Texas butterflies are smarter than you might think.  They began evacuating for Ike yesterday.  Last night as I drove out of San Antonio for the border (the first time), they streamed across the countryside in advance of the blowing winds.  It was like they knew Ike was coming and they needed to get the hell out of town.

San Antonio is not expected to get hit too hard.  Just lots of rain and perhaps some electrical outages.  So most everyone is coming north to the relative safety and comfort of Saytown.  Once I realized some buddies who live on the coast might need the house to crash, I returned to San Antonio this morning to leave a spare key in a discrete location, hide the really expensive tequila I got last Festivus and ensure there was fuel for the generator.  I listened to the local talk radio coming and going and learned some interesting things about the Alamo City and Ike.

For starts, they expect several hundred thousand folks.  The shelter system has room for 40,000 people, but as a convention destination city San Antonio has tons of hotel rooms.  Plus I figure there will be people like me willing to share their space if not their Patron.

The Food Bank - ever proactive and deserving their award for being the top US Food Bank in '07 -- began an emergency drive to feed all the arrivals.  They need diapers, canned goods, pasta, etc - but most of all volunteers and money.  If so inclined, you can donate for disaster relief like I just did at their website.  They really know how to get the most for their dollar at the San Antonio Food Bank.  Every Thanksgiving for example, they turn each dollar I give into thirteen dollars of food.  It's like magic of the best kind.

The radio host also interviewed the head of the local Red Cross chapter.  They were already set up at the Freeman Coliseum to brief and assign volunteers.  Counselors, medical types, those with four wheel drive and shoulders for folks to cry on were asked to report.  I was tempted, but my Suburban beastie is up on a shop lift and I'm needed out at the homestead for a developing family medical problem.  The Red Cross representative also asked for money -- but mentioned it should be donated to the San Antonio Chapter as they will be the ones paying for the efforts in the 23 counties of South Texas most likely to be hit hard by Ike.  Evidently the National organization doesn't share well or something.

Then there was the mayor of Saytown asking people to stay at home and not die stupid.  San Antonio folk have a strange habit of driving around the saw horses and street closed signs and drowning in their cars at high water crossings.  San Antonio is a river city and has hundreds of places where streams/creeks/rills flow over the road when we have heavy rains. I remember one time that the water got so high by Olmos Dam that one of the elevated freeways was swamped.  Somehow the six hundred dollar ticket survivors get slapped with for rescues doesn't deter many.

The radio reporters also mentioned that several hundred charter busses had left San Antonio yesterday and had begun returning with the sick and disabled.   

After I got back to the Homestead and logged on, there was an email waiting from the South Texas blood bank.  Evidently the blood collection in the valley has been canceled due to Ike and what with all the patients coming from lower areas to San Antonio hospitals, there is already a crisis.  I wish I had received the email before leaving town as I would have swung by and opened a vein. 

When I am in the area, I donate platelets for neonatal and transplant patients.  Evidently I am a freak of clotting nature as I can give a triple every other week - which is the equivalent amount of platelets found in 24 whole blood units.   Plus I'm a type O and negative for some highly contagious virus called cytomyglia which makes my blood OK for those with compromised immune systems.  Shortly after getting the email, my blood counselor called and I assured him I would stop by for apheresis as soon as I get back.

This afternoon, Mom wanted spinach for a salad and I wanted tea - so I walked in to the local grocery through air full of butterflies.  Most of the streets in this small town aren't paved or are poorly paved at best, so there were frequent mud puddles to stomp through.  Many butterflies had come to rest and drink after their long journey.  As I startled them with my progress, they rose up and swirled around me like a Tsunami.  I reached out my hands and they brushed my skin like their own little storm.

Update -- 1420 Central Time:

For those looking for storm information -- San Antonio is taking in and processing evacuees as they arrive.   The stream is slow, but steady.

More shelters are opening in anticipation of folks from Houston.

There is a pet shelter in Kerrville for displaced animal companions.

Galveston Island is already flooding and the surge predictions are now over 25 feet. 

For excellent ongoing posting from closer to were Ike will hit - please click over to elizabeth camp's StormWatch post.  She has been returning to add comments steadily.

Also -- for a different take on even more potential disaster -- Popeye the Sailor Man writes about the possibly doomed freighter stranded in the path of the storm and how all that fuel may end up washing ashore in For those in Peril on the Sea - More Ike Victims.

Plus -- don't forget McGarrett50 hunkered down on the west side of Houston.  He is updating his comments as well at Ridin' the Storm Out.

Me?  Right now, I'm safe as houses from the storm, tucking into some of the best grub in the world and watching the continuing parade of butterflies.