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Drivers stranded on I-10 I have just two pieces of advice for anyone who has to flee a large metro politan area in the face of a Category 5 hurricane: Be sure you have a M agellan RoadMate and a Japanese car. My 14-year-old son, Sam, and I left Houston at 10:30 Thursday morning wit h our golden retriever, headed for my parents' condo in San Antonio. My neighbor, offering to share his hot el room at the Hilton downtown, warned me not to go"It's anarchy out th ere," he saidbut by then I was packed and was being drawn out of town b y progressively more anxious calls from my parents and my boss. He kissed us goodbye like someone force d to stay in Atlanta as Sherman approached. I grew up with hurricanes, sta rting with Carla in 1962, and spent Alicia, in the early '80s, calmly ba bysitting my friend's cats while the wind howled around us. In anticipat ion, I stocked the house with canned goods, flashlights, and batteries; and filled up the car day before yesterdaygo or stay, I was as ready as a Girl Scout trying to win her preparedness patc h I thought I even had a good alternate route out of town: I was going to go south and then head west on 90A, a back road I'd taken a few times before to San Antonio. If the phrase "going south" strikes you as somew hat ominous, please note that I have been living in Hurricane Central fo r the last few weeks, and was gripped by serious denial.
And so, Sam, Chuy, and I drove toward the coast, out Main Street and on t o 90A, where there was, indeed, no traffic. Somewhat further on we sped past a beat-up scarlet Nissan with the words "Rita, go away bitc h" spray-painted on the back window. To the right of me was a family that had three kids and a bright co ckatoo flittering out of its cage. Behind me was an Asian couple who too k no solace from the smiling, happy Buddha on the dashboard of their pic kup. In front of me, as far as the eye could see, were cars, bumper to b umper. "I think there's a wreck up there," a driver with binoculars told me hopefully. Meanwhile, the radio DJs kept using the word "catastrophi c" and talking about "the cone of uncertainty"that area where the storm might or might not hit, which included the exact point at which we were stuck. I had the air conditioner onat the lowest setting, mixed with o utdoor air, which by then was already 100 degrees. My son and I were bot h the color of tomatoes, and the dog's panting was starting to sound lik e coronary disease. We sat there for two hours, during which time we moved exactly three-tent hs of a mile by my speedometer's reckoning. I kept checking the gauges o n my 9-year-old Honda Accord's dashboardso far, all was well. I had abo ut three-quarters of a tank of gasI'd run a few errands on Wednesday, b ut the car wasn't overheating. I figured I needed only a half-tank to ge t home to San Antonio, and we had about 48 hours until Rita came ashore. Still, at the rate we were moving, the odds weren't good. We were somewhere near the suburb of Missouri City in what was most defin itely a mandatory evacuation area. We spent the next hour or so heading north again, past oversized tract homes that, if past experience was any indication, might not be there when we returned. Every gas station we p assed either had long lines in front of it or bright yellow plastic ribb ons tied over the tank handles, indicating they were out. I remained calm, and couldn't figure out why, since it's not my normal st ate. Then I realized I wasn't calmthat this quiet focus was what it fel t like to be terrified. I had visions of riding out the storm in Southwe st Houstona part of town I avoid on the best dayswhile the water rose up around the Accord, the dog whimpering as Sam and I huddled together, waiting for the end in a Ross Dress for Less parking lot. I thought abou t turning back home, too, but I kept worrying about the pine tree in our backyard crashing through the roof. I wondered, briefly, how long our n eighbors would realistically let us stay at the Hilton, and how long the Hilton would realistically let us all stay. I pushed on , toward I-10, despite increasingly alarming reports on the radio about people running out of gas and further blocking the highway, where many d rivers had already been stranded since the night before. "Better start r ationing those Doritos," I told Sam, who had already gone through one ba g and three Capri Suns with electrolytes, while the dog had already drun k two bottles of Ozarka. It took about three hours heading dead west on side-streets before I reac hed the approach to I-10. Then I remembered my hu sband's Christmas present to me last yeara GPS device called the Magell an RoadMate. That may not sound like the most romantic gift, but I spend a lot of time in the car, and a lot of that time on strange roads on th e verge of being very, very lost. The RoadMate displays a map so detailed that even the most directionally challenged can find their way to their destination. I decided to skip th e freeway and let the RoadMate guide me. At 1:23 the radio brought news that the first rain bands had reached the coast. By then we were on a series of farm roads, driving about 50 mph toward Sa n Antonio, tacking first west, then northwest, then west again, accordin g to the computer on my dash. I knew most of the towns, with their wonde rful German and Central European namesWaelder, Wiemer, Schulenberg, New Ulmbut had forgotten how pretty and pastoral they are, racing around T exas on the interstates as I do. While the radio was predicting Armagedd on, we drove past gnarled live oaks and sable herds of cattle, crossed t he Brazos near Columbus, and veered past turn-of-the-century homes that were still waiting for gays and yuppies from the city to take them over. It, too, was out o f gas, and mobbed by desperate Houstonians in search of homemade sandwic hes (there were none) and bottled water (supplies were dwindling). "Oh, I forgot to tell you," Sam said, when we were further down the road, "Th e lady back there told me I-10 is open on both sides now." We used the navigator to tack southpast a house inexplicably decorated w ith four knights in shining armor out frontand got to the interstate, w here, indeed, traffic was now moving at 60 mph on four lanes, all of the m headed west. There were families picnicking at underpasses, and cars b roken down along the roadclearly out of gasbut the traffic moved, so w e stayed on until my boss called to tell me that I should get off the hi ghway because it was going to bottleneck in Seguin, where the four lanes went down to two again. We had lost the radio by then, and so were blis sfully free of horrifying news. A few miles later we turned off the ACI was down to a quarter of a tank, probably enough to get to San Antonio but I wasn't taking chances. We r olled down all the windows, and soon, the car filled up with glistening gold hairs floating in the airmy dog shedding in the breeze. It was close to 6 pm, the sun was starting to set, a brig ht orange ball with the kind of rays you see in children's paintings, fi ltered through the beginnings of the fluffy cumulus clouds that signal s torms on the way. Even this far west, people had boarded up windows of t heir homesno one here needs a DJ to tell them hurricanes can change dir ection overnight. We finally pulled into a gas station that had lines bu t also gasoline, filled the tank, and, air cooled again, tacked northwes t for the 30 or so miles toward my parents' place. Near Seguin I passed a high school jammed with people and bright yellow buses and assumed it was a shelter. Then I looked aga in: Crowds had collected on small bleachers, and there were kids in pads and uniforms on the field. Mimi Swartz is an executive editor at Texas Monthly and the author, with Sherron Watkins, of Power Failure, the Inside Story of the Collapse of E nron. Photograph of stranded drivers by Dave Einsel/AFP/Getty Images.
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