It's -3 In Houston....

Minus 3 celsius that is.   That's 26 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale.

Every few years Houston actually experiences winter weather with snow, ice, freezing rain and below freezing temps.   After we had a warmer than normal winter of 2016-17, I just had a feeling we were going to get some serious cold weather in H-town this year

The temperature was 52 degrees (11 C) at midnight but as the arctic blast settled over the Houston area, the temperature quickly plunged to 29 degrees (-2 C) by 4 AM CST as the light rain, sleet and snow wintry mix moved in early Tuesday morning.

The wintry mix compained with the steady temperature drop coated roads, freeways, bridges and overpasses with a layer of ice at over 100 spots across the Houston area that snarled and backed up traffic on I-10 in Chambers County for the folks trying to go westbound.

I-69 in Fort Bend County where it crosses the Brazos River was also closed   There were over 300 accidents in a 9 hour period despite lighter H-town traffic as people heeded Mayor Turner's call to stay off the roads  Over 900 flights were canceled at IAH and Hobby airports.

While the rest of y'all around the country may be laughing about us being shut down because of the icy weather, we've already lost two lives so far because of this arctic blast.  A homeless person died on Houston's southeast side behind a dumpster due to hypothermia along with one fatal car accident in Montgomery County. 

And the arctic air and hard freeze is going to stick around for the next fourteen hours along with a wind chill in the single digits ..

'The Icepocalypse' as they're calling it forced METRO to shut down transit operations at 5:30 PM because of the increasingly dangerous traffic conditions.   Government offices and business including The Galleria mall shut down at 3 PM.   HISD and other area school districts were closed today and already announced they would do so tomorrow along with UH and some area colleges.

And as long as I have heat and power, I'm good.

A Houston Harvey Mass Evacuation Would Have Been A Disaster

Been hearing chatter critical of the decision that Mayor Sylvester Turner, Harris County Judge Ed Emmett and other Houston and Harris County leaders made to not call for an evacuation of Houston with Hurricane Harvey's Category 4 storm self bearing down on the Texas coast.

There are two major reasons why they probably called for Houstonians to shelter in place.

The first is speed in the storm development.

Harvey went from being a disorganized tropical depression on the verge of dissipating as it crossed the Yucatan Peninsula to a Cat 4 hurricane in two days after it reached the Bay of Campeche. .

This storm caught everyone, myself included by surprise in terms of how fast it developed, and there simply wasn't enough time to plan an evacuation.

Reason number two was everyone remembers what happened during the 2005 evacuation of Houston as a then Category 5 Hurricane Rita was bearing down on the Houston area and people tried to get out of its way mere weeks after Katrina devastated the New Orleans area and Mississippi Gulf coast.

That evacuation caused the worst traffic jam in Houston history and resulted in 100+ deaths

And that was in 95+ degree heat.   That traffic jam was so bad it took my family, who was trying to reach our relatives in Dallas, 13 hours just to get to Huntsville, TX a mere 100 miles away.  When they reached Huntsville they basically gave up, exited I-45  and successfully found a hotel room there to wait out the storm.  Rita eventually veered away from the Houston-Galveston area, weakened to a Category 3 hurricane before making landfall near the Texas-Louisiana border.

I still hear horror stories today about what a disaster it was and how long it took people to get to San Antonio, Austin or Dallas. .

Houston is now in 2017 way larger than it was in 2005, with over 6 million people living in our metro area.   The city of Houston itself is 627 square miles, which makes it larger than New York and Los Angeles in area

So to expect a smooth evacuation with a Cat 4 hurricane bearing down on the city that was projected to drop 25 to 30 inches of rain on the area was about as likely as Dolt 45 being accepted into Mensa.

Based on the flooding those same evacuation roads and freeways are currently experiencing, there would have been people who probably would have drowned in their cars because of that fast rising water that is nine to ten feet deep in some spots.

And it's why when this is over, the decision to have Houstonians shelter in place may have turned out to be the right call this time.

Is Your LGBT Community Ready For Hurricane Season 2015?

Today is also the start of the 2015 Atlantic hurricane season.   Those of us living along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the US will be nervously casting our eyes toward the Atlantic from now until November toward the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico watching for storms to develop into potential hurricanes that could threaten our areas.

We have already had one named storm, Ana make landfall in the US in a year that is being forecast because of El Nino to be a below normal one for storms.

But those of us in Houston can't forget that in 1983, a year in which there were only four hurricanes, a Category 3 one whacked us named Alicia.

