Down Grand Isle way

Took me a trip down Grand Isle way to see the area where Gustav landed. The area did not look as bad as I expected it to look, but I'm not sure my devastation meter is normal anymore. It has been a few weeks so a lot of the downed trees, signs, etc have been put into piles, hence the debris is orderly which makes it look less menacing. I didn't get the entire way down to Grand Isle, there was a sherrif's checkpoint and they were only letting people who lived there get past a certain point. Lots of utility work still going on. The cel site shelters are put waaaaaaaaay up in the air, with generators, so they are prepared for some power outages. Chevron has their own heliport which had a lot of traffic coming in and out, even in inclement weather, which I hit off and on during the drive.

The utility workers have super-cool air boats with lift buckets and drills on them that they use to re-set the poles that are in the water. How neat is that? I've been on an air boat tour once since being here and it is such a fun thing to do...I want one! The noise they make is unbelievable though...you hear one of them start up and you swear you just heard Crockette and Tubbs go by.

Thank goodness...

One of leftovers from Mr. Gustav - haven't seen much damage from Ike. Lots and lots to do at work - trying to fast track projects as a result of this emergency declaration. I have my first project under construction...it's a roof repair so not a big project or anything but at least it's something. Went out to a great bar close to where I live, St. Joe, a bar all decked out in a church costume with some opium parlor thrown in. Neat-o.

Made it back....only to leave again??

Got in safe and sound last night, saw Lily from a couple houses down and one roommate was home, the Americorps Red Cross volunteer. She's been running shelters for the last week, and she's not about to shut any of them down it seems. She's had only a few hours of sleep each night having to attend to everyone, so she was lucky to have had an entire night here. Poor thing has been sleeping on a 2" bed roll for months so I hooked her up with my double layer queen size air mattress. Drove to the store this morning to replenish my fridge contents which had to be thrown out - but I only got a very few things in small sizes since Mr. Ike don't look all that friendly.

Lots of tree damage, piles of limbs, etc. on the sides of roads but I haven't seen any large damage, even to homes under construction, as of yet. My next door neighbor has a HUGE tree in his backyard that provides lustrious shad in my yard, if anything happened to that one it would surely take out one or both houses. There's an elec plant a block or so by my house and I could have sworn they put up all these new large steel poles but a neighbor said Nope, they've been there since Katrina. They're really odd and I can't believe I didn't notice them before - most of the lines aren't even hooked up so it seems that effort was aborted at some point. Now I sure noticed the cel site in the yard, for obvious reasons. Quite a few businesses aren't open yet, even a the neon sign says they are (see pic), maybe about 50% but today IS Sunday.

I have a feeling not many people will evacuate again if another one comes calling, I've heard a lot of people say they wish they hadn't. However, if you have a place to stay that will let you bring your pets i.e. don't have to pay for a hotel, I don't know WHY you wouldn't. No power in the SUMMER, no water, no stores open...I mean what the hell? People that don't live here may not understand that if you leave windows open for the breeze and you don't have screens (which a surprising amount do not, including this house) you WILL be eaten up by skeeters. I mean eat-ten up.

So Monday it's back to work full throttle for at least a week.

On my way home

Yay! Got power and water at home! Didn't have any yesterday after first roommate came back, but at 11:30 pm we got it so I'm about to leave Atlanta to get back. Funny thing is, did you see Mr. Ike out there coming this way? I was treated so well with so much hospitality here, but I'm sure I would be pushing my luck if I came for another week so, look out, I might be coming your way (Matt in San Antonio - how 'bout it?). I lived here for years, but since I wasn't in the best mood or felt all that great I mostly either worked or stayed at Lisa's cozy house (above) with her great dog, Zeke, that PK loved to try to coerce into playing. We did have some great Thai food last night and I met April's roommate and boyfriend whom I hadn't met before. I had some Chicken Masaman which was a dish I used to get in a Thai place in Virginia-Highland when I lived there. Lovely creamy sauce with cashews and avacado, yum. Then I went to the Dekalb farmers market this morning to load up on spices which are the cheapest there I've ever seen. What a massive, amazing place. Then - back on the road, and next week...on va voir...

Weekend return

There is a local office of my company about 30 miles from where I'm staying, so I've been in that office the last 2 days and most likely will be tomorrow as well even though the New Orleans office opened this afternoon. My ex-neighbors Blake and Mr. Shaw drove by my house and it looks like my block has power although they're not 100% sure since no one was around...but that's good enough to get me on the road home this weekend. Apparantly I have not been myself say my friends, which is totally understandable to me but seemed to be a question to them. I basically have to start over with all my projects at work, I had no idea how my newly adopted city would survive and no information on the status of my house and everything in it. I think that is reason enough to be a bit melancholy, even after the imminent danger had passed.

I've been glued to CNN since being here which I usually never watch, I get my news on the radio, but I can't turn away in the last 2 weeks with both conventions and the hurricane. I was guffawing and speechless, one after the other, during Palin's speech. The macabre chanting of the republicans ('drill baby drill!') last night was spooky as hell, nightmarish. All those overweight older pasty-skinned morons with stupid hats on. Ugggh. They'll drum up some more support for Obama after that, for sure.

So I will most likely hit the road on Saturday, back to the Big Easy, and another round of figuring out what was damaged by the storm. I could make a career out of this....

Damn Gustave!

I think I've told most everyone that I got out, I left on Friday night to MS, then had to come back Saturday early to LA although not all the way to New Orleans. Then I took some backroads in LA/MS until I got through the bad traffic and headed up to Georgia to stay with friends in a great large ranch house on 300 + acres. That was not what I expected to evacuate to, it just happened to be where the gals were on this holiday weekend. I've got all sorts of pics I'll put up once I get them downloaded, I don't think I brought the cord with me which was a mistake since I packed for a few weeks, truthfully. Including a bunch of work stuff that I should be reading, but I can't quite pull myself away from CNN which has better coverage than the weather channel, surprisingly enough. I heard about this documentary about Katrina on Friday on NPR, it sounds amazing and it's probably coming to a city near you. It contains a lot of personal footage from someone who had the camera rolling the entire time her house got flooded, even when she had to move to the attic.
http://troublethewaterfilm.com/