I am frantic

I just got a phone call from my sister. She, her two kids, husband, six cats, the car and the boat are stuck in gridlock near Center, TX. They have been on the road for six hours already and have not yet made it to the halfway point to the shelter they are seeking. Once they get off the two lane highway that has just been turned into northbound only, they should begin to make progress.

She reports that hundreds of cars are abandoned alongside the road, from people who couldn't get out yesterday and either ran out of gas or the car overheated in the nearly 100 degree heat. Today, TDOT (Texas Dept of Transportation) trucks are bringing gas and water to stranded motorists. A busload of 40 elderly residents of a nursing home burst into flames while caught in gridlock on the way to Dallas from Houston, and most of the people on it died. Horrible. This is a nightmare.

I won't rest until I know she and the family are in the shelter. To add insult to injury, the forecasts for local weather here say we will have tornadic storms beginning Saturday and lasting possibly until Monday. I have to go out and buy some non-perishable food in case the power is knocked out here. I will get my cat kennels ready in case I have to retreat to the tornado shelter in the neighbour's backyard.

The Weather Channel is showing us pictures of Surfside Beach, and it will be toast in a few hours. The waves are hitting the houses up on stilts along the beach. In Galveston, the surf is up to 17 feet and will breach the seawall. The Port Arthur fire department is staging everything to Lumberton, which is five miles or so from where my sister lives. There are three levees in New Orleans that have been breached already, and the worst case scenario is here. As if they didn't have enough already.

I have to go now. Stuff to be done.