My thanks to Ted Miles and John Bowers for asking about me and my family off-line. We left the Beaumont area Wednesday evening; avoiding the chaos you saw on the news Thursday. We left the Beaumont area at about 8:00 PM, and arrived at a friend's house at 4:00 AM the next morning. Even then, we were part of a long line of cars heading north; it just went much faster than Thursday.As you saw on the news, the eye of Hurricane Rita came ashore just east of Sabine Pass, and went up the Texas-Louisiana border. This was good news for Galveston Island; the storm wall on the Gulf side of the island was not breached; nor did the water level on the Galveston Bay side rise high enough to flood the island. (A strong north wind all Friday night was causing a storm surge on the bay side of island.)I have not recieved any direct news on the Galveston Railroad Museum or the tall ship Elissa; but they are probably fine. You may have seen the spectacular pictures of the fire involving a building and two houses on the Strand. This portion of Galveston's old business district survived the 1900 storm, and is just outside the railroad museum. But, I don't believe the museum was involved in the fire. A wall on another building on the Strand that overlooks one of the parking lots used for "Dickens on the Strand" also fell. But the rest of the island appeared to only have street flooding and wind damage. The Battleship Texas was probably never in any danger.The levees of Port Arthur held; so that town and the area around my home probably had street flooding and flooding in low lying areas of town. The report from the chemical plant I work at is that we lost some roofs and power lines, and the basement of one building is flooded. But, we can probably start back up sometime next week. Hopefully the same is true for the refineries in the area.The girder bridge you see in the CNN video of Port Arthur is the KCS overpass just a short distance from our church. While it was obviously flooded; most of the railroad territory in the area probably made out OK.It was Lake Charles, Louisiana and the parishes south of it that recieved the most flooding and damage. I heard a barge and/or gambling riverboat broke lose and struck the railroad trestle that parallels Interstate 10 across Calcaisu (sp) lake. I don't know what shape the yard in Lake Charles is in; nor the old depot in Orange, Texas.If the reports of no deaths (other than those on the bus) are correct; then this entire area was very fortunate. We will probably bounce back much faster than the Mississippi Gulf Coast will. God smiled on us all when Rita weakened considerably before coming on shore.We still have to keep our eye on the Neches and Sabine Rivers as the runoff from the hurricane moving north tries to drain through the already swollen Sabine Lake and out to the Gulf. But, it looks at this point like we have a lot to thank God for when we go to sleep tonight.My ISP account on PERNet.Net stayed up through the storm; even though the server is north of Beaumont. Survivingworldsteam is down not because of Rita; but because I haven't paid for my DNS yet this year.-James Hefner Hebrews 10:20a Surviving World Steam Project

James,Mighty glad to hear that you and the family made it through this event without a lot of trouble!Having been through several of these events I know how nasty they can be.Please let us know about the museums when you get a chance. There is nothing like an eye whitness.Good Luck,Ted Miles

I too am glad to hear that you and your family made out very well. God was on your side, his angels were looking out for you in all areas. It doses pay to pray.God Bless,Leonard Shaner.