WE HAVE POWER!!! We are one of a very small few who have power in Louisiana. It came back up last night around 9:00 p.m. 2 1/2 days in Louisiana heat and humidity with no power was miserable and unfourtunately it looks like a lot of people will be in it for a lot longer. My parents and in-laws are both about 40 minutes away from us in opposite directions and they don't have any. There is a chance my in-laws could get it this evening. Their water/sewer is all run on power so they have no water/bathrooms. They were staying at Eric's sister's even though she didn't have power she had water. They came here last night after we got power. My parents could be weeks without it. There are tons of lines down over by them. Luckily they have a generator so they can run a fan and keep the refrigerator cool. We told them they could come here but they don't want to leave the house since they can't set the alarm system.
I have to say this one was 10Xs worse than Katrina. The only one I remember that comes close was Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and the destruction from this one is just so much worse. And it wasn't just that a bunch of trees fell over. Massive trees - 50 to 75 years old at least - that looked like they could withstand anything were just ripped out the ground like they were just twigs. They would be laying on their sides with the whole root system pulled up and we saw plenty where the bottom of the tree you see (the dirt and root system) was taller than the house it was laying next to. I'm going to take some pictures to put on here because you can't believe it unless you see it.
Luckily our subdivision is relatively new - when we built here 8 years ago there was only a handful of houses here. There's huge trees around the outer part of the subdivision but no one has really huge trees in their yards so no one had trees falling through their houses here. We lost all the siding facial trim around the back of the house and the roof has a lot of damage but other than that we were very lucky. The wind was amazing - it sounded like it could rip the whole roof off. We're going to brave the store today and replenish what we lost in the refrigerator. We tried to stop yesterday but the only thing open around here is Walmart and the line wrapped around the outside of the building to get in.
We had another bout of bad rain this morning and were worrying about power going off again. Come to find out, it was another band of rain from Gustav. Is he ever going to go away??? On one hand the rain is good because it keeps the temperature down a little but now there is a threat of flooding because of all the rain. It looks like it is going to be a while before things are back to normal around here.
Luckily this time around we had a great governor in office. The media loves to try and blame Katrina on the federal govt and Bush. What they don't publicize is that Bush tried to get our then governor Blanco to evacuate New Orleans days before Katrina hit and she refused. She waited until the day before to do anything. She didn't declare the state of emergency or sign the paperwork that would allow the federal government to come in and help until after Katrina and the levee breaks. We keep hearing how different it was this time, preparation was so much better, communication is better, just totally different. Then comes the unappreciative people. We started hearing this morning some people from New Orleans fussing because they were forced to evacuate and it was for nothing so next time they aren't leaving. Doesn't matter they got lucky this time and it didn't hit as bad there. Doesn't matter that the whole time the storm was going on they were watching the levees thinking they were going to breach again. Just because they got lucky this time and didn't have the devastation like Katrina they think it was a waste to leave. Some people never learn.
