Galveston, Texas – Waves pounding.
Winds howling.
Anita and Ronald Witt … sleeping. On the third floor of their home here, overlooking Galveston’s Offatts Bayou.
The storm came and left by Saturday morning, but the Witts never did, despite dire warnings from local officials and the evacuations of most of their neighbors. Anita even lied to her mom that she and Ronald had left town.
When Hurricane Rita hit this skinny island community early Saturday, the Witts were fast asleep. And when they woke up, well, things looked pretty much as they had when they went to bed.
“In our bedroom, you could hardly hear the wind,” Anita Witt said. “My husband is BOI, born on the island. So he wasn’t going to leave.”
In the days before Rita hit, when it was still one of the most powerful hurricanes ever recorded and appeared poised to hit Houston, the fourth- largest city in America, directly, millions of people from the city and surrounding communities heeded the lessons of Hurricane Katrina and bolted. But thousands of others responded to the looming storm with a shrug and a bit of humor.
Hurricane? Ehh.
Those who did stay appeared to have their indifference validated Saturday morning, when the hurricane, which had weakened from its monster Category 5 status, directed its might and destruction well east of Houston. There were downed power lines here, broken windows there. A few businesses suffered heavy damage. Two homes in Galveston caught fire. Some places lost power. More than a few roofs came flying off. Tree branches, leaves and assorted garbage filled the streets.
But, by and large, that whooshing sound coming from Houston on Saturday wasn’t winds from Hurricane Rita. It was the collective sigh of a relieved community.
“We lucked out,” Anita Witt said.
Some even openly taunted Mother Nature.
“We didn’t even have a storm, did we?” Vince Maceo sneered as he peeked outside his ramshackle house just a block from the ocean in Galveston. “It’s time for me to move on. I mean, even the storms aren’t exciting anymore.”
Maceo, bestubbled and barefoot, is something of an aging surfer-dude junk collector. Stuff that washes up on the beach, he grabs and turns into bric-a-brac that he hangs on the front of his house.
“See, ain’t nothing changed out here,” he said, tugging at some of his trinkets and surveying his house Saturday morning.
By his count, Maceo said he has weathered eight hurricanes and never once lost a shingle. On Friday afternoon, as Rita’s outer rings began to lash the island and blown sand picked at the face, Maceo didn’t even have his windows boarded up.
Though, to be fair, some didn’t have glass.
Fifty miles inland in Houston, many who stayed were equally as blasé Friday.
At the Berryhill Baja Grill in Houston, where a would-be crooner belted out “Stormy Weather” on Friday night, the cooks ran out of tamales about 6:30 p.m. but the bartenders kept serving margaritas well into the storm.
A TCBY frozen-yogurt store in Houston’s Rice Village neighborhood was open Friday afternoon, to the delight of hurricane- preparation-weary residents. The mint chocolate chip was running low, and the coffee flavor was all out.
But even as the radio forecaster piped through the store’s sound system warned that Houston could still see a direct hit, Mike Gregg was saying why he had his doubts.
Houston would end up on the so-called “clean side” of the hurricane – the west and typically less-hard-hit side of the counter- clockwise rotating storms.
The storm didn’t bring widespread flooding to Houston.
Jubilance was not universal, though.
About 50 people waited in 90- plus-degree heat Friday afternoon to be let one-by-one into one of the few open food stores left in the city. Some said they tried to leave but couldn’t because of backups on outbound highways. Others said they didn’t have the means to leave.
“We’ve got the grace of God, man. That’s what we’re going on,” said Benny Batiste, who was waiting in line even though he said he and his family had some provisions stockpiled.
When the storm was over, some people found massive rebuilding tasks in front of them.
Danny Hart stared in disbelief Saturday at the remnants of his restaurant, Yaga’s Café.
The brick wall on one side of the three-story building collapsed, leaving Hart’s restaurant devastated but also bizarrely intact.
“It’s amazing if you look in, the hanging plants are still there, the TV’s still there,” he said. “I guarantee that if we walk in, the bottles are still on the shelves. ”
Some who stayed felt downright grateful after the storm. Leaving the First Baptist Church in Houston, where the American Red Cross had set up a shelter, brothers Alex and Dominic Ansari said they were glad to have missed the worst of Rita and thankful for the plush accommodations at the church.
Only about 200 people stayed the night at the shelter. Many families that did got their own converted schoolroom to sleep in.
“Better safe than sorry,” Alex Ansari said. “We didn’t know what was going to happen.”
News of Houston’s relative good fortune had residents already starting to pour back into the region by Saturday morning, prompting local officials to beg for people to wait awhile to return.
Of course, Anita and Ronald Witt didn’t have to worry about that. But even as the couple took showers and used a generator to watch television and make coffee, Rita’s remnants continued to whip up staggering winds and mean surf.
So, Anita Witt allowed, it’s not like things were quite back to normal.
“We’re not going to go swimming yet,” she said.
A few minutes later, the sun started to shine through thinning clouds.
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
