Good Intentions

It seems that Hurricane Ike totally knocked Houston and the surrounding areas on their asses. My heart definitely goes out to Galveston and Bolivar Peninsula residents. That area is so trashed; it’s tragic.

Of course, I was trapped in a suburb of Houston all weekend at my parents’ house, which has had no power since early Saturday morning. You don’t know how reliant you are on power until you don’t have it. My mom’s been ok, but my dad’s going through withdrawal from television. Kind of amusing, really.

My apartment in Houston, however, has seen better days. Currently, the entire ceiling in the living room has been completely gutted by repairmen because of the extensive water damage due to a leaky roof. A good number of shingles blew off all the rooves in the complex, which goes to show that shoddy roofsmanship just causes more problems later on. Luckily, the management here has been on the ball and began repairing apartments immediately.

That doesn’t change the fact that my living room is covered in disgusting and somehow depressingly gray insulation with giant patches carved out of the ceiling.

And now that brings me to school. I’m so disappointed with UH. They gave us all of one day for any kind of recovery before they swung open their dilapidated doors to “welcome” its students back into its jacked-up bosom. Thanks, UH, for opening campus when:

• The signal lights around campus are mostly not working, thus causing huge problems for both pedestrians–or the moving targets–and cars. This also brings up the issue that no one in Houston seems to know how to react to a broken signal, so they kind of slow to a stop and then gun it through the intersection. Great.
• There are a huge number of downed trees on campus, with some merely falling over, others being sliced vertically or horizontally in half by Ike, and still others being twisted and gnarled and uprooted. Not really anyone has begun cleaning up campus, and it’s now been open for four days.
• There have been few amenities on campus outside of opening the rec center for showers. This kind of obscures the issue of many students not having power, water, and perhaps even gas since that as well is now becoming scarce. Soon there will be some opportunity cost equations going on amongst the students: Do I use the remaining gas in my car to go to school, or to buy food? I think you know the answer.

Anyway, I don’t think UH has handled this well. Many school districts have canceled class until next Monday. This does bring up the inevitable “Will we have to extend the semester?” hand-wringing, but I don’t mind if we DID do that. I would rather be able to sort my life out some after a major hurricane than be anxiously shoved back into class with a “Oh, it’s kinda optional” caveat thrown in. Because, let’s face it, if the law school profs are teaching, I need to be there. That’s just how it goes. The Dean of the UHLC should have canceled class on his own accord. I’m sure he has that power.

Ahem. That was my diversion from reading CivPro, so back I go into that. Have a good night.

Well, I’ve escaped back to the ‘burbs outside of Houston, for now. We’ll see what Ike can dish out. I’d make an Ike Turner reference, but really, I think that’s been played out.

(And also, I already have an away message referencing it.)

I might take some pictures later during the storm (or whatever it decides to be) and post them here. Stay tuned.