Wednesday Personal Update

6:53 p.m. - I got my wife's cell phone voice mail message leaving the office, but I haven't been able to get a hold of anybody else again, including my sister's land or cell line. I'm thinking once I get home of heading north somewhere, but a AAA report was saying that they were booking people into hotel rooms in Oklahoma. My fear of leaving is not being able to get back into the area.

5:55 p.m. - I spoke with my Mom on her cell phone because I couldn't get through to her land line or the land line at my house. I got "all circuits are busy now" on both of their lines. Things are getting interesting, unfortunately.

5:45 p.m. - I'm currently in Bloomington, Indiana and I'll be heading to Houston in the morning (instead of returning on the regularly scheduled 5:20 p.m. flight.) My daughter, Waverly, is getting a bit anxious of the storm. (I can track her website activity on AOL and the last two days the only site she has gone to is Channel 2's site.)

My wife's brother, who lives in southwest Houston, is flying to Dallas tonight. My in-laws, who live just southeast of Willowbrook Mall, were boarding up their windows this afternoon. My wife reported this morning that prices of plywood were up approximately $8 per sheet. I talked to my parents this morning, who live just northwest of Intercontinental are waiting and seeing.

During Hurricane Alicia in 1983, we had some high winds out there but no real damage. But that was an upper Category 2 / lower Category 3 that came just west of downtown. (I remember the windows being blown off of downtown buildings.)

If you are a runner in the Gulf Coast area who reads this blog, please keep everyone up to date of your whereabouts by posting a comment on this thread or e-mailing me privately.

From reading Sarah's blog, she is heading to The Woodlands (Webster had a mandatory evacuation) and according to Edwin Quarles' comment, his family is in Lufkin now.