My Evacuee & Hurricane preparation

My Evacuee:
My dad decided to leave Houston and stay with us. I'm glad. Reports are that the winds were up to 100 mph in Houston and that over 4 million people lost power. I'd much rather have my dad hanging out here with us, feeding the kids lollipops, than hanging out in a soggy house with no power. In the Rita evacuation, the trip from Houston to Austin took some people 12 hours (it should take 3). My dad was able to leave at 6 pm last night and got here by 9 pm. Austin is hosting over 20,000 evacuees in various shelters, and although it may not be luxurious, everything seems to be going smoothly and traffic has been fine.

So, phew...... But my older brother is in the storm's path and hunkering down as we speak (I love this media use of the word "hunker"... it cracks me up. Yes, we say it in Texas, but it's not an everyday expression). Hope everything is okay. Luckily, it seems that the storm has weakened.

Hurricane preparation:
When I was little (living in Houston), the general procedure if a big storm was coming was to fill your tub with water. I can't remember if we actually did this, but we knew that was what you should do in case of a water outage.

Now, the general procedure is to go to the store and buy dozens and dozens of plastic bottles of water. And people go to the store, find empty shelves, and freak out.

If a big storm is coming, why can't we fill some bottles with water for immediate use and fill the tub just in case? (Of course, this would only apply if you are "hunkering down" -- if you need to evacuate, you can't bring the tub with you).