Gustav Journal:

Aug 30 Saturday

No sense denying it any longer, it s not Déjà Vue; it's not going to Tampa, its coming to my neighborhood. Already I miss my previous lifestyle, favorite places and old familiar associations. If Katrina taught us one indelible lesson, it is that nothing can stay the same after being re-built. Re-building means re-doing. All the things done before, for the most Darwinian of social reasons such as the location of a grocery store or school is replaced by things done to satisfy "emergency" needs. The whole fabric of a community is lost in the rapid effort of re-building. The "New Thing" becomes a Frankenstein of thrown together new parts, it may work, it may breath, but is never natural with its own personality from otherwise natural growth.

A major hurricane is nothing but death to a community, the wealth of our present generation will never allow a ravaged town to be cultivated, grown to maturation by normal human lives. The thing that replaces once vibrant neighborhoods and communities is heralded by its planners and social engineers, like mad scientist, they love their creation. However, no warmth or personality can exist in places where well meaning academics from out-of-town designed it for optimum efficiency.

Overall the madness has begun, the authorities are pushing their flocks to leave, unlike the pied piper they do not lead the way. I personally think it is the greatest of ivory tower errors to no longer have local red cross shelters. This 15 year old, new concept of massive evacuations cannot be maintained in light of increasing numbers of threatened populations. Over the last two decades almost 90% of the US population now live or have moved within 90 miles of a coast. Too many cautious evacuations will kill a coastal economy as surely as a direct hit and many of the infirm will die in the journey.

Everyplace has at least one strong safe building with a floor above a major flood level, like in Chalmette; we used to go to the local High School for shelter during a strong Hurricane. Even if water flooded the area we had everyone together with Red Cross providing food, shelter and medical care. I hope one day leaders in these communities reconsider and provide in-place sheltering for those residents most able to help immediately after a storm. It will mean the difference between a community’s long term existence or part time occupation. New Orleans could outfit the convention center for autonomous emergency operation of at least 80,000 otherwise far flung refugees.

This particular approaching storm offers me in two distinct frustrations; my friends know I have been working on bringing an "Amphibious Rescue vehicle" to the market. I have offered it to all the authorities now managing the on-coming Gustav disaster. All those plans relay on mobile logistics and a mobile law enforcement force, the amphibian can offer full mobility even if rapid flooding occurs. Not being ready to sell this to my closest and most at-risk parishes , that's my number one frustration.

The second frustration is the same as all of us living in the projected path; it is the uncertainty, of nature forcing us to decide with ever changing variables. We are forced into making demanding life and death decisions about those closest to us. It's a frustration rubbed raw and no one is confident in their own choices. It's like we are all balancing on a rickety narrow board placed over a deep pit of broken glass, concentrating hard on the news to keep us stabile, one wrong move and its curtains. One must keep busy securing, preparing or praying to pass the time, I write and may keep this updated just to release some tension.

I can almost write out the whole "Post Gustav" story right now, one thing for certain, the authorities will correctly be patting themselves on the backs for a well run disaster evacuation. However, If it floods, it will be similar to Katrina, the number of people who stayed are more numerous in the suburban parishes of New Orleans. They know if they leave they won’t be allowed back until some bureaucrat thinks its ok to return. I know all of my friends presently in a “mandatory evacuation” area are staying put, they feel confident in being able to deal with the outcome on their own. The idea of being stuck on the highway in the mother of all traffic jams, hoping for a decent hotel within 800 miles and leaving your home at risk of looting in the hands of an overwhelmed police force is a difficult sell to most able bodied people.

The Amphibian Project will move forward, full steam, with or without any funding assistance. It's too important and it needs be shown finished, it works rolls and floats mechanically so It should not take long. I will take it to all those community leaders and first responders and ask the feds/FEMA to help them all purchase at least one rescue vehicle and barge. If we can get all the coastal communities to purchase at least one we can establish an association. It would be like NATO, when one community is threatened by flood, everyone can send their vehicle in support. Such an association would allow for a fleet of amphibious vehicles for every policeman, EMS, firefighter and rescuer during future mobilizations. If you have any ideas to make this critical new vehicle available, please let me know or write your senator, congressman and mayor to support this self-funded project.

Aug 31 Sunday:

Preparation is an early dry run to Home Depot, opens for 7AM, its 7:15 and we arrive as the 60^th person in a line forming outside the store waiting our turn. We had passed the haughty and pretentious DIY warehouse “Lowes” on the way to Home Depot and it was lineless. We decide at great risk to abandon or place in line to check out Lowes again and found it was being run like a Swiss clock. You simply pull up to the loading dock with your trailer, run in and pay for your plywood (required stuff at this stage of the event) they load your trailer and off you go. Home Depot ha …. suckers….

The Olympic exercise of covering your home windows with plywood never gets old; of course I have never done it the same way twice. Yes, there are about 387 ways to cover, cut, attach, screw and secure, not to mention the various ways to rope and rig some rope or cable arrangement lifting these panels to your high and precarious skylights. Someone will make a coffee table book of photographs of the imaginative ways and materials used in this esoteric gulf coast tradition one day. It seems such a senseless, death defying effort since my own “energy efficient” double pain! windows have long ago lost their clarity due to the entry of humid air into the once sterile gap now harboring the basic elements of new and multicolored life forms. I wish they would shatter to be replaced and here I am 40’ high on a rickety ladder protecting them. Allstate would be proud but I pulled something and cut myself twice, I really hate those windows.

