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Meanwhile, back at the ranch … Thursday

By S.K. Bardwell
Posted Thursday, September 11, 2008

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Genaro Rodriguez boards up a window on his home on Southhampton just before noon, as he prepares to evacuate to Austin, where he has relatives.

The Weekly Journal will update this page with what’s happening in Angleton, as long as is possible. Those of you who left can check here to see how it’s going back home—until we lose power.

Those of you who are staying, send us a note to let us know what’s going on in your part of town. Click on my name at the top of this story to send me an e-mail.

There are more people left here than during the big Rita evacuation in 2005, when the town was basically emptied. Some are probably staying put because of the disastrous Rita evacuation, but reports so far are that traffic, while slow and tedious through and out of Houston, isn’t nearly as hideous as during the Rita mess.

Charlie Thompson stops by the Home Town Cafe for a glass of iced tea Thursday morning.

The Home Town Café was open Thursday, and the owners say it will stay open, until they run out of groceries or lose their power. Charlie Thompson, one of the Home Town regulars, was there Thursday, and said he isn’t planning to leave, either.

So we have some company this time around — it actually got a little lonely here during Rita, although we did enjoy the quiet.

Jason Perez (right) with the Angleton Area Emergency Medical Corp, talks with Angleton Emergency Coordinator Lt. Mike Jones, during a conference call with state officials about 10:30. Perez points to a spot on a video screen where a map was showing a possible landfall north of Sargent.

The City of Angleton issued a dusk to dawn curfew effective tonight, and says those of you who left will be allowed to re-enter after damage assessments are completed and services restored to a level to support general public needs.

The city is anticipating power outages, downed trees and possible loss of water and wastewater services, in addition to widespread flooding. The city website, http://www.angleton.tx.us/, is how you’ll know when it’s safe to return.

If you’ve been worrying about your mail piling up while you’re away, don’t. Mail service to ZIP codes in areas under mandatory evacuation orders has been suspended for the duration of the evacuations. That means I’m not getting any more movies from Netflix for a while — but it means no bills for a while, too.

Every silver lining has a cloud.

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