Re: Update: Rita
Kaleem, Where are you? Update us. Best of luck, you are in our prayers.
Re: Update: Rita
I am fine Alhamdolillah. The power was out for sometime and my wife and girls came back home in the late afternoon...so I have been busy :). I feel so fortunate that Sugar land and surrounding westeren part of houston was spared by the wrath of Rita...at the same time my heart goes out to the folks in the north eastern parts of texas and folks in Louisiana specially Cameron, louisiana. I am hoping that Allah kept all of them safe and there was minimal loss of life.
I appreciate everyone remembering me and others in their prayers. Allah will InshAllah reward you for your efforts.
Thank you,
Kaleem
Re: Update: Rita
Ahh Kaleem! So good to hear that...God is Great!
Re: Update: Rita
I am so happy to hear this.
But Kaleem, don’t leave ur family next time( i hope such situation won’t occur again), its still better to be together, even if u have to sleep in car or in open. Coz if one is alone its a double effort to deal with the circumstances as well as worrying about the loved ones.
Re: Update: Rita
Sugar Land....sounds like something from a fairy tale where gnomes and fairies walk around wearing pink fluffy dresses and everyone has saccerine smiles
Anyway All is well in Sugar Land!:)
Re: Update: Rita
Good to hear you escaped the wrath of Aunty Rita.
Kaleem, its time you move out of your haveli in the gunnay day kheit and come to the sunny California 
Re: Update: Rita
I left Sugar Land at 5:30 a.m. on Thursday and reached Plano on Friday at 3:30 p.m....yep, that's 34 hours!!!! And i was driving the whole time basically non-stop bumper-to-bumper except for a few hours...It was horrible, ppl were running out of gas, their cars were overheating...we cudn't even use air condtioning cos our cars were on for so long that they wud start to overheat if we used air conditioning...there were no restaurants open, no places to use toliets, no water or food and no gas!! I mean i don't remember but it took maybe around 20 hrs just to get outside of Houston....unbelivable...ppl were sleeping on the grass in btwn the freeway and feeder road...i took I-45 straight to Dallas and then I-75....when we finally did get on the contra free lanes thingy then it was a lot better, at least we were moving but OMG, before that we were like moving at like 1 mile in an hour barely...well thank God, Houston was spared but sad to hear wot happened to Louisana again...I'll be heading back to Houston tomorrow morning...Hope everyone was safe...
Re: Update: Rita
Kashmiri, we saw people on the road on TVs but only those people (like yourself) know how horrible it really was to be in that situation.
Re: Update: Rita
good to know you and your family are safe Kaleem.. well actually Sugar Land was much safer even before the storm took a turn..
I'm in the Clear Lake area and we were 'mandatory evacuated'.. i hate to leave.. but can't stay there without natural gas and the scare of 'authorities' turning off water and power just cuz they told u to leave..
anyway .. went up north a bit Wednesday night.. a trip that usually takes 45 minutes took 4 hours!! but then Thursday night TV started talking about the storm not moving north enough and coming straight at Galveston bay and then talks of it 'stalling'.. so to avoid being trapped in a flood situation packed again and off to San Antonio TX.. a nightmare not so bad compared to others.. made it in 8 hours..
Returned Saturday ignoring the administration's 'plan' .. i've come to realize Government was actually a hinderance in all of this.. all they needed to do was to arrange for gas to be available at pumps closer to 'safe' destinations.. like 100 miles from Dallas/San Antonio/Austin and people would have evacuated like they did. .only less miserable..
Re: Update: Rita
I also went to San Antonio and stayed at a friend's house. Took us 10 hours to drive to SA which normally takes about 3. We were coming back on Saturday but then friend really insisted that we stay and government is not letting residents back in but people still got back in regardless. They announced on TV that residents shouldn't hurry up and shouldn't come back on Sunday either, we ignored and came back to Houston on Sunday.
Re: Update: Rita
what I don't get is in the pictures of the evacuations, the highways were cluttered with cars at a standstill on one side but the otherside of the highway was wide open. Why couldn't they just open that side to out of houston traffic.
Re: Update: Rita
Even more perplexing than that PD is why is this thread still a sticky? Yea that's right, I've got nothing better to do than monitor the mods, stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
Re: Update: Rita
LOL... you should open up a thred in feedback and ask for Kaleem to be banned.
Re: Update: Rita
Well got back home safely...It was much, much better on the way back! Still, took us 8 hours including breaks but a lot better than the 34 hours on the way there...
**Captain1 **Yeah it was unforgettable...but i guess they did all they cud to evacuate us apart from the gas shortage...it was terrible, physically, ur exhausted and the heat was unbearable with no air conditioning...mentally, ur worried about the gas tank and ur house back home and if ur ever gona get out of traffic...but thank God when we returned everything was fine...
Pinstripe Danda They opened the other side of I-45 later on by the 1488 exit...which seemed like forever to get to...they shud have done it earlier but i guess they were in the process, or maybe they didn't expect that many Houstonians to listen to their warnings...
I feel sorry for the ppl who are still stranded bcos their cars broke down and they were later towed away and for those who were in accidents...did u guys hear about the bus that was carrying some old folks up to Dallas and the bus went on fire cos of brake malfunctioning i think? So sad, i think about 20 ppl died unfortunately...