Fight or Flight, is often a healthy and most basic of human instincts. However, Instead of self preservation it can create schizoids of all of us. A modern hurricane threat is like the slow, drowning terror reserved for 007 by his nemesis in almost every Bond movie, it is a drawn out drama. We now live the hurricane de jure’; we map, track and analyze it in exquisite, unrelenting detail for days prior to actually being in any actual danger from the many forms of death and destruction that come in this one size fits all doom slayer.

A personal “stay or run” analysis’ is simple, you take your previous life long experience with hurricanes divide by the number of miles from the coast times the projected path, sum that and add the net value of the lives and memories of good times in the subject home. Multiply that by the potential to protect said property if a window blows in by the distance of the nearest relatives’ home to stay at and his disposition regarding the inside shelter of your dog. Square the root of the indivisible factor of minimum distance your southern bred Louisiana wife will function away from her mother. Take this total and use the integer of 9 to measure the coordinates onto any of the numerous surge and wind swath maps and the answer will be self evident = you stay

Waiting: hours and hours of pre-storm jitters is the norm, it makes the nervous banter usually heard in the doctors waiting room seem tame by comparison. Countless arguments and intense speculation, specific only during hurricane down time have been caused by the most intimate of personality traits revealed by the local politicos and weather-heads filling our TV screens. Little things are becoming legend in front of your eyes. Things like General Honore’s “Are you stuck on Stupid”, Brossard’s tear soaked drama about an imaginary friends’ drowning mom and most recently the suspicious, mouth breathing panting of a Parish leader “calling it in” to the grimacing TV reporter. That little audio display has made me want to reconsider my 1-900 subscription. All of this exhausting dribble and dread leading into post storm days of swelter while Alabama lineman try to find the downed transformer just after “Dead Mans’ Curve” more days of waiting….if your lucky

The Home Team waits

Bullitt, at Threat Level, Orange

The “Before” picture, hopefully this will not be used for our adjusters files. I have tempted fate and included a full frontal of our heavily wooded estate. The house is partially hidden by a Bradford pear, water oaks shield the office and the garage is lorded over by one of several 70’ and 80’ towering old growth pine trees. Did they say gust of 80 mph winds? Is it too late to re-calculate?

Tonight the family beds down in the office the only slab based structure we have; generator is at the ready, Check! Drainage grates cleared, Check! Cell phones charged, Check! Journal updated, Check! Frozen daiquiri mix, Frozen!!

Sept 1 Monday:

Whew. All’s well, it should be evident that my mood has improved by the less edgy editing of my previous post. We settled in onto sleeping bags and pallets in the office early the previous evening. The electricity was still on but we knew it would not be for long and it seemed better to bed down there early instead of relocating in the dark and stormy night. The office has a generator which keeps us cool with AC, a fridge, TV and computer. My DSL line is out so no telling when I can get this uploaded. Gustav was felt here all day, the power went out around 8AM, lots of steady but light rain a few 40-50 mph gust it seemed but little else. Lots of naps and a little walk about was the sum total.

We took the plywood off the office windows and now wait for power to come back on, it may take a few days. New Orleans was pushed to the edge by the raising surge, lapping along the top edge of the canal levees; it looked like one of the endless horizon pools. But the surprising news is they held, water still rising in some southern areas. Everyone whom went through Katrina knows its not over yet, everyone said a day after Katrina “we dodged a bullet” then the levees broke and the surge fell over the whole south. Our concern locally is focused on the spawned tornados, popping up nearby. The biggest issue will be the large amount of frozen food and meat my sisters have if the power is out for too long, we may have a big cookout soon.

The “After” image, we put the garage cover back up and a unexpected rain deluge took it down a few hours later, tooo soon to call it finished.

Little else to report, tired, board and looking forward to catching up with everyone soon, normal life is better appreciated when it’s interrupted occasionally.

Sept 2 Tuesday:

A rising tide continued throughout yesterday evening, to this morning, the news revealed the flood damage done to those along the lakefront and rivers. It may seem like a small catastrophe in comparison to Katrina, unless it was your house that hosted a few feet of flood water and debris. My heart goes out to my friends in Mandeville and Madisonville, both are the most bucolic and scenic places to have a home. The FEMA assistance is allowing many to raise their beautiful homes so that in the future, flood water will remain outside those homes. Such a huge job takes time so many are being flooded again since Katrina.

We are still on generator power, Donna is cooking some steaks on the barbeque the kids are restless but we have picked-up all the tree branches and debris. The local town of Covington is threatening to flood since the river is backing up with rainwater trying to empty into the Lake Pontchartrain which is still high.

We had a brief fright while under a tornado warning around noon; it hit about a mile away and took out two buildings. Still rainy, but we are happy to be home, many of those that evacuated are trying to return and being stopped, they are accumulating at the three major entries into new Orleans, Plaquemines and St Bernard, they may be stuck for a few days, I think it reveals another reason they should maintain local shelters. Those same shelters could offer a place for people to exist while they cleanout the refrigerators, fix roofs etc. while the power lines are being fixed.