Rita Going East, Tenants, and Out-of-State Investing?

Rita
As of Friday morning, forecasters are calling for Hurricane Rita to go through the Texas/Louisiana border. I certainly feel sorry for those people in Lousiana, who will be getting the brunt of the storm. And, I hope the levies in New Orleans are strong enough to hold up the storm surges. The weather folks in my town are calling for 40% chance of rain and winds 15-25 on Saturday. If this happens, we will have definately gotten lucky. It's a far cry from the near 100% rain chance and 75+ MPH winds they forecasted just two days ago. Shelters in our town are filling up quickly, but I haven't really noticed the change in population myself. I did notice grocery store shelves becoming empty as soon as they put the items out. I had to pick a few things up yesterday on the way home, and wondered if maybe I was taking this storm too lightly. Coming into work this morning, I noticed the gates into our parking garage were now down. They are ALWAYS up, but I figure they have them down now so as not to allow refugees to park in there.

Tenants
It's been about 3-4 days now since I sent the tenants the 2nd notice of infraction. I am really surprised they haven't called me to ask any questions. Next time, I think I'll send the 2nd+ notice via return receipt, so I have a record they received it. I'm sure they received this one, but they could always say they never got it, and I wouldn't have proof. I also wondered what the husband is going to do regarding his commute to/from Houston. The roads out of Houston have been at a standstill for the last few days, so I'm hoping his boss has told him not to travel until this storm passes. Poor guy.

Out-of-State Investing
I have some relatives who live in West Virginia I haven't spoken to in some time. At lunch yesterday, I was looking at some HUD properties online and it dawned on me that maybe I should be looking in West Virginia. HUD has pretty much shutdown operations in Texas and Louisiana due to Hurricane Katrina (they are giving the houses to the victims), so that line of business is on hold here. However, they are still operational in WV. I did some searches and found a few ... uhm ... prospects. You can view them here and here. What I really liked about these listings is that the HUD inspector writes a VERY detailed report, including tons of pictures, on the property. I also did some searches on some REO sites I know as well as Freddie MAC, Fannie Mae, and the VA, and found some potential bargains. So, I may just reconnect with some of my relatives in WV to see if they wouldn't mind partnering-up on some deals. Of course, would have to brush-up on my market analysis skills in that state as I have no clue about their RE market. ;-P