“We’re about at the point of having to make a choice,” said Alan Graham, the leader of the MLF caravan of trucks headed to the Texas Gulf Coast. We were crossing east on 59, between Hwy 36 in Richmond/Rosenberg and the road that leads to the gulf: Hwy 6. We had to choose: North or South? We could either cross through Houston and aim for some Catholic parishes in the north part of town, an area that experienced significant wind sheer, with many pockets still without power, or turn and “begin plowing our way toward the coast.”
Well, if you read the last entry (two blog posts ago, before my crap battery went to crap), you know which way the affable Santa of a man decided to go.
The caravan, now reunited, turned south.
“Ya know, Kate” Alan says after a couple of harrowing shortcuts in the Silverado hauling a trailer full of ice (“What median?”), “Jesus was a risk taker. He didn’t sit around and hang around the dudes in the suits. He went after the people.”
So to the coast we would go. To find the people. In the meanwhile, we were finding Ike’s wake.
Almost immediately, we began to see evidence (see picture gallery) of the category 2 that had just pummeled the region two days before. At first, it seemed minimal: a small uprooted tree here, some shingles missing there. Not too surprising, considering how much new (within the last 5-10 years new) construction of strip mall after strip mall after strip mall blighted this developing area. As we would leave “developed” areas for stretches of lean Texas highway dotted with small Texas towns, evidence of Ike’s path began to mount. The traffic thickened and at times, slowed to a crawl. Gas lines began to streak the landscape, sometimes 30-40 cars deep. Whole chunks of rooves and facades were missing. The frequency and size uprooted trees seemed to grow before our very eyes. Power poles teetered precariously, being held in place by stretched wires that may or may not have been carrying a charge. By the time we hit Alvin, still a good 25 miles from Galveston Island, the evidence was undeniable. This sucker was a monster.
I remembered this eerie feeling. It was the same feeling I had back in 1989, turning east from I-95, headed for Charleston, SC, a few months after Hurricane Hugo had demolished so much of that coastal area. The road into the historic South Carolina town was a testimonial to Hugo’s path of wrath as it seemed to grow with every mile closer to the coast.
This roadmap of Ike’s destruction could only lead to worse.
We reached the first police barricade outside of Alvin, and Alan, a native of the area, talked our way through. The sight of our convoy was pretty impressive, I must say, all silver and gleaming.
“So where we goin’ boss?” I asked our fearless leader.
“Just following the GPS,” he said with a wink.
“The God Positioning System.”
Coming up: Down on the Bayou…
This article appears in September 12 • 2008.