tired to go anyway. By this time all of the streets (and freeways) were full of people panicking and/or leaving town it was too dangerous anyway. So I packed the rest of my Ebay packages for him to mail the next morning. Now the storm was moving a little more towards the east, which was good for us and Galveston, but bad for Beaumont and Louisiana. I spoke with my friend on the phone who told me they were going to have to evacuate Beaumont now, and had to do it tonight before they closed off I-10 East because they were planning to go back to Louisiana and stay at her grandmother's house.

Thursday he woke me up to tell me the post office was closed down (what?? it wasn't even raining), and that our trash had not been picked up (dammit), and that the storm was moving a little bit more towards the Texas-Louisiana border, which meant my friend would be on the far east side of the storm and we would be on the far west side of it. But Sparky was much less hysterical today. I've gathered up all of our important papers and put them in the monster file box, we've put all of our ice into big gallon ziplocks bags (my genius friend suggested that to keep them from leaking as they melted), and we've picked up a lot of things off the floor, and taken lost of photos of the house, just in case.

I understand why my normally indifferent neighbors are panicking, they've seen that if something horrible happens to you, no one is coming to help. People are running out of gas right now, trying to get out of the city, but the traffic isn't moving. I hope all of this is a false alarm and this is just a 'normal' hurricane. But I know next time we're going to be a lot more prepared in advance. There's still two more months left in hurricane season.

Posted by Morticia at September 23, 2005 05:46 AM | TrackBack