BiL in Houston Went Back To Work Yesterday

[ProfessorGAC]

He and his wife live in a high rise (14th floor i think) so they were never in danger of being washed out of their building, although getting out the building was a problem, because the elevators were shut down for safety, and the streets were pretty bad where they are.

But, at least in their part of town, the water receded from the streets and he can get back and forth to where he works. (Only 5 or 10 minutes away.)

What he told my wife was that the city has been telling folks like him that if they can safely go back to work, to do it because getting things slowly back to normal can help city morale. So, even though there won't be much business he went back anyway.

He and his two daughters took some canoes in to be used by people trying to evacuate pets and possessions in the areas where there is still a couple feet of water in the house, and his wife went west to a big supermarket and bought a bunch of canned goods and then turned them in to the shelters.

So, at least part of Houston is getting back to closer to normal

[Cracklin Charlie]

1. A good friend in West Houston reported seeing the sun yesterday

A sight for sore eyes.

[ProfessorGAC]

3. I'll Bet

BiL said the same. The mere fact that it wasn't raining was practically cause for celebration.

[Igel]

2. The normalcy will spread.

There'll be parts affected for years, but they'll fit in as "normal" after maybe 6 months.

I'll be curious to see what they do with the "neighbors" or "guests" at the smaller shelters (that's how the local authorities are referring to the evacuees). Or the larger mass evacuation sites, for that matter.

Better for the people at smaller sites closer to home, but that'll be disruptive to all kinds of places. How do you hold class in a high school with 200 people using the gym/locker room facilities for 2 months?

The Katrina model is to ID empty apartment buildings and, if necessary, subsidize the "guests". No intuition as to what apartment vacancy rates are like (as of now, not as of last Wednesday) or how vacancy distribution maps to flooded areas.