So Thursday we were let out of class by 330 to go get ready for the hurricane. I decided to stay in town, but went up northwest to Annie’s house. In theory it was more inland and their house had tons of water and food along with some company for the long weekend. Thursday night we actually went and played some tennis.
Friday we prepared by buying some donuts (yum) and going to Target to buy Scrabble and Dominos in case we got bored hiding from the storm. Sadly they don’t have cable so we just watched hurricane fear building news on the local stations. Friday night we went to sleep and weathered the storm. It wasn’t any worse than a really hard rainstorm. There were some gusts of wind that you knew were strong but the strength of the storm was in the durration and not the actual strength. The power went out at about 1am but it was cool enough to sleep through the night.
Saturday was a pretty miserable day. There was plenty of food and water but not having electricity means not having air conditioning. In the humid aftermath, it was no pleasant. Cell phone service was spotty and even some of my text messages didn’t go through. Annie’s family and I, minus her dad who stayed at the house, went over to a family friend’s who did not lose power. We enjoyed the cool air, cable television, and even more company.
Sunday we hung around the air conditioned home and were dissapointed that local news was precluding the airing of NFL football. Their internet was down so we survided with what internet our phones provided. We eventually got to see a football game on my20 which was broadcasting the game normally shown on Fox. We returned to Annie’s house to find cooler weather. Her dad had already cleaned up the front yard so much that you couldn’t even tell there was a hurricane. We helped him with the backyard as much as we could. Their home had water but still no electricity. So Annie decided to come with me back to my apartment.
According to Jason Jan, the electricity in our apartment only went out for a few minutes. Our water was and still remains spotty. I came home Sunday to a nice hot shower and a night sleeping in air conditioning. Andrew, who works for Centerpoint, ironically does not have electricity at his house and was staying over at my place since Saturday night. He arrived about when we got there and was called out again to fix something. He got River Oaks power that night, but returned home close to midnight and had to be back on the job by 5am. Andrew is working 16 hour days, so don’t complain about not having power, cause they are working on it for sure.
Monday we started getting a little bored and decided to go to the Galleria. Annie and I met up Adam there. The mall was basically a refugee camp for people without power. People were sitting at every available outlet plugging in their laptops and cell phones. A lot of stores were not open but American Eagle was and I gladly picked up two pairs of jeans that were on sale for only fifteen bucks. We tried to get people to enjoy the much cooler weather but could not find enough people to play football. We decided to go watch ‘Burn After Reading’. It was mediocre but it meant we were out of the house. I was craving some pizza so we stopped by Pizza Hut. Since a lot of places are closed there are lines out the door to most placces. We decided to just stop by and see how long it would take. I live less than half a mile away from Pizza Hut so we thought we would just order and come back. We went in and asked how long it woudl take and he said, well…this pizza here is done. Apparently somebody got tired of waiting for his pizza. So I bought it and we left with a pizza and didn’t have to wait a single second in line. Since my water was not working that night we went to Adam’s to shower after catching Monday Night Football and playing Scabble.
Tuesday I woke up to the sound of my toilet refilling signaling that the water was on. I quickly filled the tub with water so we could flush the toilet later. I also did a load of laundry and washed all the dishes. I’m glad I did all that because water went out in the afternoon. Annie and I went to Krogers to see what food I could get. There was a line into the grocery store, but it moved fast. It was actually less crowded in the store than a normal day around four or five pm. They had all the normal food except milk, meats, and frozen food. I bought some lactaid milk instead and it was decent with my cereal. Later we all got together to play some football in the amazing weather. Again I returned home to no water so I went over to Andrew’s house to shower. I was surprised he had hot water without having electricity. He must have a gas water heater?
Anyway, Annie’s house got their power back so she went back home. Andrew is still staying here tonight but he believes he will get power back tomorrow. He sent me a text to close his freezer door, but I had already left. On the way back I noticed the Shell station near my place had gas and only one car was in line. So I stopped by and filled up my gas tank, quick and easy, just the way I like it.
Quad4x 