Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina has, for the first time, truly opened my eyes to how powerful a hurricane can be.

I know that may sound uninformed or naive, but somehow in my head, “hurricane” has always equalled the Hugo that came through Charlotte in 1989 after slamming ashore in Charleston. By the time it reached us in Charlotte, it was barely a hurricane anymore, maybe 60-80 mph winds as my Dad told me this morning. It did a lot of damage, but nothing completely catastrophic. My 5th grade brain stored away the images of downed trees and dark houses and the bees that went crazy and stung us in their confusion. That has been my mental image of a hurricane. Scary, but not completely life-altering.

Now come the photos and news from New Orleans, Gulfport, and other communities hit hard by Katrina, and I’m floored by the devastation this hurricane has caused. Obviously a Category 5 storm is much more severe than the remnants of Hugo that I remember from 1989, but I wasn’t able to really conceptualize that until this week.

Last night I went to Walmart to pick up a few photos, as well as some moleskin for our upcoming Pacific Northwest adventure. I noticed a Louisiana license plate in the parking lot and didn’t think much of it. Then I saw another one. And another one. And another. There were half a dozen Louisiana plates in my row alone, a few of them with frames from dealerships in New Orleans. People who fled Louisiana to find a safer place to wait while the storm passed. I wonder if they have homes to return to.

It could happen here, in Houston. We’re not entirely below sea level, but other than that, the idea is completely conceivable. I live in the second floor, by my building is no more than 15-20 feet above sea level, and the storm surge from Katrina was something like 25 feet. I wonder what I would do if we got a direct hit from a Category 5 storm. Would I have a job left? Would I move somewhere else?

Who knows. I just hope Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama are able to get cleaned up and back to at least some sense of normalcy as soon as possible. It will be a while.

In the calm of Houston, life goes on. Chris has finally returned from his year at Stanford and called last night while I was Walmart-ing to order me to Mely’s to have dinner with him and Nacho. I didn’t really have the time (I hadn’t really started packing yet) but I went anyway. It seems like he just left, but it’s still nice to have him back!

This afternoon we’re off to Seattle for six days and I probably/definitely will not be updating. Tomorrow we’ll hit REI, go to the Mariners-Yankees game, and have dinner with some of Jen’s UW friends. Friday we’ll head to Mt. Rainier and camp there Friday night. After that, the plan becomes completely nebulous. We have no campsites reserved for Saturday, Sunday, or Monday nights so we’ll try for the first-come first-served campsites, or we may just pack it in somewhere. The five of us are all prepared to backpack if necessary/desired, so I expect we’ll be doing some of that to get off the beaten path a bit. I expect the parks to be fairly crowded for the holiday weekend, but hopefully we can get away from most of the people.

Should be fun!!