Aug. 31st, 2005

threeplusfire: (blue Norrington)
Last night on the way home I saw lines at the gas stations. The Wally World near my job was at $2.55 yesterday and today it is $2.81. There were people backed up on the access road of 183 for $2.43, and fury when the unleaded regular ran out. It's very, very strange.

When I started driving, one of the first tanks of gas I ever purchased cost $.88 a gallon. In college I remember debating with myself between $1.01 and $1.03 on the way home. Last summer it was $1.78. Now I wouldn't mind paying $3.50 a gallon if we had better social benefits and not richer gas and oil companies.

Last night I saw a clip that was just devastating in the emotional intensity of the interview. The reporter, who looked young and maybe like the local weathergirl or junior anchor, was sobbing and holding out the microphone to an older man holding his child or grandchild to him. It wasn't even so much the story, about how his wife let go of his hand in the flood, and told him he couldn't hang on to her anymore because he had to save the children. It was the dead, shell shocked look in the man's face, and how he kept saying, "I don't know where I'm going, I'm lost, I'm lost." It gave me chills, and was probably one of the most horrible things I've ever seen on television.

My grandparents are alright. Their power came back on after just a day, and the yard is full of broken tree limbs. My grandfather seems to be having a grand time of it. My mother just shakes her head.

I left my phone at home today. Damn it.

exodus

Aug. 31st, 2005 02:39 pm
threeplusfire: (wandering)
They are shuttling thousands of people to Houston to stay in the Astrodome. There are shelters set up here in Austin taking in people who fled the coast before and after the storm. It's funny, the things you don't think about. We can't reach anyone from Lousiana CPS, and who knows what is going on there. Tulane hospital is sending flights of infants from their neonatal ICU to Texas. Some of them are children in Lousiana custody, and now they are becoming ours while this disaster sorts itself out. It's very weird, and hectic.

Tonight is the last night I can smoke in an Austin bar, so I think I'll go have a drink. From here on, it's smoking at home or in bars outside the city.

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