(no subject)

[austin_tycho]

Here's an interesting question posed by anassadeina.

"This is something that's been on my mind a lot this last week. If Hurricane Mairi (a category 5!) was heading towards Austin and would make landfall by Friday, would you evacuate? If you wouldn't, what are you reasons for not evacuating? How would you secure, or try to secure, your house?

Where would you go?

And assuming that you could fit, say, ten items into your car, what would those ten items be?"

I'd really, really consider staying. We own the house, and I love it, and would be loathe to abandon it unless I was pretty certain it was going to be destroyed. But if I absolutely had to leave... I'd take husband, cat, cat, cat, cat, my computer (just the hard drive), his computer, my box of file-paperwork things, a box of clothes, and a box of trinkets/souvenirs/jewelry. If husband took his car and some cats, I'd probably cram in some books and more clothes. The fish would be pretty much screwed, sadly. I guess I'd go to my parent's home in Sweetwater (about 250 miles north of here) unless husband had something else in mind- he would want to go to his grandparents' in California. Oh, and if my brother and his SO couldn't get out, I'd ditch some trinkets and get them.

I wouldn't worry about food and stuff because we are lucky enough to have enough money to get them on the way, or even stay in a hotel if we had to. I would probably want to stay as close to home as I could manage, so I could go back and start rebuilding. I have no idea what insurance would cover, or what would happen to my job- it's a statewide job, so they'd probably set up somewhere else pretty quickly, and that might influence my decision of where to settle for the time being, if the rebuilding was going to be months and months. It's hard to imagine.

Comments

[austinpanda.livejournal.com]

Tom and I would be a dot on the horizon while you were still deciding on your ten items. :o)

Seriously, thanks! I'd cram you two into my polite Japanese car to escape a 20-foot tidal surge any day.

I'm grabbing cat, cat, Tom, computer case, 2 DVD binders, clothes, toilet paper, and eight skillion tupperware containers filled with tapwater.

[austingoddess.livejournal.com]

No problem. It's not like the house will go away if I abandon it, unless it was going to go away anyway. So a major duh to that.
I'd take the irreplacable things, i.e. cats and data, in that order. After that, it's all gravy.

[mielikki.livejournal.com]

It's not as much of a duh as you say; it's possible the house would survive the storm then get looted and busted up if you left it.

[austingoddess.livejournal.com]

It's still all gravy. If it can be replaced, it can be replaced. Furniture can be replaced. So can food, dishes, music, electronics. I highly doubt someone would actually take a sledgehammer to my walls just for the hell of it, but that's what insurance is for. Wood can be nailed together again.
Mind you, I'm not putting myself in the place of those families who had nothing except their homes. I'm just speaking for myself. Home is a big deal. But having lost possessions over the years to a variety of circumstances I could not help because of a lack of funds, I know what's important and what isn't.

[mielikki.livejournal.com]

I get that, it's just that saying it's a "major duh" made it seem like you thought it was obvious to all. :)

[austingoddess.livejournal.com]

Sorry. :) Just to those of us who've lost wide swaths of Home before, which I'm glad isn't too many people...I don't recommend it.

[burgundy.livejournal.com]

I got an e-mail from my mom the other day, saying that if it can happen to New Orleans it can happen to Houston, and would we (my brother and me) be able to put her up if she had to run to Austin, and/or take care of her cat? And I was all, um, duh, like I'd let my mother drown rather than open up the sofa bed.

But I'm not too worried about Austin getting slammed. We're a lot further inland, and going overland takes a lot out of a hurricane, so even if it were category 5 when it hit the coast, it wouldn't be as bad by the time it got to us. Rain and wind, sure, but not the kind of devastation that NOLA saw.

And I live on the second floor, of an apartment complex that sits pretty high off the street. If it were just a question of flooding for a couple of days, I could sit tight. If it looked like serious infrastructure damage, no power for weeks, that kind of thing, I'd be more likely to head out (with the cats!), but I'm not sure where, since my family is in Houston, and that would probably not be a good place to be - they'd have already evacuated themselves. I've got 2 grand in the bank, which isn't a whole lot when it comes to living in a hotel (and a pet-friendly hotel at that), although in an emergency situation like that I imagine money from the mother unit would be forthcoming.

My employer is a nation-wide organization, and their operatin in Austin is essential to national operations, so if we all had to leave Austin they'd probably set up somewhere else as well. But given the geography involved, it's hard to imagine a scenario that would require widespread, long-term evacuation.