Hurricanes are a strange and fickle weather phenomenon. Yes, most downgrade before landfall because of the shallow waters near shore. However, some hit with full force like Andrew and Camile. If the cat 5 Rita had hit the Texas coast with full intensity, well, think nuclear blast. That storm broke records in the central Gulf. One of the lowest barometric measures ever.
Latest computer models and forecast have Don coming across just north of Brownsville. Likely means little to no rain for our area.
Yeah, well, none of the spaghetti models earlier had an 80° left turn in them. You never know what's gonna happen.
Dang, looks like Austin will be shut out again...ridiculous....why do storms turn north around Houston, but South around Corpus....FRACK ! DD
Sooooo, again I'm in Corpus on vacation. Was supposed to be here until check out at noon Sat. I'm debating whether I should book it out of here today or just stick it through. Any suggestions/opinions? Mind you, we came here in my Tacoma with all the luggage in the bed covered by a tarp. I see the rain right now is forecasted to really start late this afternoon but starts to really die down by the time we were supposed to leave tomorrow. So, get out of here before it all starts or do what we can for fun, stick out the storm at the hotel and then fight some rain tomorrow? Thoughts?
Hurricane Rita lesson: GTFO early to beat the crowd. Considering the drought, I would be happy to hang out in the rain right now. Go, blue, go!
Yup, I got a nice sized generator and 6 five gallon gas cans(plus we fill all three vehicles with gas prior that we can tap if needed) and a portable ac unit. Use blankets to close off the rest of the house, put the ac in the living room and there ya go. I live in a solid old brick house in a non-flood-prone area, so Im sticking around for anything under a 4. I hope we at least get some tropical moisture from this, doesnt look like we are getting anything else out of it.
How much gas do you have overall, wouldn't that be about 7 hours of generator running time? And getting gas with electricity out would be difficult. My brother has a setup in Baytown, and he had power during the last outage, but he had to find gas stations to refill his generator..... DD
During Ike, we never ran out of gas. Between the three vehicles they hold ~40 gallons + the 30 gallons in the gascans. The generator runs ~10-12 hours on a full tank(iirc it holds about 3 gallons) It has enough juice to run the ac, one of the refrigerators, a lamp and the tv. They had the power back on within 3 or 4 days.
I love it, how hard was it to hook up the generator to the grid, did you do it, or did you need an electrician to set it up? Also, do you keep the generator outside, or do you move it into place when needed? Thanks, I am thinking of getting one, any knowledge would be helpful. DD
Not *that* kind of a generator. I wish I could afford a whole house generator. Its portable, I dont remember the exact specs as far as wattage, but I know what it ran comfortably after Ike.(described above) I keep it in storage till I know a storm is headed this way, then pull it out and set it up on the deck just outside the back door. It came with a nice heavy duty 25' octopus extension(multiple plugins built into one cord) that is then run into the house. iirc, the generator was right around 500 or so, well worth it to me knowing that I was there to keep my property secure and in relative comfort.
That is really smart. I remember during Alicia we had a garage freezer, that was one of those long low ones. My dad used to clean out the milk jugs and fill them with tap water, and put them in the freezer, it made the freezer more efficent, we had about 40 of them in there with the meet etc. When we lost power, we just pulled 2 jugs out and put them in the fridge, and we never had any spoiled food, and we melted a few of them for drinking water while that was out. A really smart thing to do, now I have some in my garage freezer....my dad gets smarter every single day I live. DD
I guess Don decided to pick Corpus Christi for his weekender. It's ok, Houston. Next time! Btw, it was raining a bit earlier.
