There was a simply astounding police and National Guard presence when we arrived in New Orleans. We literally could not drive anywhere without seeing the flashing lights of an emergency vehicle of some kind. All of them were patrolling. Although there was still a dusk to dawn curfew in effect, police had instructions not to stop anyone unless they appeared to be loitering or up to no good. We were able to travel to Mikey & Juli's house, then to Adam & Jarret's house, then to Cary & Andrea's house, and finally to our house without incident.
From a distance, the city looked normal. The lights were all on in New Orleans East as we came from the Twin Spans on I-10 towards the middle of the city. The French Quarter and CBD (Central Business District) all had power. Ironically, everyone who travelled with us had electricity except for us. So we sweated ourselves to sleep last night with the windows open, listening to post-storm reports on WWL radio and the sound of a generator across the street.
This morning I walked around the house and found a few pieces of roofing and some wood that blew into our driveway. As with Katrina, the debris was not from our house. I unpacked the hard drives and other things I had packed to take with and started getting everything connected again in anticipation of the electricity coming on at some point. Officially, the local power company was reporting Orleans Parish would be 100% energized (powered up) no later than September 7th.
Since we had no electricity and very little food, we headed down to Coop's Place for lunch. Many of the regulars were already there, but since it was one of the few places already open, the place was packed with people looking to get fed.
Working with Murphy
I am sure you are familiar with Murphy's Law: [INSERT LAW]. Well, the best way to beat Murphy is to work with him. Anticipate his next move and act accordingly. Since all we knew about when the electricity was supposed to come back on was that it would be on no later than Sunday, we decided to take Glenn Cozzi up on his offer to use his generator. My theory is that the sooner I go to the trouble of getting a generator running, the sooner the electricity would come back on.
I am happy to report it worked. I fired up the generator and ran extension cords to power the refrigerator, a couple of fans, a light, and 1 computer. Within an hour, the electricity came back on. Ah, air conditioning, we missed you so.
No Internet Yet
We have electricity, phone service, cable TV - but no Internet. Right now, my iPhone is the only way I can get email, surf the web, or post to my blog when at home. Hopefully that will be remedied within the next day or so.
We Don't Like Ike
With Gustav still fresh in our memories, all eyes are now on Hurricane Ike, which is forecast to go just south of Florida - perhaps across the Keys - and then curve north. Right now, the projections are for it to curve well to the east of New Orleans, but we are very much in the cone of possibility at this point. One of the things I noticed from the forecast models is that one of the models show it taking a straight line towards the mouth of the Mississippi river from the southeast.
The odds are we'll be fine, but we do need to pay attention to this storm, which is forecast to be a Category 4 as it reaches the gulf. It looks like it will be next Tuesday or Wednesday when we will know something more definite about where it will make landfall.
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