TEXAS CITY — Sometimes, you’ve just got to have a beer.
As Texas City tried to wake up from the countywide evacuation, a handful of hearty souls bellied up to the bar at Scruples.
With only the Burger King, Domino’s Pizza and a couple of gas stations open along the main drag of Palmer Highway, Scruples bar looked like a good spot for some stories about Rita — and possibly a margarita.
For Rudy Mussmann it really didn’t matter what type of beer he drank, just as long as it was cold.
“It’s a good stress reliever,” said Mussmann, who had a tales of a 35-hour drive from his La Marque home to safe haven in College Station. “That evacuation route -— it sucked.”
Mussmann was in one car with house items while his wife, Beatrice, was in another car.
She, too, had company: three dogs, eight cats, two lizards, a cockatiel and a ferret named Houdini.
But there was no escaping the snarled traffic.
Mussmann and his wife returned home Sunday morning.
After a long day of picking up tree limbs, fixing busted water pipes and cleaning up debris from his yard, Rudy and his wife made their way to Scruples to see friends, swap stories and toss back some cool ones.
And if they had to do it over again?
Mussmann said his wife had made up her mind. They will stay put next time.
“I’m the one who didn’t want to go this time,” he said. “Now she is saying she’ll stare a hurricane down next time.”
Beatrice said she had family to worry about, but that next time around there would be no evacuation.
There were only 18 customers in the bar, but for a Sunday night that was actually a good-sized crowd, said bartender Jamie Hernandez. Each customer had his own story about the evacuation.
“I’ve heard a lot of those tonight, yeah,” said Hernandez, who herself was stuck on the road for hours trying to get to Austin. “That’s about all anyone is talking about.”
Chris Moyer said the drive up was not so bad. He and Hernandez actually got out ahead of the mandatory evacuation.
The trip back was an eye- opener, though.
“We couldn’t find gas or any food,” he said. “We’d stop in a store, and all (the) shelves would be empty.”
His route back, Interstate 10, also did not fare well.
“You should have seen the trash,” Moyer said. “I mean stuff everywhere on the side of the road. It was disgusting.”
