It's your worst nightmare to hear that a hurricane is heading straight at your direction. But it's an even bigger one if the hurricane ends up hitting the city that you evacuate to.

But that's exactly what happened to me during Hurricane Rita in the fall of 2005. It's funny now, but back then, not so much.

My local news channel first reported that there was a tropical storm churning in the Gulf of Mexico. What began as a tropical storm grew into Hurricane Rita, growing in enormity and power by the day. When the weatherman frankly stated that the hurricane was heading directly towards Katy, the Houston suburb I live in, I was overcome with fear and panic.

My family had just moved to Houston the previous summer, so we had very little experience in what to do during such a situation. When we asked our friends and neighbors about their plans, the majority of them had decided to evacuate away from the city. Caving into peer-pressure, we decided to do the same.

One of our relatives from Shreveport, Louisiana called us up the following day after hearing the news report. "Well, why don't you and the children come over here instead?" It turned out that they had just bought a new lake house in a beautiful forested community. Their proposal sounded wonderful, and my mom quickly gave in. How would have we known the consequences at that time?

Then it was three days before the predicted day the hurricane would meet landfall. During our final preparations, we boarded up all of our house windows with sturdy wooden boards and stocked up our car for the trip to Louisiana. Just after dawn, we prepared to head out towards our destination.

What we didn't anticipate was the extent of traffic, especially when driving out of the city. I knew that there was going to be heavy traffic, giving consideration to Houston's rush hour on the highway, but I wasn't prepared for what I saw.

We met the highway with heavily congested lanes. And the local roads were even worse. Normally what would have been a 6-hour road trip instead spanned over two days, totally to 36 hours, most of which were on the road.

A myriad of problems went into work for us. In an attempt to save our fuel usage, we turned off the air-conditioning. If you aren't familiar with the climate in Houston, let me just say that it's torrid and horrendous. Especially with my little sister and me in the backseat, aged 5 and 8 respectively, the conditions sitting in that sweltering car was horrific.

Secondly, we started to run out of gas. In between cities, the gas stations were sparse, lines were long, and the gas stations themselves were short on gasoline. After waiting for three hours in one line and finally fueling up our Honda, we were told that this may be our last chance to fill up our car before all of the gas stations would close. We were still in Texas.

On the highway, you could walk at a meandering pace and still pass up dozens of inching cars. My family resorted to mindless road games to pass the time. "Punch buggy red!" resonated all the way to Louisiana. But before that, we ran out of gas for the second time.
In the middle of the road, dozens of cars simply stopped. My dad went out and asked someone what was going on. The man explained that they were all out of gas, and heard that a gas tank was coming to help refuel all of them. After a couple of minutes, a tanker came and herds of families lined up for their share. Our family took out all of our empty gallon jugs and water bottles for a fill. I still can’t get the image of hundreds of people lining up in the middle of the highway begging for gas-- we were all so desperate.

But I couldn’t feel more desperate than later that evening when we had swung by a 7-11. I had just exited from the restroom when I heard a shrieking scream emitted by an elderly woman. She was tenaciously holding on to life, sweat erupting from her brow, and obviously suffering from immense pain. The cashier behind the counter immediately whipped out her cell phone proceeding to call emergency.
Before long the elderly woman had collapsed to the floor, severely weakened, with her daughter above her hysterical, blubbering about how her mother couldn’t take the heat. My family and I felt entirely helpless, and still no signs of help arrived.

That was the first time I saw death. And yet, being so young and naïve, I couldn’t understand it. Why did the nice old lady die, Mommy? Why would God do something like that?

Even in that shabby 7-11, timing is everything. I learned later on that no ambulance could have made its way through the traffic. If the elderly woman hadn’t lived on the coast, if she stopped by at a hospital instead of a convenience store. . . . But in life, there are too many “what-ifs”.

After a long day, we spent the night sleeping with the windows open to the stars, squeezed in the back of the car. Before dawn, we drove a couple more hours until we finally reached our destination, tired but hopeful.

Surely enough, their house was beautiful. When we flipped to the news channel, the anchor informed us that the hurricane had changed in its direction. Now the storm's body headed north, curbing into Louisiana instead. I was devastated. But we couldn't do anything more other than wait for the storm to pass us by.

On that Friday, Hurricane Rita made its landfall. Despite it being nine in the morning, it was as a dreary black outside. Rain pelted our windows, and the wind was merciless. We were out of power, silently anticipating the end of the storm.

After the morning and early afternoon went by, the hurricane finally passed through. Cautiously, we began to examine our surroundings. Several of the roof tiles were blown off, debris clogged up the streets, and trees and marshy water conjugated anywhere and everywhere. But at least we were safe.

Years later, I actually consider our evacuation to Shreveport as one of the critical points of my life. I've forgotten the individual days and events of that year, but I will always remember our road trip: my family becoming even more tight-knit, the meaning of survival versus death, and appreciating our regular, if not slightly uneventful, lives. Forrest Gump couldn't have said it better: "Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get." Surviving a tropical storm can be a nightmare, but with the right people, you can make it through.