Safely out of Houston

Yesterday morning I went to work and Brooke went to school like normal. About an hour after I got to work, my boss told me to start securing loose equipment and moving things off the floor. By lunchtime we had the entire prodution area locked down and plastic-wrapped. We then sat and waited while the managers had a meeting, then they came out and told us all to go home. We have a phone number to call to find out when the building will be reopened for work to resume.

By the time I got home, Michelle already knew that Brooke's school was also cancelled for the rest of the week, and that our address fell under the voluntary evacuation area. We decided to pack up and head to Michelle's parents in Arlington (who had already decided earlier in the week not to come visit us in Houston this weekend). We wanted to be ready to go by the time Brooke got off the bus at 3:25pm, but wee missed by an hour. We left our house at about 4:30 pm Wednesday. At 6:45 we stopped in north Houston for dinner. Michelle had been having stomach pains during the day, and she threw up while we were there.

At 7:30 we got back on the freeway. We spent over three hours covering the stretch from mile marker 70 to mile marker 90.At around minight we finally left Houston city limits and sped up to about 30 mph. Traffic continued fairly slow until about 4:00 am at Centerville TX, halfway between Houston and Dallas. Since Michelle was not feeling well, I drove most of the time, but she took over a couple times so I could get a little sleep. We arrived at her parents at 7 am Thursday, with about 5 hours of sleep between the two of us.

The drive is around five hours under normal conditions. We made it in 14 1/2 hours, and apparently we did all right. Michelle's brother Matthew left his home south of Houston about an hour after we did. After covering three miles in five hours (that same north Houston stretch) between midnight and 5 am, they turned around and went back home. They were down to a quarter tank of gas -- all the stations had run out. His wife is nine months pregnant. We've made some phone calls and they'll probably shelter in one of the church buildings during the storm. Anybody praying for us, you may want to include Matthew and Katrina Stovall, their daughter Jasmine and her yet-unborn sister.

For right now we are safe in DFW, and we'll head back home once we know it is safe to do so.