Rita

Shayla has spent 29 years of her life in a semi-arid desert region. Not much in the way of extreme weather there, really. Throughout the year the temperatures range from 111 degrees in the summers, to -20 in the winter. There's the occasional thunderstorm, and even more rarely, a dust-storm. It's the dust-storms that are the worst, a bad one will lower visibility to 1/4 of a mile. There have been more than one pile-up on the local free-way due to the dust-storms.

But none of that warrants anything in the way of preparation, caution, or planning. They come, they linger for a while, never more than a few hours, and then they're gone. Rita's approach to this area last week was both a shock and a learning experience. Mostly because of the human facet.

At first it wasn't very bad, just people purchasing more in the way of water, bread, and gas. Understandable enough, given the likelihood of loss of power and water service. And people were evacuating in plenty of time to avoid the brunt of the storm. But as each day passed it seemed as though the momentum gathered right along with Rita's wind-speeds. The free-way went from congested to a parking lot. So many vehicles on the road that they created bottle-necks and traffic was stopped for miles. Nothing could get through. Not tankers, delivery trucks, not a thing. And it was causing all sorts of problems with the people who were trying to evade the hurricane. Cars running out of gas and/or over-heating in the heat seemed to be the biggest issues. Another problem was the people, running out of drinking water, food for their children while they were stuck in traffic.

But shayla didn't see any of that first-hand. For her, it was the grocery store, the convenience store across the street that brought home things to her. Shelves stripped, people almost frantically gathering things up. The convenience store was stripped of all milk products, anything that closely resembled bread was gone, water and ice were both completely out 3 days before the hurricane made land-fall, the gas, 2 days.

One of the things that shayla's always loved about this area is the calmness of the people, the lack of agitation and nerviness. But the past week, it's been a completely different matter. People became harried, edgy, snappish, frantic. One girl that worked in the convenience store actually had someone accuse her of price-gouging. Which wasn't the case at all.

Shayla's always maintained that people were herd animals, and this by far proves her theory. It was as if the end of the world as coming. One can certainly understand preparing for a hurricane, being nervous about it. But such everyone being so frantic, shayla's never seen anything like it. It wasn't the hurricane's approach that shayla was edgy about, it was the people, how they were acting and behaving. She'd just as soon have a dust-storm instead. Quicker, less damage, with fewer long-lasting effects.

shayla