In Texas...
Hello all,
We got word this morning (Thursday morning actually) that 3 fans were stuck in Rita's way. These are guys who were blasted out of New Orleans, and escaped to Houston. Aiee. Anyway, we got a couple of plans together to get them out. Luckily they were able to find shelter to wait it out.
Paul Fisher is with me as comms & nav, and I've brought my rescue gear, roof & rear cargo pods, light bars and strobes & gas cans & supplies. And Paul is a champ! He'll be making sure I, errh, eat, and sleep, and stuff. If I let him. *hee* We may be able to do a relay to pull them out after Rita passes---and I have an EMS contact near them as well. Not known right now if we'll get called in to help with the mess that Rita will leave, but we are on a to-call list from EMS down there.
Being Oklahoman, I can't help but feel parallels between the Dust Bowl and this massive evacuation---homeless, jobless refugees spreading in all directions.
So... The Show Must Go On. We've got fans who've paid good money to be at FenCon and we're doing a Salvation Army benefit here. I've brought 4 framed 24 x 36 prints---cost about 60 bucks each just to print---and they'll be going into the charaity auction along with the manuscript for the new Valdemar short story "Transmutation," and jewelry made by Mercedes Lackey. So, I'll be doing my Art GoH thing as expected---but everyone knows this is with the caveat that I may be swooping out of here at any time, if a Help! call comes in.
You all be strong for each other, and I say again, any "little" thing you have for your fellow fans isn't so little. I've been sending out boxes all week long of DVD TV show copies, old issues of Asimov's and F&SF, comics, music demos, anything that I find out they like. A surprising number of fans have laptop computers with them. TiVo + DVD recorder = entertainment for people stuck and bored. And believe me, boredom has been a terrible thing for a lot of people... without their kinds of entertainment, they dwell on what has been lost and the despair is just awful. Just as a suggestion, especially if you're in small towns with those neat little dusty places, you may want to skim the thrift stores and used book stores for every old fantasy and scifi paperback you can nab. Mercedes and I are trimming our own libraries by around a third to send fans books.
Time to get some sleep...
Be good to yourselves my friends!
Larry
We got word this morning (Thursday morning actually) that 3 fans were stuck in Rita's way. These are guys who were blasted out of New Orleans, and escaped to Houston. Aiee. Anyway, we got a couple of plans together to get them out. Luckily they were able to find shelter to wait it out.
Paul Fisher is with me as comms & nav, and I've brought my rescue gear, roof & rear cargo pods, light bars and strobes & gas cans & supplies. And Paul is a champ! He'll be making sure I, errh, eat, and sleep, and stuff. If I let him. *hee* We may be able to do a relay to pull them out after Rita passes---and I have an EMS contact near them as well. Not known right now if we'll get called in to help with the mess that Rita will leave, but we are on a to-call list from EMS down there.
Being Oklahoman, I can't help but feel parallels between the Dust Bowl and this massive evacuation---homeless, jobless refugees spreading in all directions.
So... The Show Must Go On. We've got fans who've paid good money to be at FenCon and we're doing a Salvation Army benefit here. I've brought 4 framed 24 x 36 prints---cost about 60 bucks each just to print---and they'll be going into the charaity auction along with the manuscript for the new Valdemar short story "Transmutation," and jewelry made by Mercedes Lackey. So, I'll be doing my Art GoH thing as expected---but everyone knows this is with the caveat that I may be swooping out of here at any time, if a Help! call comes in.
You all be strong for each other, and I say again, any "little" thing you have for your fellow fans isn't so little. I've been sending out boxes all week long of DVD TV show copies, old issues of Asimov's and F&SF, comics, music demos, anything that I find out they like. A surprising number of fans have laptop computers with them. TiVo + DVD recorder = entertainment for people stuck and bored. And believe me, boredom has been a terrible thing for a lot of people... without their kinds of entertainment, they dwell on what has been lost and the despair is just awful. Just as a suggestion, especially if you're in small towns with those neat little dusty places, you may want to skim the thrift stores and used book stores for every old fantasy and scifi paperback you can nab. Mercedes and I are trimming our own libraries by around a third to send fans books.
Time to get some sleep...
Be good to yourselves my friends!
Larry
posted by Gryphon King at 4:48 AM
1 Comments:
Be prepared for the next national hurricane center or find another one that's similar. As the Boy Scouts say: "Be Prepared"!
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