There's an edge of expectancy, as if half of the state is holding its breath, watching with dread. When you've done all you can do, you just wait.
Over on Brendan Loy's site, he's got the urgent weather message from the National Weather Service from New Orleans. It's extremely bleak and sobering. Oil has already surged above $70 / barrel, and the market isn't even open yet. I imagine it'll hit near $100 by the end of the day tomorrow.
We just got the first rains -- already a hard rain. I have been obsessively watching the weather news. I should be writing, especially while we have electricity. It's hard to focus on anything else.
My neighbor has about twenty refugess family members up from New Orleans. We've got a couple, and I know many people have taken in friends and family who couldn't get a hotel room or who didn't have the money to get out. Our neighborhood resembles a parking lot from the vast number of cars. We're one of the few neighborhoods to have underground untilities. I'm sure we'll lose power at some point, but at least we won't have the large power poles knocked down like they were during Andrew, and live wires on the streets.
We're in Baton Rouge -- far enough inland to be a place of refuge for the people out on the coast of Louisiana, far enough to rationalize staying. However, we expect it to be pretty bad here. I'm praying the storm doesn't wobble a little to the west -- it would make it doubly bad for New Orleans as well as for here.
As far as being prepared, I think we've done all that we can think to do. We have extra gas for the generator (our neighbor borrowed the other one). (Our neighbor has been informed that if my mom and dad and grandmother end up needing it, he's out of luck.) We have candles galore, matches, propane, water, tons of food. I've done all of the laundry (on the assumption we'll be without power for a while.) We've braced the new fence in the back yard, stored everything we could in the garage and tied down what we couldn't.
The one thing that amuses me is the vast quantities of beer / alcohol sold prior to storms. Lots of people figure they're going to be stuck in one place for a while, might as well turn it into a party. When we were at the grocery store earlier, all of the beer aisle shelves were empty. Lots of people are going to be wet, but they're gonna be happy about it.
Posted by toni at August 28, 2005 07:15 PMThat's what happened during Floyd, here in NC- I was in college and lived in part Eastern NC that got hit hardest with flooding. Having been in college town, and college neighborhood, there was always a party once it started getting dark. We couldn't leave the city, because the highway was underwater, and this really strange sense of community sort of rose out of everything. I remember playing Spades, drinking beer on my porch at 10 AM with neighbors I'd never met before. So surreal, but it wasn't like we had class. Last one I actually pointed my webcam outside and webcast the hurricane to friends in Maine and back home.
All the Canes I've been through have become these iconic memories for me. The damage and destruction, death, my bedroom in high school almost became a fireball of natural gas, just the awe of weather. It's not good by any stretch, but I always have this anticipation about them. Everything stops and becomes this moment to moment experience. The raw nature, the perspective it throws on life, and the mundane crap, and it's probably a low level fear thing too, I like being scared, but the only way I can explain it is like a snow day when you're a kid, but with the potential for a horrible down side. It becomes a point of comparison for every other day you're lucky enough to around for.
Anyway, babbling... But fear is defintitely the best bet, Stay safe. Be smart. Thoughts with you and everyone down there. Good luck.
Posted by: nicolle at August 28, 2005 08:10 PMTake care, Toni -- my thoughts are with you and everyone else in the path of this monster.
(And I apologize for being so slow on replying to email; this week!)
Posted by: gwenda at August 28, 2005 09:44 PMToni, I hope the whole experience is interesting enough to be used as color for your next book, but only if you are writing comedy. Good luck to all of you in the path of Katrina; thanks for letting your readers know what has been happening so far.
Annie in Austin
Posted by: annie in austin at August 28, 2005 10:36 PMMy thoughts & prayers are with the surviors, the deceased and any of those affected. I live in Iowa, if some one or family is in need of housing from Katrina I have room to share. Also I can drive near the disaster to bring water & food, but I don't know where to go.
Jacque
jakeandbubs@iowatelecom.net