Blogs of War

I was just outside briefly and the streets are empty. Normally this area is full of drunk yuppies and a sprinkling of crackheads but tonight the ratio is heavily weighted in favor of crackheads. It feels like 28 Days Later. I spotted a guy riding a bike and carrying another coming out of an area filled with $300,000.00 condos and suspected that he was stealing the bikes. I guess HPD did as well because they swooped in on him and took him down.

I don’t know if it’s looting exactly, I see thieves wheeling $1200.00 BBQ grills and bikes out of that area all the time, but the streets don’t feel quite safe near downtown.

We got some pretty good winds in Midtown but it doesn’t look like damage is a problem. Flooding hasn’t been a problem either. I’ve lost satellite but I didn’t lose power.

I still have to walk the block and see if we had any looting issues but everything did seem to calm down after 10pm or so last night. HPD did a pretty good job sending patrol cars through on a very regular basis and I noticed quite a few undercover officers in Chevy Blazers cruising the block too. HPD is reporting 28 burglary calls and 16 arrests which means the rest of the city must have calmed down about the same time that Midtown did. I can only guess but I think that HPD did such a good job responding to the initial calls and keeping up the regualr patrols that potential looters were discouraged.

I have several homes to check on. I also have to put my place back together. There’s also food to donate to the Houston Food Bank (I’d rather not eat Beanie Weenies if I don’t have to) and I won’t be buying bottled water for a while. Houston has more problems to deal with. There’s no gas in the city, no shops open, and millions of people that might be rushing back. If you’re out of town and you can wait a day or two to return please do.

Update:
The homes are fine but there is some minor damage in the downtown area. A few trees are down, one carport was blown over, any sign not mounted in concrete is pretty much toast, lots of limbs around, and a few lines down. The photo above was take on Morse street near River Oaks.

One of my neighbors said that at around 1am he counted 18 HPC cars surrounding the CVS pharmacy nearby and they were sending the dogs in after looters.

Update II 11:44pm CST:
I’m getting quite a few emails from folks in the neighborhood who evacuated. It is safe to come back. The convenience store on Gray is open and Christian’s in the big building is serving up burgers and cold beer starting at noon. However, those are the only places I’ve seen open anywhere. You also have to consider traffic and the lack of gas almost anywhere in southeast Texas. If you would like me to check on a car for you just email a description and location and I’ll see what I can do.

Update III 12:02pm CST:
An email from a neighbor

My fiancee and I are here in her Jetta, and nearly ran out of gas in Luling on Thursday. We lucked out in that the Love’s station in Luling was the *first* place on the way to San Antonio that had gas. After a 2 hour wait in line, we filled up with just 1/2-gallon left in the tank. At that point, we bailed out going to S.A. and visited relations in San Marcos before pressing on last night. Total time to reach San Marcos from Midwtown: 21 hours! And that is with saving nearly several hours by hopping on the HOV and bypassing 1-10 between 610 and the Beltway. We had left at 6am, and talked to one woman who had left Bellaire at 4.30 but was stuck on I-10 in that segment, and wound up even with us.

The normal drive time to San Marcos from downtown houston is around 2.5 hours.

It’s getting worse in downtown. We’re getting some very strong gusts but we’re still not into damaging levels. I’m guessing 50mph maybe a little bit stronger. We’ll probably see stronger winds over the next few hours. Rain is constant but light. Definitely not flood producing at this point.

I think I’ll lose power soon though. My lights just flickered.

Update:
Radar doesn’t look bad for downtown Houston. It might be a pretty easy night. We’ll see.

KHOU is reporting that multiple structures near the strand in Galveston are fully engulfed. Firefighters are on the scene and Rita is applying water as well. The reporter on the scene says the fires are about 2 blocks from the large white skyscraper near the strand.

Update 10:57pm CST:
The Eagle Lodge was the largest structure burning and KHOU is playing some pretty dramatic video showing flames shooting from the building and huge gusts of wind shooting thousands of burning embers into surrounding buildings.

