The good news about hurricanes is that we can, at least, see them heading our way. That's pretty much it on the good news meter. For quite a few of the last hurricanes, it looked like we'd get a lot of rain, and it ended up being sunny and nice for us instead. Now, it looks like it's our turn to be slammed.
The traffic coming out of New Orleans is insane. No one can find a hotel between here and Houston, and I've been told that it's also pretty booked as far away as Dallas. There's a lot of advice being bandied about on TV about it being better to head north or east, but the path of the hurricane is going to be north-east when it hits land. At the best, if you can get far enough away, you're only going to have heavy rains, but if you're east, you'll have that a lot longer than those in the west. Hence, most people head west.
In Baton Rouge, we're far enough inland to where the storm dies down a little before it makes it to us. There are exceptions. Most memorable to me was Andrew, which spawned all sorts of baby tornadoes and lots of damage to homes and businesses. There were seven or eight very large trees down in our back yard that next morning (and one was very large and would have crushed our neighbor's house if it had fallen the opposite direction as expected). Right now, there are several large trees around this house, so we'll probably get a lot of downed limbs and some wind damage. I really hope we don't get any trees down, because the houses are closer together here than in the place we lived when Andrew stormed through. (ha.)
The storm prep going on is escalating. We just got back from the grocery store and it was a bit packed and more people flowing in to stock up. Luke picked up his girlfriend from Mandeville (just north of New Orleans) and they're stuck in the heavy traffic heading our direction. A trip from N.O. to our house would normally take a maximum of an hour-and-a-half. During these kinds of evacuations, that time generally triples. No exaggeration. State police announced that they were shutting down the exits off I-10 in Baton Rouge. Which means, for Luke to come here, he'll have to get off the interstate north or west of here and double back on surface streets, easily adding another hour to the travel. Imagine what it would be like for the people heading to Houston.
New Orleans has been really worried about having a major hurricane shoot up the mouth of the Mississippi. The flooding for something like that truly will be catastrophic, and a lot of people are going to lose a lot of their things. The worst hit will, of course, be a huge number of people who can't get the insurance to cover something like this.
Another annoucement was made indicating that New Orleans was considering opening the Superdome to all of those who didn't have the money or the vehicle to get out of town. If that sounds like they're a little reluctant, they are -- one of the last times they used the Superdome, there was an astounding amount of vandalism and theft. If it wasn't nailed down, it walked out of there.
People often ask me how on earth I can live in a place that has hurricanes. Well, the truth is, we haven't been really impacted by one in our city since 1992 (Andrew). We had enough warning to be prepared. I compare that to the possibility of unpredictable earthquakes or blizzards every year in the north or tornadoes in the mid-west, and I figure every place has its problems. I think we get a fair bit more warning than the others, though, which makes it easier to live with.
That said, it makes me tense. I don't imagine I'll be sleeping much for listening to the wind and seeing how bad it is and if the trees are going to hold.
Posted by toni at August 27, 2005 06:24 PM