My wife's parents live in Corpus Christi, less than a mile from the shoreline, so we've been watching the reports carefully.

Some of the television footage showed the inside of a grocery store, complete, of course, with a lot of bare shelves. Also folks lined up at a bottled water dispenser.

The comparisons with potential Y2K disruptions are obvious, but an answer on another thread observed that any Y2K preppers in Corpus and along the South Texas coast have a leg up in the event the damage is extremely serious.

Surely those with a bugout bag as a minimum had a better sense of preparedness and were more at ease (if that's possible with a Category 4 taking dead aim at you) that their unprepared neighbors.

-- Vic (Roadrunner@compliant.com), August 22, 1999

Answers

Absolutely correct, Vic. It feels good to be prepared, makes so much sense. Seems like needlessly living on the very edge of the precipice if one is NOT prepared!

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), August 22, 1999.

Another thought: We are being told by government "officials" to prepare for Y2K as if it were a hurricane. That is so ridiculous that it bears not even repeating because it means nothing.

For one thing, which type of hurricane, a catagory 1,2,3,4 or 5?? At level 4 & 5, preparations would mean EVACUATION. I think we should ask Koskinen to catagorize which type of hurricane to plan for.

-- LindaO (hello@hotmail.com), August 22, 1999.

HERE'S A CRYSTAL BALL:

8/22/99 -- 7:45 PM

Evacuees flood San Antonio shelters

SAN ANTONIO (AP) - Pushed west by the steady advance of Hurricane Bret, evacuees clogged the roads running inland from the coast. Cars brimmed with children, pets and bundles of family photographs.

By Sunday afternoon, about 1,000 people had taken their places in makeshift shelters hastily set up in San Antonio schools.

And those were just the public shelters.

Kelly Air Force Base opened up its empty barracks to 5,000 more people forced out of Corpus Christi Naval Air Station.

Air Force workers pitched air-conditioned tents outside the barracks to house family pets. Husbands and wives were separated into men's and women's bunk houses .

``There are a very few ruffled tempers, frayed nerves, because of the situation,'' petty officer Matt Sainopulos said.

Dark clouds brooded over the city while droves of displaced families arrived.

Hundreds of mentally handicapped people were packed into vans and driven from the Corpus Christi State School. The clients will be housed in San Antonio facilities until the skies clear.

``We try to treat it as kind of an excursion or an adventure to try to allay their fears,'' said Laurie Lentz, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation.

In a San Antonio middle school cafeteria, adults hunched over dominoes while children raced in circles as Sunday slowly drained into night.

Almost 200 families were staying in that Red Cross shelter, spokesman Emilio Nicolas Jr. said.

[ snip ] ...
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-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), August 22, 1999.

So did anyone tell those S Texans to treat Bret like a Y2K???

-- sarcasm (refuge@of.scoundrel), August 22, 1999.

A&L, have you heard of Hardliner since yesterday? All I know is that he's in Texas. Hope he's not in the path.

Even if you're well y2k prepped, what do you do if your house is flooded?

-- Chris (%$^&^@pond.com), August 22, 1999.

No, Chris :(
Our iMac is in repair shop so we don't have access to our eMail.
We're lucky we got a loaner (great one too) so we could at least hook into the Net.
Hardliner certainly has a good head on his shoulders, and is prepped. Praying for him, his family, and all Yourdynamites in Bret's path.

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), August 22, 1999.