Traffic coming in to San Marcos on Highway 21 today was bumper-to-bumper. Not parkinglot heavy, like I-10 out of Houston, but it was moving slow. Presumably the evacuees were breaking north to Austin or south to San Antonio once they reached I-35. Some may even have continued on through town and headed out to the Hill Country on Ranch Road 12 or the like.
I went over to Score's sports bar in New Braunfels to watch the A&M/Texas State football game (I've since come home to help watch the kids), and next to me were two guys from Friendswood, which is south of Houston. They said they'd left Friendswood at 3 p.m. the day before under mandatory evacuation, and had just reached New Braunfels in the previous hour. That's 28 hours to traverse a trip that normally takes 3 hours at most. Unbelievable. The evacuation of Houston has been bungled beyond belief--leaving the inbound highway lanes into Houston open as long as they were is mind-bogglingly stupid. Governor Perry said several times during the day that the inbound lanes had been reversed to allow outgoing traffic to use them, but by late afternoon, they were still closed off. With cars running out of gas and overheating, I'm wondering how many people are going to be caught on the open road when Rita hits?
My mother and grandmother reached us just fine, and traffic wasn't bad for them--although the Columbus to Cuero to New Braunfels trip tends to avoid all the major state highways. With Rita tracking more to the east, though, they might have stayed put and been none the worse for the wear. But with traffic as bad as it is, if they'd have waited any longer they could well have been trapped had the storm come ashore at Matagorda as initially feared. As it is, we'll enjoy a nice family visit for the weekend.
Now Playing: Texas A&M vs. Texas State
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