And here I thought that I won the Hurricane Lottery. In the middle of June, I made reservations for a trip to Florida. I wanted to spend some of my frequent flyer miles, and I reliazed that I could only book a trip starting at September for 25K miles (50K for an earlier trip). So I did. In the middle of Hurrican season. During the most active month even. Perhaps I was mad…

But, I was fortunate! A week before the trip, Hurricane Ophelia was off the coast of Florida but it finally moved north. Weather was sunny and hot. And then on Sunday, there were tropical depressions moving towards Florida. Tropical depression #1 turned into Hurricane Rita and went through the Florida Keys. On Monday, I flew back home and the rain from Rita was starting to hit the coast.

And now on Wednesday, Rita is a category 5 storm that is headed for Austin! Well, the wildly inaccurate storm tracking information has it going like a hundred miles east of us. And it turns into a category 1 storm when it is this far inland.

When I went to the grocery store today, most of the bottled water was bought out. The panic buying had begun in earnest. People were advising to buy gas now while the refineries were still in one piece and gas was only expensive (after all it could become astronomical). Sigh…