September 2008


Home

I got up early enough this morning to shower and help myself to the waffle maker in the lobby this morning. We checked out of the hotel shortly after nine this morning and headed home. We had to take a detour to Baton Rouge to pick up Jeff, Dad’s car and a number of items we left in Jeff’s apartment. After entering the city we could see more of the damage we saw on the way out a few days ago, mostly downed signs and fallen trees that occasionally landed on houses.After getting the cars packed, we got back on the road. We had to take Highway 30 to 74 because the I-10 just south of Baton Rouge was closed. The right was largely quite smooth but there was a significant slowdown at the I-10, I-55 merge. Driving through the city, things looked a lot better in New Orleans than they did in Baton Rouge. There was some damage to a few businesses and billboards, but overall the city looks fine. Our neighborhood had a lot of tree foliage in the street, but nothing else of circumstance. Our house looks fine but more than a few of our shingles were in the yard so we’ll need a new roof and soon.After unloading the cars, getting some of my stuff back in order and removing the boards from the windows, I helped clean the refrigerator. Everything in the fridge and freezer had to be thrown away. Mom had the foresight to triple-bag all the meat in the freezer so thankfully there was no vile stench.This evening I noticed that one of the boards holding up my waterbed fell over. Since a collapsed waterbed would be a huge mess I started fixing it immediately. Dad has a utility pump so I didn’t have to start a siphon to drain the bed. I took advantage of the situation and cleaned the liner and vacuumed behind the bed where a couple years of dust accumulated. It took the rest of the night to get that done so I went to bed with a big mess on the floor in my room.

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Still Waiting

I got up early enough this morning to get some breakfast in the lobby. Today was more than slightly dull as we never even left the hotel today. We were practically certain we do not have power at the house yet and Dad saw no reason to fight the inevitable traffic only to return to a sweltering house. I spent most of the afternoon in the lobby as the wireless internet was quite poor in our room but worked great downstairs. This evening I watched just about all of the republican convention on TV, which unsurprisingly didn’t top the one given by his #2 yesterday. Late this evening we learned the electricity is back on at the house. Both our answering machine and fax picked up. We’ll be heading home tomorrow morning.

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Waiting

For the most part, today was uneventful as we were just hanging out at the hotel and not really doing anything. I have my computer to keep me occupied however so I wasn’t terribly bored. At about two this afternoon we went out for a late lunch. Dad wanted to go to a Chinese place but we couldn’t find the one he looked up so we ate at O’Charley’s instead.There was a good deal of news out of Louisiana today about the state of affairs including damage and power outages. This evening, I watched republican convention coverage including the speech by Sarah Palin which I found immensely entertaining. The democrats who appeared on Larry King later in the evening were not amused, however.

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Ridgeland

A second night of sleeping on the floor did not make the experience any less unsavory. The power was still out this morning and news on the radio stated 97% of Baton Rouge was also without power. Apparently, hurricane Gustav has arguably inflicted the worst damage on the city as any storm in Baton Rouge history.This afternoon, Aunt Lauren searched around and found a hotel room for us in Ridgeland, Mississippi, just north of Jackson. Dad wanted to leave a car and a bunch of our stuff at Jeff’s apartment so we only took the Taurus. It took us about four hours to make it to the hotel, traffic in Baton Rouge was heavy and slow moving. As we drove out of the city we got to see some of the damage, mostly downed trees. In itself that’s not a big deal but quite a few of them fell on roads. On one road there was a nearly continuous line of chopped up trees that clearly indicated a substantial effort to clear the road. I also saw a good number of trees that fell on houses and automobiles.We arrived at the hotel, a Comfort Suites, shortly after eight this evening. After getting settled in, Dad went out to pick up something for dinner. I didn’t have much luck getting the internet to work in the room. I watched some of the Republican convention on CNN and saw Fred Thompson, President Bush and Joe Lieberman speak. Later on I went down to the lobby, where the Internet worked, and talked to Krystle on the phone for a while before bed.

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In the Dark

The news this morning was looking decidedly optimistic as most hurricane force winds missed New Orleans. We had the news and such on until one o’clock this afternoon when the power went out and stayed out. Over the course of the day, the weather remained rough with intermittent rain and high winds. Many tree branches fell from trees but that was largely the extent of damage near us. We never even attempted to go to the hotel this afternoon. It was somewhat fortunate that the air was cool, if wet and there was a pretty stiff breeze coming through the windows.

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