Evacuation Tales

With more than a million Texans on the move, it's not surprising so many bloggers have popped up to report how they're doing.

If you want a front-of-the-car seat, with audio capability on your computer you can listen in to Mattsapundit, an all-audio blog, as he mutters his way through hours upon hours of snarled traffic.

Generation Why? (whose motto is 'Every morning when I wake up, I read the Bible and the Newspaper because I want to know what both sides are up to') also is blogging on the evacuation route, by wireless or cellphone. The latest: "Over 3 hours and we've made it to Liberty, TX. * * * This isn't fun."

Another Houston area blog, Burnt Orange Report, has an endearing story about panic in the family as they prepare to evacuate. This is worth the read.

Kevin Whited over at Blog Houston shares a personal anecdote about how, in the midst of evacuating, a fraudulent telemarketer tried to hustle him. They never give up, do they?

The Barista lives in Dallas but found herself in Houston, nursing her mother who may be dying. Now they both have to evacuate.

John Little, on his Blogs of War, gives the details about his last-minute preparations and reports:

The highways are still a complete mess. People are moving 30 miles in 12 hours in some cases. News helicopters are showing freeways littered with cars that didn't make it due to overheating and gas shortages. It's nasty and you can bet that the state is going to get hammered for their questionable execution of this mandatory evacuation plan when this is all over.

Houston Heights blog By The Bayou is safe, sound, and getting appropriately sentimental about those less fortunate souls who are about to lose all they own.

The Houston Chronicle's Rita Blog is up and running. Mostly with news by the minute.

Likewise with the mint-new Houston-Galveston Emergency Blogger Network, which reports, "Many people have been on the freeways attempting to leave the area for over 15 hours. Many others, frustrated by the bumper-to-bumper standstill traffic, have turned around to go home after, for example, travelling 8 miles in 3 hours."

Even before leaving, Galveston area blogger Banjo Jones was worrying over what will surface after the storm. Writing on The Brazosport, he says "there is a veritable festival of volatile organic compounds being released right now while the various petrochemical plants shut down." Along the way, he links to this Texas list of reported chemical emissions released into the air the past two days. How many more haven't been reported? It's anyone's guess.