Gustav Update #1 (August 29, 2008; 6:45 PM)
Yesterday I send the following message to my Hurricane mailing list:
Well, I was going to do a lengthier 3rd Anniversary of Katrina update, but with Gustav giving us plenty of warning, Janis and I have been keeping busy getting our ducks in a row, so to speak.
Nonetheless, I did have time to do a small update, which you can view at www.macchuck.com.
For those of you who haven't called or sent a text message yet, we haven't decided whether or not we will be evacuating for Gustav and probably won't decide until sometime on Sunday. If I had to make a decision right now, based on what I am seeing so far, we would stay here as the winds will probably not be much more than tropical storm strength (again, based on what we know now).
Believe me, we will take no chances, but please remember, our house had absolutely no damage from Katrina, so we actually feel we might be safer here than with the nutbuckets on the road for anything less than a direct hit.
I'll keep you updated as things change.
Gustav Update #2 (August 30, 2008; 2:30 PM)
Today, Janis and I have been busy moving things out of the yard into the garage and cleaning coolers and water buckets. The state police is ready to start contra flow on the Interstates as early as this evening (it was not supposed to start until tomorrow).
Gustav was just upgraded to a category 5 during FEMA's most recent news conference — and it hasn't even hit Cuba yet. The area of Cuba it is going to go over is flat and narrow, so significant weakening is not expected to happen. One ominous sign: the Sunday paper just arrived.
We are going to continue to prepare for both staying and leaving. Today we are getting our important papers together and packing clothes. We also cleaned all our coolers and got out the styrofoam coolers we have been saving for just this occasion. We went to the store and picked up some last minute provisions. Whether we stay or leave, we will have the fixens' for some awesome gumbo to feed people.
Tomorrow we will fill the bathtub with water, as well as two 5 gallon coolers and a bunch of pickle buckets, in case we need clean water. We have two full tanks of propane, should they turn the gas off.
We will be taking a vote as a family tomorrow at 11AM as to whether to stay or leave - a vote which will not be final by any means, should we decide at that point to stay. We can always leave a bit later. The important thing will be to see what the storm's track and intensity forecast is tomorrow (Sunday) AM. We do know that it is highly unlikely for it to hit Louisiana as a Category 4 storm, let alone a category 5.
Remember the Walmart that was looted after Katrina? There are now 200 New Orleans police cars parked in the parking lot adjacent to it. Remember the scene at the New Orleans Convention Center after Katrina? There are now 1500-2000 National Guard troops stationed there using it as a staging area. My only concern is why they brought in about 200 howitzers there as well. What the heck do they need those for?
For Katrina, New Orleans had approximately 1600 police officers, 200 of which left the city. Today, as I write this, there are about 1500 police officers in the city and another almost 2000 National Guard troops in town. New Orleans is in a much better position to handle this storm.
Also, what they call "assisted evacuations" are happening. The storm has 17 places identified throughout the city where people can go if they have no other way to get out of town. A city bus picks people up at those spots and takes them to Union Station, where they get on a bus or a train. So far they have moved over 5000 people out of town and are planning on moving as many as 35,000 out this way. They have 700 buses on contract, each of which holds 50 people.
The Mayor has asked that all tourists leave New Orleans now. The last flight out of New Orleans will be at 6PM tonight.
This just in: Janis' part-time boss (who is a retired petroleum engineer) has some inside information from the forecasting service used by the oil companies that there will not be any flooding by our house, but it will be very windy. They are still projecting the storm to curve and go west of the city as a Cat 2 or 3.
Should we decide to leave, we will probably go to Dothan, Alabama. The mother-in-law of the person who used to work for me at MacSpeech has asked us to come there. (She stayed with us for Mia's third birthday party.) It is about a 6 hour drive normally, so we think probably 12 hours under these circumstances.
Tonight we are going to have dinner at Coop's Place - to check up on people and make sure we have their phone numbers, as well as help eat some of the remaining food (we are already pretty cleaned out, except for what is frozen).
For those of you tracking the storm, here is my favorite site:
http://www.stormpulse.com/
Exciting times. I'll write more as I can.
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