In case you're wondering, the rest of the 2015 storm names are Bill, Claudette, Danny, Erika, Fred, Grace, Henri, Ida, Joaquin, Kate, Larry, Mindy, Nicholas, Odette, Peter, Rose, Sam, Teresa, Victor and Wanda.

While many of us know the drill concerning having hurricane prep packs, emergency supplies, and evacuation routes out of our coastal cities and towns that don't involve traveling on interstate highways,  as Hurricane Katrina taught us in 2006, we LGBT people also have to sadly consider homophobia and transphobia when hurricane season approaches and those hurricane preparedness drills happen..

We had the disgusting situation in the Houston area of reports of LGBT evacuees in the wake of Hurricane Katrina being harassed at shelters in the local suburbs.  One trans feminine evacuee unfortunately spent a few days in jail for simply taking a shower in the area matching her gender presentation at a shelter on the Texas A&M campus.

So ever since that incident, the Houston LGBT community has put together lists of people and allies who would be willing to put up BTLG evacuees in their homes in the wake of a hurricane or other natural disaster, and it's probably something that coastal communities with sizable LGBT populations should be doing in their areas.

So is your local TBLG community hurricane ready?   Now is the time to get prepared to do so if you aren't.

Houston Freeze Part 2

Me and the Creating Change Houston Host committee were breathing a sigh of relief during our Volunteer Training Day Sunday when last Thursday's unexpected Arctic blast dipped all the way to Houston.  It coated many of the local freeways and roads with a layer of ice, gave us sleet and snow in the northern exurbs, snarled traffic with multiple accidents and canceled flights into and out of IAH and Hobby until the temns rapidly warmed up during the weekend.

We are in for a replay of that scenario this week, and figures it would be the week we're hosting  Creating Change for the first time.  We're going to be in the 70s by this weekend, so weather is going to be fine for Creating Change weekend itself.  

It's just before we get those temps in the 70's on Friday and Saturday for all you Creating Change attendees heading south to visit us we're going to have to suffer with another Arctic blast on Tuesday and Wednesday in which the high temperature for today will be just 42 degrees. 

We're facing a Winter Storm Warning because of possible sleet and snow.

Arrgh, just what I didn't want to hear because I still have a few errands to run before y'all get here.  

City and government offices are closed, as are many of the schools for today.   METRO's cut back their schedule, closed the HOV/HOT lanes and drivers are being advised to stay off the roads unless absolutely necessary. 

Flights are already being cancelled into IAH and Hobby, so check your airline before you head to the airport. 

But once this stuff gets through here, we'll be in rapid warmup mode with the Wednesday high temperature predicted to be 45 degrees and 59 for the high temp on Thursday.

Safe travels and see y'all this weekend.

Countdown to the local right wingers blaming Creating Change for the deep freeze in 5...4...3...2...1...

TransGriot Update:  Winter Storm Warning for H-town was cancelled at 4:15 AM and has now been downgraded to a Winter Storm Advisory.   Still going to be cold by Houston standards for Tuesday and Wednesday

2012 Hurricane Season Starts Today

June 1 is also the day that we Gulf Coast residents start paying close attention to our local weathercasters when their weather discussions turn to the topics of tropical thunderstorms or tropical waves forming up off the West African coast or in the Caribbean.   

It's the start of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season which lasts until November 30.  We have already had two named storms in Alberto and Beryl, of which Beryl made landfall during Memorial Day weekend along the North Florida-Georgia coastline. .  

Speaking of hurricane names, here they are for the 2012 season.

Alberto, Beryl, Chris, Debby, Ernesto, Florence, Gordon, Helene, Isaac, Joyce, Kirk, Leslie, Michael, Nadine, Oscar, Patty, Rafael, Sandy, Tony, Valerie, William.

Note the hurricane name list has no Q, X, Y, U or Z names on it.   If we have a year like 2005 in which we have a bunch of named storms that exhausts the list, they resort to the Greek alphabet to name them. 

If you're wondering why I'm talking about hurricanes on a trans blog, it's because I've lived on the Gulf Coast for the majority of my life and frankly because the trans issue comes up even in ways you don't traditionally associate it with like a hurricane evacuation. 

We Houston area transpeeps had that lesson reinforced in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the evacuations from the city of New Orleans it triggered.

New Orleans is a mecca for transpeople, so logically some of the thousands of people evacuated from the city in the wake of the storm were trans. 

