Location Location Location That is what it is all about when it comes to hurricanes. Hurricane Harvey is expected to make land fall just north of Corpus Christi. That is 200 miles from here. They will get areas of hurricane force winds and we won't have anything out of the ordinary. Wind is one thing, but rain is another. Tropical storms and hurricanes bring a lot of rainfall. The hurricane is forecasted to linger on the Texas gulf coast for the better part of a week which could turn into quite a rain event. So far there has been only about one inch of rainfall at our house. We will see what the future brings.

One thing has changed greatly since we moved here in 1980. The internet has come along and with it a wealth of information at your fingertips. The first hurricane we were concerned about was Allen which actually hit the coast just about where Harvey did. That was in August of 1980. We had been in our house only two months. One of the handy things to have was a hurricane tracking chart where you would plot the coordinates of the storm when they were issued by the National Weather Service. I remember those charts pinned to the bulletin board at work being faithfully updated every time new information became available.

Today is a different story. The photo for today is a radar image of Harvey just off the Texas coast. You can see exactly where it is and the looping motion shows a history of movement. For us, we keep an eye on the rain bands coming off the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the hurricane's counterclockwise rotation. Our house is right below the last "a" in Pasadena. So we have real time information as well as the forecast track provided by the National Hurricane Center. You have all the data available right there in front of you and you can make your own decisions.

Making your own decision is important. You don't want some politician making them for you. Most residents know what it is going to be like where they live. I know what it is going to be like where I live, and there is no way in heck that I am going to hit the road to evacuate with 4 million other close friends on the road. If, however, you live in a low lying place, a place exposed to the wind or a place that can be cut off by rising water, you should probably get the heck out of Dodge. My friend Dave who lives in Corpus Christi left days before the storm and got safely and easily to Dallas. Just remember that you are always smarter than a politician, especially a politician that doesn't live where you do.