Hurricane Rita Diary
My name is Joshua Hutchinson. I am 11 years old. I am in the 6th grade at Stafford MSD, a Boy Scout in
Troop330, and this is my Rita experience diary:
Thursday, September 22,2005 8:00am We leave our house in Stafford, Texas.
Hour 1 9:00am
Going 1/10 of a mile every 10 minutes. I am able to walk faster than the car. I cant believe that I am able to walk on the highway packed with cars. I didnt know that running for our lives could be so much fun. End diary log.
Hour 2 -10:00am
Barely moving, getting news that gas stations are being closed. I hope we move soon. We have the doors open on the van. Dad is concerned about gas. End diary log.
Hour 3 11:00am
We are changing direction instead of going to Austin we are going to Tomball. I hope it is a good decision because the news said that the Hurricane is going to North of Houston. For some reason I am happy and excited even though we are trapped in traffic and running for our lives. End diary log.
Hour 4 12:00 Noon
We have gotten news that the hurricane has changed direction just a few degrees east but it still heading for Galveston which means we are still in danger. We are still on our new course and going faster on this road. I am getting very scared now. End diary log.
Hour 5 1:00pm
I am getting very hungry, a lot of restaurants are closed. We have gotten news that in a few hours we may be able to resume our original course. New news is coming constantly. It is very hot. End diary log.
Hour 6 2:00pm
I am starving and not sign of food. The hurricane is going farther North than expected but we are still evacuating. No news on weather or not we can continue on our old route or not. End diary log.
Hour 7 3:00pm
Finally we have food. Its not much but we have food. We are about 15 miles from our new destination. There is still no news to tell us whether or not we can continue our original route or not. End diary log.
Hour 8 4:00pm
We are now about 7 miles away from our new destination. We have received news that we can resume our original route, but we dont have enough gas. It is slow on some back roads and fast on others. End diary log.
Hour 9 - 5:00pm
Traffic is really bad. We still have a ways to go. We received news that Galveston is on the West side of the storm. I hope we get to our destination soon. End diary log.
Hour 10 6:00pm
We are 2 miles away from our destination. I am getting scared because on the radio they said that the storm will be a bad thing for Dallas, but I think I misunderstood what they said. End diary log.
Hour 11 7:00pm
We have arrived at our destination. I will write back when the storm hits. End diary log.
Saturday, September 24, 2005 - 7:30am
The storm rained on us during our sleep. So, we dont know what happened. The house we are staying at lost it power. We have to listen to the radio for news.
10:30am - Depart Tomball
This morning we packed up to go home. The storm went farther North than expected.
11:22am - Arrive home
We arrived home, nothing has changed since we left. We were so happy that nothing has changed and that we have survived! Dad had our family stand close together in a circle in our living room, and he prayed and thanked God for protecting us and our house. I thanked God too.
Joshua Hutchinson logging off.