Rita 3

Someone who has lived in Houston all their life said it always get hot right before a hurricane. Not normal hot, which is pretty bad, but HOT. With record high temperatures yesterday and today, I'm in no position to disagree with her. Went out to my car at lunchtime and it is hot, humid and still - the air has a great weight to it.

Conducted a bried experiment at lunch. It started out as an attempt to sneak out for a little food to pigeon-hole in my office, but turned into an "experiment" when I saw the condition of the grocery store. One of the two sets of front doors was closed, so traffic was limited to one side, with people at the front watching you come in and watching you leave. Empty boxes were all over the floor by the registers, people were 7-8 deep in each line, carts full of the weirdest assortment of the remaining food in the store. Lots of chatter, a great deal of energy in the lines, cashiers and sackers working furiously to try to get folks through.

Where are all the courageous restaurant owners? IHOP - closed, Chili's - closed, McDonalds - closed. My bank was closed and the ATM was turned off. Most gas stations either have taken the numbers down off their signs indicating no gas, or put up zeros. Those that have gas had cars at every pump and lines of cars waiting into the street.

The hospital is much more calm today, with the hectic work of admitting patients and setting up their charts completed yesterday. Staffing is still a concern, as the nursing agency we use to supplement staff called at 1:00pm to say all their nurses had cancelled and were either evacuating or committed elsewhere. We've seen the staff split into two groups: one who are dedicated to being with their patients, and one who are dedicated to being with their families. I cannot feel any malice toward those who have refused our request to come in, but am very grateful for those who are here for the duration.

Our food supply truck made it in last night, but our nursing supply truck has called to say they aren't coming. We have a good amount of inventory on hand, and what we don't have we will re-use after washing or improvise. So the good news for patients is their nurses are the most passionate of the bunch, but the bad news is we may run out of supplies.

Crazy stuff going on already. A nurse came with her bird insisting that we keep it in the hospital or she was going to keep driving north, with the bird. So we are bird-sitting in nursing administration. We are offering to keep caged pets in the boiler room as a last resort, but so far it's just the bird. An employee called to ask if she could bring 19 members of her family with her for the weekend. Answer - only if they are all your children and your shoe is in a low-lying area. (OK, I made the shoe part up. "The little old lady who lived in a shoe" - anybody?)

The bosses are starting to get bossier, and Brad is starting to get crankier. We have the corporate COO, the corporate Compliance Officer (don't ask), VP of Quality, (again, don't ask) and 2 other corporate employees. Our local group of folks is doing great - we all work together fine. But some among us want to be Rudy Giuliani and so they are trying to tell everyone what to do. The rest of us are just trying to get our work done.

The storm appears to be headed east of Galveston, which would put us on the "clean" side of the hurricane (front left quadrant) instead of the "dirty" side (front right quadrant). I'm not sure why they designate them clean v. dirty, but the TV people are all saying it. All I know is clean is better than dirty (Mom taught me that, I think) so we're encouraged. Right now, everyone is planning on going home tonight, and then returning early Friday morning to ride it out until Saturday night or maybe Sunday. We expect sustained winds of 75-100mph (a first for me, I believe) and 10 or more inches of rain (nothing compared to the 23 inches in one day from Tropical Storm Allison)!

Still, keep us in your thoughts and prayers, as we will likely have 20-30 children here Friday night/Saturday morning when Rita gets into town. Hopefully they will sleep through the worst of it.

Shelley promised to come home and throw a huge block party if we dodge any house damage - at least we know the carpets will be in good shape for company!