Well, you could heat up on some water on a propane or gas stove! Although I'll take a cold shower over no a/c...
A lot of people in the coastal communities didn't want to evacuate because they went through hell with Rita. All the people from Katy to the Woodlands were hyped and hysteria-ed into evacuating by the authorities when there was no need, and the people who really need to get away were stuck for 20 hours or so crawling along the roads--not even getting out of Houston in some cases. It seems like that was handled a lot better this time but some of those people just refused to go based on that experience.
I hope that doesn't turn out be a deadly decision for some of them.
I saw some people in Kemah who thought they were on the high end, but basically everything along the coast is sea level! There's no "high end!" Houston is 50 feet above sea level but those communities are beachfront.