Update: nothing like over-hyping natural disasters.....
Hurricane Rita intensified into a Category 5 storm with winds of 165 mph. Evacuations are underway in major Gulf Coast cities. Bush pledged to be “ready for the worst.” ...Forecasters said Rita could be the most intense hurricane on record to hit Texas. All of Galveston, Texas, low-lying sections of Houston and Corpus Christi, and a mostly emptied-out New Orleans were under mandatory evacuation orders, one day after Rita sideswiped the Florida Keys as a far weaker storm and caused minor damage....Rita is expected to remain a Category 5 storm until it makes landfall.WSJ.com - Hurricane Rita Strengthens Into a Category 5 Storm
Houston Mayor Bill White ordered mandatory evacuations beginning at 6 a.m. tomorrow for certain areas of the city. Mr. White asked employers and schools to halt regular operations tomorrow and Friday, allowing students and employees to evacuate. He also asked residents to help ferry elderly neighbors and others in need of evacuation. “There will not be enough government vehicles in every area … to do the job,” he said
D's best friend, dog and boyfriend are headed out of Houston (Friday, as of now) to stay with my parents in Austin. Part of me hopes that the evacuations and dire warnings are partly due to the recent Katrina boondoggle, but part of me worries for the folks impacted by the upcoming storm.
Not to mention that we are trying to close our biggest deal yet, and several of the principals are located either in Louisiana or Houston. Yikes. Many phone numbers are already unreachable. Business pales next to human suffering, at least for us, but we are on pins and needles for multiple reasons.
(parenthetical note: site access is still flakey. From my web host:
What is happening now is that we are replacing different pieces of hardware in the server to isolate the problem and it is only a matter of time before we find the exact cause of the problem.
so, in other words, check back in a day or two and see if we're back up)
