Ward Words

If you know us, you likely know that we live in the Houston area. Actually, we live in League City, which is a Houston suburb around Clear Lake. You may have heard of Clear Lake today, because it seems like every news station has someone there. In fact, the guy I'm watching on television right now is in the parking lot of the Hilton in Clear Lake, right across the street from Johnson Space Center where I work. We live 6 miles from there, on the other side of Clear Lake.

League City began voluntary evacuations on Thursday, Sept. 11. League City never actually announced a mandatory evacuation, which I find strange seeing as how almost every neighboring town (certainly all those nearest us) had mandatory evacuations. Nevertheless, Kelly and I left. Thursday morning I picked up some plywood and boarded up the most exposed and susceptible windows of the house. Soon as I finished, we jumped in the car for the drive to Dallas, where my parents live. The drive is 290 miles, and usually takes about 5 hours (you have to drive through all of Houston AND all of Dallas to get there). Yesterday it took 8 hours. For the first 80 miles we averaged 20 mph. That's an average, because there was an hour or so where it was probably 10 mph or less.

So, we have spent all night glued to the television. The storm surge projections for the area we live are 18-22 ft. The best I can figure from internetting is that our house is probably around 20-25 ft above sea level. This means that there is a fair chance, as of 10:45 pm Friday, Sept. 12, that our house may be under water when we wake up in the morning. Here's hoping it's not.

- Lucas -