Evacu-Blog

I woke up at 8:15 a.m. and can’t sleep. It is raining outside and I’m in the book shipping room of Audubon Press here at ADBC using their internet connection on a desktop station and thinking of two things- what is the damage happening back home and in the region, and wondering just how many of my friends would be drooling about now if they saw all these books and learning materials. But I digress.

I’m looking at the news and websites online and apparently Mr. Gustav decided to calm down a bit and is now following the NHC (National Hurricane Center) projected path of NNW while balancing between being a Cat 2 (winds 96-110 mph) and a Cat 3 (winds 111-130 mph) storm.  This still puts the storm surges at between 8 – 12 ft.  Land fall is going to be close to Morgan City, LA bringing the Swede just south of New Orleans unlike the wonderful prediction of our regional madman Mayor Ray “Chocolate City” Nagin’s predictions of a 900 mile footprinted hurricane of the century. Pray for Nagin for I think that my dog Napoleon has more sense.

The worst of the storm will be south of New Orleans with wind gusts in the city reaching hurricane force (74-90+) between 8 AM and 4 PM. Farther south winds should top 100 + mph for many hours with the storm surge reaching 12-18′ west of the Mississippi river. East of the river the surge should be no worse than 8-12′ with Lake Ponchartrain rising 5-8 feet which should push water over the seawall on the Mandeville lakefront, but nothing like Katrina.

Hurricane force winds will persist for the next 8 hours while tropical storm force winds will persist for the next 16 to 20 hours. Feeder bands continue to provide heavy rainfall and the threat of tornadoes is in effect across Southeast Louisiana till 4pm this afternoon. A flash flood watch is also in effect for the area until Tuesday morning.

Everyone slept well it seems and are beginning to walk around with post-zombie hair and requests for dark coffee and email access.  Normalcy ensues.

For now we still wait and see and are grateful that we implemented an evacuation plan two years ago. Our first priority when things settle is to examine that plan, get suggestions, and tweak it so that we can be as efficient and as organized as possible when we have to leave the next time.  With an eye glancing towards Hanna. Peace.