I almost put this in a Rita thread, but thought it deserved more prominence amidst all the bad news. So, take this for what it's worth.
One of my sisters evacuated Houston yesterday. It took her 14.5 hours to get to Austin, (normally a 2.5 hour dirve). I spent hours on the phone with her doing route finding, traffic searching, etc. One of my friends was doing the same for his brother. We call it "air traffic control." i'm sure there were hundreds of other people doing the same thing for their families.
Anyway, my sister was stuck for hours trying to get through the small town of Bellville, Texas. (This is a crossroads between 290 an I-10--both major evac routes). Magically, as she got close to town in stop and go bumper to bumper traffic, signs appeared outside the homes of local people: "Restrooms Available" "Water," etc.
Bellville folks, who were not evacuating, were having their lives dramatically affected by 10s of thousands of cars passing through their little town. And they were opening up there homes to make strangers' lives a little more comfortable.
This is the same town that had a church that went to inform the people stuck at the Sealy Walmart that they should come to Bellville, there was plenty of gas.
As my sister passed through Bellville, the local cops had stopped all cross traffic and were waving the evacuees through AND WERE WAVING TO PEOPLE as they passed.
Bellville was not the only town like this.
At one point, it looked like my evacuating sister was gonna run out of gas before she got here. I was making plans to drive counter-flow with gas to fill her up and get her out of there. But I didn't have any gas cans, and there weren't any available in Austin. I called my other sister in Glen Rose, Texas. They were out of gas cans in Glen Rose, too. But she lives in the country and country folks have gas cans. She had one. My dad had three. Her neighbors volunteered another seven. Then another neighbor volunteered ten. ALL ALREADY FILLED WITH GAS. My evac sister then broke into the clear and made it to my house late last night--just as my Glen Rose sister called to say a neighbor had just volunteered two 55 drums of gasoline, with pumps to help folks out.
I only have a station wagon, and there's no way I could handle that much gas. I thanked everyone, and turned them down. My evac sister had made it. But I wish I had had a truck big enough to handle all that donated gas, and all that generostiy--I'd been out there pumping gas till it ran dry (and probably found some more, too).
Folks, people everywhere have good hearts. It's not just Texas. You hear the bad shit on TV because that's what makes news. But I've also heard enough good stuff, first hand, in the middle of all this to make me proud to be a human.
Illegitimi non carborundum