Isaacs Gift

After returning to Panola, we found a little gift from Isaac on the porch:

Roses, thorns, and woulda-coulda-shouldas

Roses:

• Getting shouts and cheers as we walked around the neighborhood to survey the damage from the hurricane (our costuming might have had something to do with that).
• Hanging out with friends (telling ghost stories, tarot readings, and card games all done by candlelight)
• Having a cold drink in the pitch black Maple leaf after the hurricane hit
• Jamming on the accordion/bass drum/tambourine in the front yard as the neighbors began to congregate
• Talking to pretty much everyone in my neighborhood (Including Shelita who gave us fish and a box of fried rice)
• The overall camaraderie that pervaded the city
• Getting free food from the Tulane Cafeteria
• Playing Risk in the graduate office
• Dominos staying open till 5pm on tuesday
• Our water and gas never went out
• Getting AC/power/internet at Tulane

Thorns:

• The sweating.  All. The. Time.
• Dominos after the third meal
• Not sleeping, mostly due to the sweating
• Not having ice, or anything cold for that matter
• Nothing being dry (in part, due to the sweating)

Things that were a godsend:

• All my wick-action clothes
• the handleabra & hurricane lamp for bright light, and guardian angel candles for some general light in the rooms
• Dominos
• Opening the doors during the hurricane to get a breeze in the house
• Having screen doors/windows to keep most of the bugs out
• Having a surge protector so we could all have power at tulane

Things I would do next time:

• Get as much ice as possible.  The city was out the day the hurricane hit but they had some the day before.
• Get some real food, not just granola bars and crackers 
• Tell my guests to bring over real food, not just granola bars and crackers
• More board games
• more LED flashlights - they aren't as hot as candles
• get a power adapter for my car for charging things
• Put eggs and water in a cooler.  I had them in the fridge, but then couldn't be taken out.
• Get out of the city and not deal with it (or at least get a generator and a window AC unit)

We've got power!!!!

After my second night sleeping on the floor of my office, I awoke to find out that we have power!!!

The first the I did was crank this song on repeat, then I proceeded to step into a fire ant colony. No matter, power has brought much joy - I can now to laundry (and have my stuff be actually dry - not humid/damp!!!!), enjoy ice cold water (once I let the dirty water from the hurricane flush through first), and sleep in my own bed (aka...actually get some sleep). I've also got to get the house decent again, and clean out the fridge since everything thawed.

We ate at Slim goodies for breakfast, where it turns out they STILL don't have power. We got a plate of eggs, a piece of toast, hashbrowns, coffee and ice tea for $5.  AND they had some of the best service I've ever had. On the way back, we saw a guy that put his mattress out front and spray painted a message on it, something like "Dear Entergy - Can we get some AC up in here?  Love, Sweaty Guy". There was also an older guy with a saxophone just rockin out on the neutral ground.

Overall, I'm amazing at how well the city handles everything.  Power is lost, nobody has AC, but people just deal with it and get on with their lives.  Even with no traffic lights, people quickly adapted to a 4-way stop policy. You can tell who is still without power at this point by the tired look in their eyes. 

It was an experience, but I don't want to do it again.  I was rejuvenated after my trip from Mexico, now I just feel exhausted.

We have air (kind of)

My work has air, so we are all taking refuge in the graduate office for now.  We have everything we want - food, a working fridge, internet, and even A/C.  This is the life!!!

A Look at the Damage (photos)

It's officially been 2.5 days since I last had power. Overall things are too bad, but the lack of sleep is getting to me.  Luckily Tulane still has free food, without it I think I would be in a lot worse shape.  Anyway, here are some pictures I took walking around after the storm hit.  I couldn't go very far because of all the down power lines (most of which are still down today). Some pictures are a little blurry because or rain on the lens.

Travis walking down our street

Big tree that fell right on a power line next to our house.  I'm guessing this is why I don't have power.

Here's me standing next to it for perspective.

Emergency Trucks are already out an about, but they won't do anything until the peak winds get below 35mph

Willow street is covered in oak leaves

Not so much

A lot of fences didn't make it

My neighbors lost some of their plaster?!

The Storm Hits

Here are some photos before from tuesday early evening, before the storm hit.  It had started to rain and the winds were picking up.

We wait for Isaac to show his face

We are ready for the hurricane to come

We look Isaac right in the eye and attack

On a note that has more to do with actual preparedness, the parking lot for Audubon Zoo and the fly were filled with emergency trucks from other states. The fleet was huge and looked quite impressive!

Welcome to Refugee Isaac

We have been out of power since tuesday at 9pm.  Right now I'm with a couple of friends, hanging out at Tulane where some of the buildings have their own backup power. The campus looks like a refugee camp - every outlet has a dozen or more students huddles around it, each with their macbooks and iphones plugged into the daisy chain of surge protectors.

Since the storm hit, it's hasn't been too bad - we lost power, but luckily our water has been going strong.  We had friends over most of the time so we've been in good company.  We've been telling a lot of ghost stories (no one has every heard of "bloody fingers" before! Can you believe it?!) and playing card games.  Oddly enough, we found out dominoes was open until 5pm on Tuesday so we ordered 7 large pizzas. That alone got us through the next 24 hours.

At the time, I did not realize that Dominoes would be saving our lives

The house has become moderately bearable, we opened the front door and the back door and got a nice breeze going through the house.  Unfortunately it's so humid that everything feels wet and sticky. It's tolerable during the day, but has been making it really hard to sleep at night.  That and the noise coming from our neighbors generator. Luckily I read up on hurricane preparation, so we were pretty well prepared.  The candles were extremely handy - we have a couple of flashlights but it was nice to have some extra light. The guardian angel candles were nice because they were in a jar and protected from the wind, and the handleabra that I made in pottery gave off a TON of light.  I also had a hurricane lamp which has been getting a lot of use.

Internet is limited, I'll have to finish in another post