How not to evacuate from harms way.
Maybe it’s my weather scorned, New England composition or maybe it’s just thick headed stupidity that made me think that Rita wasn’t going to impact my travel day too terribly.
So I spent the early part of my week telling my boss that she was over reacting, that she was a worry wart & that she was thinking too much about this silly little tropical depression that was crawling its way into the warm waters of the Caribbean.
And while I should have been making last minute preparations Wednesday night - like waiting in line to fill up the tank of my rental car and packing so that I could get an early start the next morning – instead I sat in the hotel bar breaking the rules of my new “health-kick” one beer at a time.
Shit, I had endured hurricanes before. Just 2 years ago I “hunkered down” in a motel 30 miles from the South Carolina coast after evacuating from Myrtle Beach which was in the path of Hurricane Charlie. Houston’s 50 miles from the coast, this shouldn’t be too bad.
So when I woke up at 9:30 am with a wicked hangover and no real memory of “calling it a night” I still wasn’t grasping the true weight of this storm and the evacuation process. I leisurely ate my $20 hotel breakfast (it’s amazing what you’ll pay for stuff when it’s not your money) and slowly packed my bag stopping to watch key scenes in “Rounders” which was being shown on Starz. I even timed my shower so that I could miss that slow scene where Martin Landau tells the boring story about breaking his parents’ heart by leaving Yeshiva to pursue his dreams of practicing law (yawn!).
The gravity of my situation started to sink in when my boss called and told me she heard it was taking up to 6 hours to check in at the airport. Then while checking out I ran into the hotels concierge, Peter, who was checking into his own hotel in order to ride out the storm with his cat (yeah, he’s a little fruity), Holly. However, he was a life saver & represented one of the first smart decisions I made. Getting airport directions from him that didn’t involve any major evacuation routes is probably the only reason I didn’t end up on the side of the road with an empty fuel tank waiting for FEMA to rescue me as my 5:20pm to Chicago flew over head.
Not that my ride to the airport was without incident. Any road that ran south to north was packed and the directions I got from Peter were not easy to read. He definitely broke the stereotype I had that gay men write like 12 year old girls (ie bubble cursive with hearts replacing the dots over the eyes). I was far from calm as I sat in traffic slightly freaking out – wondering if my hands were cold because I was about to have a heart attack or just because my cars air conditioner was cranked firmly to MAX. Lets face it, if I had to deal with Houston heat after getting dragged around town the night before by a salesman buddy who was entertaining clients I would have surly had that heart attack. My mind kept doing the math:
11am (start time) + x (travel time to the airport) + 6 hour check in process = Y (which can’t be greater than 5:21pm).
I also kept flipping my radio on and off as I had a schizo-style argument with myself over whether the news and press conferences were helping me or just getting me closer to heart failure.
The local press wasn’t even trying to show any tact in their desire to chase what was looking like the big story - how the Houston & Federal governments had already botched the Rita evacuation. That even though the first waves of Rita were more than 24 hours from Galveston Bay, people were starting to freak on the evacuation routes because they were traveling at the snail pace of 1 mile per hour and many were starting to run out of gas. The press was salivating over the thought of breaking the big story. Whose fault was it?! Truth of the matter, they could probably take some of the blame on their own shoulders. The crisis style coverage they use to keep viewers glued to their stations may have gotten people to ignore the governments recommended evacuation plan and jump ship to early resulting in folks in high risk areas getting stuck there trapped on the roads behind 70 miles of bumper to bumper traffic.
In my travels I was amazed to see how little things like the location of an open gas station (a rarity at this point) would trigger huge traffic jams and slow downs. After getting lost because the “right on Helm” should have been a “right on East Helm” I realized that west to east travel was much easier than south to north travel. My progress definitely improved, be it a bit of a zigzag route. However I was driving off the beaten path now.
Two clues made me realize that I was close to the airport. Low flying 747’s and car rental agencies in a depressed, primarily Mexican neighborhood (not a typical sight in most large urban ghettos). But I was at a crossroads. Literally. Left or right? Still stuck in traffic I began to ask locals that walked past my car for a little direction, but that only got me confused looks and “Que?” I even tried to act out an airplane to one elderly passerby complete with jet noises. But it was no use. This stupid gringo was almost out of luck when I saw my savior, which in this case came in the form of a meth-junky with rotten teeth and eyes that looked like a couple of bloody buckets. But more important, a Caucasian methed-out junky. I barely understood the directions he slurred out to me but he did the only thing that really mattered. Pointed. Crossroads problem solved.
I really thought the airport was going to be the real nightmare of my journey. The mayor’s press conference informed me that airport wait times were currently 4 hours, thanks to 100 TSA workers deciding it was a smart idea not to show up to work today.
But I got to admit the check in process was flawless, in fact went faster than normal.
While I hate to be stuck in situations like that, there’s something about it that’s exhilarating. I actually enjoy watching to see what aspects of our intricate social fabric tear first. What rules do people break and which do they obey.
Obviously many traffic laws are the first to go. It wasn’t uncommon to hear radio reports of mass hysteria on some of the larger evacuation routes. Live phone calls from frustrated travelers saying that cars are driving on the grass median on Rt. 290 with the sound of sirens blaring in the background.
Then there are the little things. The rental car return agents that had completely lost control of the car return process, the normally clean lobby, strewn with garbage. All of the airport restaurants closed except for the good folks at Pizzeria Uno who were now in the midst of their own supply crisis as the line to order food stretched the entire length of terminal A.
The hunt for food became its own little adventure. True, I had time to kill and could have easily waited in the pizza line, but who has that kind of patience. I mean, other than the 400 people actually standing in the line. Not me. I traveled to the lower levels of the terminal because I heard a rumor that there were vending machines down there. Then left there empty handed when some old Nel Carter looking lady told me that she was taking the airport train to the Marriott where the Gift Shop shelves were overflowing with tasty treats.
While checking out, my arms full of provisions - I was definitely going over board at this point, but hell, I was in survival mode – Michael Clarke Duncan, or at least someone that looked and sounded like him, got a kick out of my obvious enthusiasm in accepting the cashiers offer of a fresh deli sandwich. Apparently he found it funny that I didn’t ask “what kind?” or “how much?” but answered with a simple and direct YES! I looked at him, patted my belly and told him that I dug his work in “The Green Mile”.
Walking back to my terminal I felt like I just won The Masters or finished a marathon when all I really did was buy a sandwich and a couple of magazines. I may have even shouted “SUCKERS!” as I walked past the folks in the Pizzeria Uno line. In hindsight, I wasn’t even really hungry and only ended up eating half of the sandwich. But I sure did have fun in the hunt.
Actually except for that short period of time that I was lost, almost out of gas and having a hypochondriac induced heart attack I really had a fun time running from Rita. There’s something about being part of something huge & awful that changes me from a super introvert into that guy who will talk to anyone. And when everything’s going bad, misery definitely loves company.
