So many kind people have been sending emails asking how we've fared that I'm writing this. I hope to have time to compose individual replies later, but now we are very busy trying to reorganize our lives.
We made preparations for evacuation Saturday and left New Orleans Sunday morning. The company has an office in Zachary, and our VP lives here. Bob and his wonderful wife, Karen, as they had done 2 years ago when we fled Hurricane Ivan, kindly invited us stay with them instead of camping in the office as I had planned. Laura had already taken one of the cars Saturday night, loaded with the stuff she needed to go to college with Sept 5 in case she couldn't get back to the city, and gone to Baton Rouge to stay with a friend at her apartment near LSU.
Our departure was delayed until 10:30 am because we finally convinced my mother-in-law to come with us and had to drive across town to pick her up. We left in 2 loaded cars, one pulling a trailer loaded with more stuff -- including a 5500 watt generator -- and headed East towards Slidell, then planning to loop around and go North, then West to get to Zachary, which is just south of St. Francisville. The news said that I-10 West was at a standstill, but it was easy to go East. To make a very long story much shorter -- everyone else must have heard that report, too. It took us 7 hours to make a 1.5 hour trip.
We moved in on Bob & Karen Sunday and have no idea when we will be able to move out. Housing in or near Baton Rouge is impossible to find now, with the influx of refugees. We are looking into schools for the kids, and plan to settle in this area until it becomes clear what will happen to New Orleans. Certainly it will be several months, at least. As I write this it
is impossible to know if we will ever "Call New Orleans home" again.
Laura has been volunteering at a refugee screening center in Baton Rouge, partly, she said, to tear herself away from obsessively watching the news from New Orleans on tv. She met us for dinner and told stories of woe that brought tears to all our eyes. One woman had burns all over her body. She had tried to get out of a flooding house and grabbed the only thing she could to keep from sinking. It was a live downed power line. She was taken to the hospital and treated, then sent on to the shelter, since the hospital didn't have space for her. This was just one story of many.
After dinner, when she went back to the apartment with her friend and we came back to Zachary, I had to give Trisha a major hug before I could go to bed.
We are so much luckier than hundreds of thousands of others! Our whole family is safe. We have a place to live. We will continue to have an income. Don't worry about us, but please do what you can to help the Red Cross and other aid organizations.
We made preparations for evacuation Saturday and left New Orleans Sunday morning. The company has an office in Zachary, and our VP lives here. Bob and his wonderful wife, Karen, as they had done 2 years ago when we fled Hurricane Ivan, kindly invited us stay with them instead of camping in the office as I had planned. Laura had already taken one of the cars Saturday night, loaded with the stuff she needed to go to college with Sept 5 in case she couldn't get back to the city, and gone to Baton Rouge to stay with a friend at her apartment near LSU.
Our departure was delayed until 10:30 am because we finally convinced my mother-in-law to come with us and had to drive across town to pick her up. We left in 2 loaded cars, one pulling a trailer loaded with more stuff -- including a 5500 watt generator -- and headed East towards Slidell, then planning to loop around and go North, then West to get to Zachary, which is just south of St. Francisville. The news said that I-10 West was at a standstill, but it was easy to go East. To make a very long story much shorter -- everyone else must have heard that report, too. It took us 7 hours to make a 1.5 hour trip.
We moved in on Bob & Karen Sunday and have no idea when we will be able to move out. Housing in or near Baton Rouge is impossible to find now, with the influx of refugees. We are looking into schools for the kids, and plan to settle in this area until it becomes clear what will happen to New Orleans. Certainly it will be several months, at least. As I write this it
is impossible to know if we will ever "Call New Orleans home" again.
Laura has been volunteering at a refugee screening center in Baton Rouge, partly, she said, to tear herself away from obsessively watching the news from New Orleans on tv. She met us for dinner and told stories of woe that brought tears to all our eyes. One woman had burns all over her body. She had tried to get out of a flooding house and grabbed the only thing she could to keep from sinking. It was a live downed power line. She was taken to the hospital and treated, then sent on to the shelter, since the hospital didn't have space for her. This was just one story of many.
After dinner, when she went back to the apartment with her friend and we came back to Zachary, I had to give Trisha a major hug before I could go to bed.
We are so much luckier than hundreds of thousands of others! Our whole family is safe. We have a place to live. We will continue to have an income. Don't worry about us, but please do what you can to help the Red Cross and other aid organizations.
posted by Carl at 12:30 AM
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