Thanks everyone for your kind words. I just got through to my Mom on her cell phone, which has been tricky because the circuits are always busy. I’ve also been told people are having trouble getting to my cell which is a Houston number even though I’m on the other side of the country. Anyway she and my father are still in traffic in Houston, after leaving over 15 hours ago. When I drove from Houston to San Francisco 15 hours of driving was about 60% of the way to California. They were extremely lucky to get some of the last gas from a station before it closed, it seems everyone’s cars are dying because none of the gas stations along the evacuation routes have any fuel. They had to wait in line for 2 hours to get gas.

Houston is the 4th largest city in the entire United States. The neighborhoods that flood the worst are the poor areas, but that doesn’t sound like it’ll matter with the magnitude of this hurricane heading to my home of 20 years. My parents have been on the road for 10 hours now and haven’t made it out of the city yet. Many other members of my family are staying, along with my Grandmother who is too sick to travel. After Katrina there was a rush of people metasearches and directories, NOW would be a good time for Amazon, Yahoo, Google, and the other giants to pool their resources and get the infrastructure in place to help before it hits. This one is hitting much closer to home for me, it’s hard to think about.