I’m hearing lots of reports of scattered power outages. So far the closest is near George R. Brown convention center which is a couple of miles away from me. I’ll update as long as I have power.

Via HPD on the scanner there are power outages south of Bay Area Blvd. in Clear Lake. Winds are definitely picking up here in Midtown but nothing too scary yet. I think that may change for the worse in a couple of hours.

HPD is patrolling the area pretty heavily. There are still some shady characters on the streets though. I’m hearing quite a few looting calls on the scanner. I’ve heard that the Cadillac Bar and a Jack in the Box near Washington Ave. have had their doors kicked in.

Looting has become my primary concern now that the eye is east of us.

It looks like I will be talking to Michael Graham, of KFYI Phoenix, again tonight at about 9:10 central time. You can listen to an audio stream here.

Well I just found out why the media was in my parking garage. Looters struck last night and trashed 12 cars. We usually have very tight security but the gates were left open by management due to fears of power outages. I need to go check my car now.

Update:
My car is fine but the mood in the area is tense. I ran across two neighbors carrying hunting rifles (or a rifle and a shotgun to be exact) who were actively searching for a guy they suspected of breaking into more cars. They agreed to let me photograph them from the neck down. Hopefully, HPD will send one or more officers to our neighborhood. I think there is risk of additional looting or worse.

Update II:
Quite a few HPD cars in the area now. It’s going to be an interesting night.

Update III:
I’m hearing more looter calls on the HPD scanner frequencies. This doesn’t seem to approach the level that we saw in New Orleans but I’m worried about this evening.

Update IV 6:33pm CST:
Via the police scanner: Looting in progress at South Gessner and Belfort – A Wal-Mart Store.

Update V 6:55pm CST:
The property management finally closed the security gates. I think we can all rest a little easier. The security here is solid as long as it’s in place. I was also told that HPD is working the issue in a pretty creative way but I won’t discuss the specifics. We should be safe here tonight as long as we don’t venture past the gates. There’s some pretty sketchy characters wondering around out there right now though.

Update VI 7:40pm CST:
Winds are picking up and theres light rain now. Some of the gusts are quite strong. I walked over to the convenience store in the building and chatted with some of my neighbors for a while. HPD pulled up and parked on the street in front of the store. That provided some relief. We’re all worried about looters and the store owner plans to spend the night there to ward them off. If we lose power or if the weather isn’t too bad then we’re worried that they’ll have a field day. HPD is doing a pretty good job with patrols. I just worry about them being pulled out for emergencies. I’m tired but I expect I’ll spend a lot of time watching the retail spots on our ground floor.

Update VII 7:55pm CST:
Yeah I’m kicking myself for selling my SA-85M a few months ago. With an SA-85M on your back there’s no such thing as a looter problem.

Update VIII 8:33pm CST:
I was watching the convenience store in our building and there were lots of shady characters scoping it out. I went in to talk to the owner and we both agreed that it was time for him to lock up and leave. He was in a very dangerous position and there are no legitimate customers on the streets anyway. The two of us will be watching the retail section from the safety of our balconies. Unfortunately I went into this storm thinking that Houston would avoid much looting (we have in the past) but I’m pretty pessimistic about what will happen later tonight.

It’s windy out there. The gusts are infrequent but strong enough to whip the trees around and lift the dirt off the streets and parking lots. A couple of banners on neighboring businesses looked like they were about to come down. I took a few extra photos and will try to take more from the safety of my hallway when things kick up a few notches.

I ran up to the roof of the parking garage and found some local media on the fourth level there. I promptly ran in the opposite direction.

City officials are performing the final sweeps of Houston’s freeways to pick up stranded motorists. They’re also calling on everyone to prepare to shelter in place starting immediately and to expect to maintain that shelter for at least 12 hours.

It looks still have a couple of hours until the winds and rain hit the downtown area in force. I’m going to take a final walk around the block and look for items that may still need to be secured. Good luck to my fellow midtown/downtown neighbours and everyone else in the path of this storm.