Evacuations begin - 40 hours until landfall

We made the 3.5 hour drive north this afternoon to drop my grandparents off in Shreveport Louisiana. It was a bit eerie, seeing I-49 packed in the northbound lane, and in the southbound lane - seeing not much besides convoys of ambulances, hummers, and other military vehicles.




Gustav is of course now a Catagory 4 storm, and projected to become a cat 5 by tomorrow. If there is one saving grace it is that there is a band of cool water just off the coast that will slow it down a bit before it makes landfall on the Gulf Coast. This won't be much mercy if it still comes in as a cat. 4 (Katrina was a 3.)


The computer models have it moving more to the east now, closer to Baton Rouge, but no one will know with any certainty where exactly it will hit until tomorrow evening. No one in LA is going to come out of this unscathed, hurricane force winds will cover at least a 200 mile wide swath of coastline; I do have to admit some relief that the storm track has been adjusted. During Rita (a cat 1-2 storm) my girlfriends apartment had about 3 feet of water in it, I go to Lake Charles tomorrow to help move her washer and dryer up to the second floor along with the TV and everything else that needs a dolly.





It hasn't been all gloom and doom though, people here still have a sense of humor. My grandma, who has the beginning of Alzheimer's asked my mom when we were about to leave Shreveport, where my mom and I were going. When my mom told her that she was staying in Shreveport during the storm, she gave my mom the middle finger - my grandma is awesome.

On the way back, in the southbound lane of I-49, we were all alone for the most part, looking across the interstate median at long rows of cars stretching back as far as you could see in the northbound lane. Some gas stations had lines - all had people in U-Hauls, pulling trailers, campers, and boats with outboard motors - walking dogs.

I would imagine that by tomorrow at noon, interstate traffic will be redirected (counterflow) to allow the maximum amount of people to head away from the storms path. As it is already, you have to drive about 60 miles to even find gas.

But for today, we made a shortcut through a town called Mamou ("Maw-Moo.") Some clever farmer had pitched a tent in his front yard, propped up a piece of plywood on a tree next to it, and spray-painted an arrow and big letters - "<-----Hurricane Shelter."