Downgrade to CATEGORY 3. (for whatever that is worth)

Just heard that by the time Rita reaches us in East Texas she will be a Tropical Storm and we should expect winds between 35-50 mph and 3-6 inches of rain...

Well.. callin it a day.. gonna go and see what Rita has in store for us this weekend.. hopefully it won't be as terrible as we are expecting it to be. Everyone take care.

It looks like tropical storm hitting but what a mess- saw some last night and the flooding again is unbelievable. Also saw them resue an 8 month pregnant woman with her 3 or 4 yr old son- didn't get the whole story- I don't think the newspeople did either- they couldn't figure out why she stayed. Anyhow again it looks awful- bless everyone that this storm is affecting.

My mom has a house in SE TX (woodville)... She hasn't lived there for about a year, but she has some friends that were staying in it. I say were, because the house is no longer good. The big, beautiful, old oak tree fell into it. 100MPH winds are bound do that, I guess. I'm greatful that no one got hurt. Even as bad as it is, and as bad as I feel, it couldn't be as bad as the folks from NO.

We worried all weekend and finally got word that, even with the winds (and a tree looming over the house ready to fall any second) that we've made it through in one piece (pretty much, fence damage from the tree but that's it). How did everyone else do?

Raiderette...I'm sorry to hear about your mom's house. I'm glad though that no one did get hurt in it! Small blessings are about all folks have left in many areas.

We got steady soaking rain.. extremely heavy winds.. lost a few trees on our land.. and a few power surges.. but nothing like we were expecting.. thank God. It is so hot here now.. you would have never guessed that we were sufferin from a tropical storm here in East Texas. And now they are forecasting a cold front.. hhm.. glad to hear everyone is alive and well.

Yeah, well "cold" is a relative term. It will probably drop all the way into the *GASP* 80s!!!!!!! TURN ON THE HEATERS! (The 104 degree temperature yesterday has made me a bit cynical.)

Too funny, Empress! However, I do agree. A cold spot around here is in the mid 70's. It just kills me when these weathermen say a cold front is coming through and it only drops by 5 degrees. Geez, what a crock.

I tried to push our cold front down to you guys but it likes it here and wants to hang around. Come on up, the weather is great.

ok, just qyb! y'all can come up to the upper Midwest and take this weather back with you! It's going down to 36* tomorrow night. By Wednesday morning, all the gardens around here will have sheets and blankets covering the still blooming flowers and the tomato plants!

Maybe we could split the difference. Your 100 minus my 36 will give us all a lovely tolerable 74*!

I could live with that. I'm just thinking we'll be doing Pumpkin Patch pictures in a couple of weeks and how *stupid* are they going to look if the Junebug's still in shorts & a tank, you know????