Early Preparations

I was in Chicago the day before Katrina. I'm on the phone with friends and family here. My mom, as she put it, was "making some spaghetti and waiting for your dad to get out of the shower" - and didn't evacuate until 6pm that night. They left for Houston (due west) but had to follow the evacuation route north - all the way until they hit Shreveport (near the Arkansas border) before they could head back south again. I gave them highway directions/mileage over the cellular as I looked their current locations up on the internet. 12 hours after they had left Katrina's eye made landfall with the Gulf Coast. They didn't get to Houston until 5 hours after that.