Hurricane Gustav

I found this recently which I wrote during Hurricane Gustav:

Tuesday, September 2, 2008 4:18 pm

So it is the day after the storm. I am at my dad's cousin's house in Baton Rouge with my Grandy and the Aunts (2 of my Grandy's sisters who live together. There used to be 3 before Aunt Ruby died, so I still think of them as a threesome.)

Riding out the storm here has been uneventful. The electricity went out yesterday at about 10:30 or 11 in the morning. I was actually anxious for it to go out because it was way too cold here with the ac on. (Of course I am generally always too cold.) Now it is a nice balmy temperature. I am wearing a hoody even though it is warm and humid. Yesterday I slept and read a lot. I'm fighting off a cold so I think all of the rest has really helped. This morning we cleaned up the yard a little and went to see our family (more of my dad's cousins) who live in this neighborhood. There are a lot of trees down. There are two or three down at our house, but when we drove through the neighborhood there were some trees that had fallen through the roofs of other houses. We are lucky. At Sharon's house, they have some trees tangled in electrical wires. It's strange because I never thought about the clean up here. It's not like when we get a snow storm up north or we lose one tree in a storm. Snow melts and if one tree falls, my dad takes care of it. But there's debris all over the place, so everyone takes part in helping to clean up, even if that just means babysitting kids. However, I don't think picking up sticks and leaves in the rain with a tornado warning helped my cold much. I also thought it was hysterically ironic that we chose to have my Aunt Norma alert us if she heard anything about a tornado actually hitting on the radio. My Aunt Norma has the highest, softest voice I've ever heard. I can barely understand her when I'm sitting right next to her. However, my Aunt Joyce was on the patio cleaning up in her slippers and I figured Aunt Norma would alert Aunt Joyce, who would yell out to the rest of us. Aunt Joyce is hysterical and I love her. Hopefully I will remember to record the funny things she has said or done over the last few days.

I evacuated to Baton Rouge, which apparently was one of the hardest hit places. No one has electricity and it may take weeks to get it back. Hoorah. I don't really mind not having electricity. We also have no phone service. Luckily we have a generator so we can operate ac units and fans and the fridge and for the boys to play their computer games.

I think everyone agrees they would rather see Baton Rouge get hit hard than New Orleans. My Aunt Joyce said that when New Orleans suffers the whole state suffers. I agree. Everything here is studier, newer, and further inland. New Orleans is so vulnerable for so many reasons. Save the wetlands people. It pains me to know that one day this state won't exist anymore because it will all be washed away.

All anyone really cares about in Baton Rouge, in terms of news, is whether Tiger stadium got hit or not so that we can know whether to expect LSU to play this weekend or not. I think it got hit by a tornado but I'm not sure.

It's hard to hear news about St. Charles and Orleans parish (where my family and I live, respectively). One parish has started letting residents back in, but that appears to be all. There are curfews in place. I believe no one is allowed out after 8 pm, since that's when it gets dark.

There are 2 dachshunds and a cat here. That's nice. The dogs love my Aunt Norma, but my Aunt Norma hates dogs. It is hysterical. They always jump on her lap and lay there. Aunt Norma always startles a little but then she doesn't try to get them off. She just tolerates them while they lay on her lap. It cracks me up. Debbie lives in a household of men – all of the pets are boys and she has two sons. This will not happen to me – I can tell you that much right now. If nothing else I will have a female pet of some kind.

On to more recording of recent events:

On Saturday we learned that we had to go into the city at 5:15 am on Sunday morning to help with evacuations. They were broadcasting that Gustav was going to hit the West Bank (where I live) like the apocalypse so I decided to take everything that mattered to me and load it into my car. It's in cases like this that you really learn what's important to you. For instance, the first things I packed were my books. I did that before clothes or my passport or anything else. Eventually I took down all my wall hangings as well. My external hard drive is really my most prized possession. I brought Jon's W&M hoody instead of my own because I knew he would not be thrilled if the roof got ripped off and his favorite hoody became a casualty of Gustav.

We cleaned the kitchen thoroughly. While I made a round of phone calls, Tony and Emily made a delicious medley of vegetables and rice. I wish I had brought the leftovers with me but I completely forgot. Tony's a good cook and I'm glad we have him around. He is incredibly kind. I accidentally stole his bag of oranges and took them with me here.

The streets were eerie on Saturday night and Sunday morning. One of half of the street was empty and others were packing up cars and driving away. People were boarding up their windows Saturday night and continued to do so at 4 am the next morning. I miraculously managed to fall asleep by about 10:30 or 11, slept through the night, and woke up 5 minutes before my alarm at 3:55. I was not expecting to sleep well at all. Thank goodness I did.