We also heard some disturbing stories of trans and GLB evacuees who were housed in suburban and exurban evacuation centers that didn't get the hospitality we Texans are world renowned for and were mistreated by transphobic and homophobic shelter workers.  

It's also a heightened concern of mine about how TBLG hurricane evacuees are treated because Sharli'e Dominique, one of those New Orleans trans evacuees who got grossly mistreated in 2005 shared my ethnic background.

Since some of us don't have contact with our families or are estranged from them, we transpeeps may not have places to evacuate to when the call goes out to leave an area threated by an approaching Category 2, Cat 3, Cat 4 or Cat 5 hurricane.

It's why the TFA here in Houston collects a list of names so that if that situation occurs again and we're not in the bullseye of one like we were with Rita or Ike, we know who the TBLG peeps in the Houston metro area who have indicated their willingness to host a trans or GLB evacuee.

So yes, from now until November 30 we'll be gathering supplies for our hurricane emergency kits at our local stores while casting nervous eyes out at the Gulf and satellite photos of circulating storms off the West African coast, in the mid Atlantic or the Caribbean..

Moni's Dry In H-town- For Now

We had a drought for most of 2011 and it seems like we're trying to catch up with all the rain we didn't get last year early in the second week of 2012

Had a strong line of storms push through the Houston area early this morning and drop some serious rain in parts of town, my side included.

It has caused some flash flooding in the usual spots around town plagued by it. We're bracing for another line of rain to come through the area while hoping the initial rainfall we received has a chance to drain off via the flooded bayous and get out of the area before the next wave hits..

For now I'm dry and obviously have power although my street is flooded and flood water is halfway up the driveway.

Will keep y'all posted

Hurricane Katrina 6th Anniversary

Today is the day that Hurricane Katrina made landfall in the New Orleans area in 2005.  The Category 4 hurricane submerged 80% of the city with a 20 foot storm surge, killed 1836 people and triggered the events post landfall that have had profound effects on the city of New Orleans, the region, its politics and even affected American history and culture with shows like Treme.  

Hurricane Katrina triggered the largest relocation of African Americans since the Great Migration with Atlanta, Houston and Dallas becoming the biggest beneficiaries of the permanently relocated population.

Its political effects include probably being a factor in the 2006 Democratic congressional midterm landslide, resulted in Texas and Georgia picking up congressional seats and Louisiana losing one in the 2010 reapportionment, delaying Louisiana becoming a majority minority state population wise since most of the people displaced were African American, and as a consequence of losing much of that African descended population, Louisiana becoming more conservative and a reliably red state instead of the swing state it was prior to Katrina's landfall. 

Since I lived in the New Orleans are for two years, I have friends in the area and my godsister still lives on the West Bank with her family, I took it very personally the failures of the Bush misadministration to aid the people of New Orleans in the aftermath of this storm.

Katrina Plus 2

Katrina Third Anniversary


Katrina Plus 4

Hurricane Katrina 5th Anniversary

In addition, the Katrina name was permanently retired by the World Meteorological Association from the Atlantic hurricane naming lists in 2006.

I'm not going to forget the over 1500 people in the New Orleans are who lost their lives to this storm and the others who are still trying to put their lives together years later.

Houston's Record Hot Summer

You conservafools still think global warming is a myth?   Roll on down to the Lone Star State.

Been writing posts about how bad the heat has been this summer, and today in Houston we tied two temperature records. 

It hit 109 degrees F (43 C) which ties the all time high temperature record for the city that was set on September 4, 2000.   With us cracking 100 degrees again (38 C) for the day before the thunderstorms popped up and cooled things down to the 90's in the IAH area, as I type this we tied a mark that has stood since 1980 for the most consecutive 100 degree temperature days at 14.   

In H-town we've had 14 days of 100 degree temperatures in August for the first time since the summer of 1993, and 25 days in this summer season of 100 degree temperature days.   Those records are definitely in danger of falling because the forecast for this week calls for more hot, dry weather with over half the month of August still left. 

In case you're wondering where this summer ranks with past Houston ones, this is now the second hottest on record since the summer of 1980 in which we recorded 32 days with 100 degree temps or higher.  

I remember it all too well because my car at the time had a black paint job with burgundy roof    Even though I had combo leather and upholstered seats, in order to keep from getting burned I had to cover them with beach towels.  


As long as they keep making Blue Bell and the air conditioner is working, I'll be alright.