Categories: uncategorized
Date: 31 August 2008 05:47:31
Latest models seem to have the main line, the heart, of the "cone of uncertainty", landing the eye of Gustav right in the middle of Terrebonne Bay. My back yard, you might say.
Much depends on exactly how he lands. What Category will he reach and maintain on his trip across the Gulf? Will the high pressure systems in surrounding regions even have any effect at all on him?
If he drives straight in like a freight train, he could be pushing a storm surge ahead of him the likes of which we have never seen in modern-records times. Morgan City is vulnerable -- the whole Atchafalaya Basin could be dreadfully flooded. Parts of my parish, Terrebonne, and neighboring Lafourche, are right near sea level -- and even the most modest storm surge predictions are around 12 feet.
Parish presidents and mayors are ordering mandatory evac of their cities and parishes. West Bank New Orleans is supposed to bug out at 8 a.m. Sunday; really, officials have been urging folks to get out since yesterday.
Even Wal-Mart shut down at noon today. Ye gods! Wally World never closes.
There are curfews in place -- folks have no business anywhere but at home. No sheriff or city cop is gonna get stupid about it -- I mean, the prisoners have been evacuated already! Where will they put you if they arrest you? I guess men will head for Angola and women for St. Gabriel. But if they find you around about without a darn good reason, especially not at your own property or business, especially after dark, you risk arrest.
Evacuations are an odd thing. You're grateful for the warning -- one doesn't get so much lead time to prepare against an earthquake or a tornado! But, still --
All the patterns of normal life, normal employment, normal commerce, all are disrupted. People try to be brisk and efficient about their arrangements. Watching my husband and the youngest son as they bought some boards today was eerily like watching a Three Stooges movie. Everyone smoothly ducking before they took each others' brains out with the swinging lumber...
Elderly and ill are nosily quizzed, do they have someone to help them, what do they need, where are they going?
One's belongings are mulled over and prioritized and thought about -- do we take the family photographs? Which computers to take and which to wrap up and store high? What about the guns?
Windows boarded up? Doors too? Vehicles gassed up? Extra gas cans filled, loaded in Grandpa's diesel one-ton.
Have the grandbabies left town already? Good! Did their Daddy, our elder son, remember to gas up before he left town? No? Bad! Call them! Have they found fuel yet? His Bride says yes. Good!
What's in the freezer? Gee, I'm glad we hadn't bought and filled up that deep freeze yet!
The daughter and her hubby brought fresh shrimp. His Daddy had spent all last night trawling. I suppose the shrimping is good before a storm...
And Hagen-Daas! Their buddy works for Blockbuster; the store needed to get rid of its freezer items before they boarded up... so we inherited a wad of decadent ice cream treats. Eat 'em up! No power, maybe, in days to come! Empty that freezer, cook it all, eat it up!
Maybe that's why Earl grabbed that squirrel this morning and ate it all up, hoof, horns and head. He slept it off all day long, lolling in the same laundry basket, dead to the world, like a lion full of a gazelle. Maybe he knows he ought to stock up.
Individuals, families, entire communities are securing their home bases and getting ready to Gypsy out of here. Loading up their cars and trucks, sometimes towing their boats and Harleys and four-wheelers... heading out reluctantly, heading this way and that, each family with its own plans and ideas about where to go and how far and how fast.
It's like Autumn leaves scattering, scurrying off in different directions before a penetrating insistent wind.