Hurricane Chaos

Loida Casares Ruiz

Wife, Mother, Writer, Advertising Manager

Loida Casares Ruiz grew up in Northeast Houston. She graduated from the University of Houston with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Minor in English. She received a Master of Arts in Communication in 2001. She works in advertising by day and is a mother, wife, and writer by night. She has al...

Loida Casares Ruiz

Thursday, September, 18, 2008

The hurricane has caused all kinds of chaos. Many businesses were out of power and weren’t open the Saturday after the hurricane. Even on Sunday we had to drive around to find a grocery store open. We finally found a grocery store open at 7:30 and it was going to close at 8 p.m. We had 30 minutes to buy more food. There was no bread at all, but since we had power back we were able to buy a lot of things that needed to be refrigerated that a lot of people weren’t buying. For example they had a lot of milk.

Gas is another story. I had a full tank, but we drove out on Sunday and I started back at work on Monday so I started using some of it up. The lines at the gas stations were ridiculous this weekend, but today they were just a little better. Yesterday I had to fuel up and I only stood in line for 20 minutes because I went to a gas station my husband found where the lines move quickly.

I realize how fortunate we have been. Our power was back up after only a few hours because we live so close to downtown. Yet another reason to live inside the city. The power alone was wonderful and so was the fact that we didn’t have any major damage, of course. All of these were huge blessings and reasons to be thankful.

Galveston residents were allowed to go see and leave but now the mayor realized that it wasn’t possible to do this. All residents are being told they won’t be able to return for at least two weeks.

Take a look at these photos and tell me if that doesn’t help put things into perspective. We should all take a moment to be grateful for the things we have in our lives.