DigitalKoans

Ah, August. That’s when the hurricane season gets serious, and the Gulf waters this year are unusually hot.

So, a reminder about Digital Scholarship’s two hosts. The .com host is here in Houston. The .org host is in Dallas. Dallas is considerably more inland than Houston, which is only about 50 miles from the coast. Consequently, unless things are really bad, the Dallas host is likely to remain up should Houston be hit with a hurricane or tropical storm. Fingers crossed.

With an average of 51 inches of rain a year (compared to a national average of 37 inches) and a comfort index of 24 out of 100 (measures humidity, higher is better, and the US average is 44), and an average July high of 94, few people move to Houston because it has a balmy climate. After a year or so, some who do move here decide that they can’t stand the heat and humidity and leave.

I’ve never minded the Houston weather much, but this year has been exceptionally rainy, and the last couple of months there has been no need to look at the daily forecast—the forecast is rain. Rain here usually means a torrential downpour, although the long, slow drizzle is not unknown. Houstonians think of rain as those in more northerly climates think of snow. That’s because rain is associated with street flooding (and sometimes house flooding from overfull bayous), low highway exit ramps becoming mini-lakes, poor visibility, and massive highway traffic jams that spill over into adjoining surface streets creating citywide gridlock.

You adjust to the inconvenience of rain, but this year, more than once, it’s become almost pitch black in the morning or afternoon hours because the overcast is so heavy, and that’s a bit depressing.

But, I guess we should be thankful that the hurricane season has been very quiet so far (no one wants another Tropical Storm Allison or Hurricane Rita nightmare).

Massive Traffic Jam on I-45 as Houston Residents Flee Hurricane Rita

Source: AmyEmilia, This photo is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 License.

After the evacuation of 2 1/2 million people from the Houston/Galveston area amid massive traffic jams in all directions, severe gas shortages before gas stations went completely dry (there is no gas between here and Dallas), stranded motorists along all major highways, hotels being full as far away as Little Rock and Abilene (forget Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio), Houston was spared the worst of Hurricane Rita as the eye took a last minute turn northeast to the Louisiana border.

It took me 2 1/2 hours to go 10 miles West along alt 90, barely moving and consuming a quarter tank of gas before I turned back (it took 15 minutes to return). (Lesson learned: smaller evacuation routes cross bigger ones that, when jammed, overflow so much traffic to the smaller routes that they becomes an impassable barrier, plus officials pay no attention to smaller routes.) Few of the roughly 2 1/2 million people left were on the city streets, and virtually all stores and gas stations were closed and boarded up: a ghost town. After a night of howling winds, but relatively little rain, over 600,000 people have no power, and it may take weeks to restore service (the temperature here before Rita was in the upper 90s). So, no gas, no open stores, no power for many, but residents are thankful, because the scenario of a worst case Category 5 strike included large parts of the coastal region and the Ship Channel being under water, and the rest being hit by 100+ mph winds and over 20 inches of rain (Houston has many bayous and floods easily).

Here are selected links:

• "Hurricane Rita"
• Potential Flooding in Category 5 Hurricane by Zip code (large graphic; 610 loop is the core of the city)
• "Models Show ‘Massive Devastation in Houston’"
• "Mayor White Blasts State’s Handling of Gasoline"
• "Looking for Gasoline? Good Luck"
• "Fear, Kindness Looms around Those Stuck on Interstates"
• "Standed on Empty"
• "State Officials Set Schedule for Evacuee Return"
• "And So the Rush Home Begins"
• "State Sets Staggered Schedule for Return of Rita Evacuees"
• "Outages Could Linger for Weeks"
• "Not All Regret Choice to Flee"
• "Welcome Home"
• Lessons Come at High Cost: 107 Lives
• "Hurricane Season Only Half Over"
• Hurricane Rita Wiki

Houston is likely to be struck by a Category 4 or 5 hurricane. DigitalKoan and SEPW updates are likely to be erratic for some unknown period of time.