Are folks on the freeways running out of gas? Overheating? Having to ditch their vehicles and hitch a ride? How about gas stations along the clogged routes?
Regarding pets, I did see coverage of an organization helping to take care of pets that couldn’t be taken or otherwise left behind.
One of the more disturbing accounts I heard was from one of the organizers of this group. She said her volunteers had encountered some dog owners who decided the best thing to do with their two dogs was to lock them into airline crates, put them on top of the washer and dryer (so they’d stay above any high water) and then leave them there. Yep. Some people should not be allowed to have pets, let alone children, let alone be allowed in public without handlers of their own. Yeah, I know that tensions are high and emergency situations don’t allow for much coherent thought sometimes, but that idiocy is the kind of pet stewardship akin to taking a gun and shooting them, without the quick and painless death part.
Another Baton Rouge doper checking in. We’re in Hundred Oaks Park. I have my mom and sisters (and my sister’s dog) here with us. If the levees break in New Orleans, they’ll be here with us for the foreseeable future.
Pray for me… the hurricane I can handle. My mom living in my house for weeks, I cannot.
A relative of mine heading westbound on I-10 said he saw quite a few people with pets roaming on the side of the road in the gridlocked areas, so I think a large majority did take their pets with them. Also interesting, people are going to the restroom pretty freely on the interstate. Guess there’s no other option and hopefully the 5.0 is being lenient about the matter.
I’m concerned for all of you in this storm’s path. I want to offer to help, even though it’s premature at this very moment. Still, if you end up needing anything (blankets, clothes, dog food, cash), email me at brattiatti @ gmail dot com and I’ll swing something.
BrattiAtti, who lives in the desert where last year’s “storm of the century” produced two inches of snow :rolleyes:
This is scary. I am still hoping to here from my BIL & SIL. We don’t know if they evacuated. My Brother-In-Law is a Resident, are medical personnel being evacuated also or are they being asked to stay?
Most law enforcement, medical and civil defense people have been ordered to stay. That’s not to say that any given individual hasn’t been ordered to evacuate, but it’s likely that a medical resident would be on the “stay” list.
Best wishes to your family.
The worst I expect here in East Alabama is that the power will go out. Every power truck that isn’t already in Miami will be heading for New Orleans, so there’s no telling when we might get our repairs done.
I’ve got a generator and the gas cans are filled, water comes from a well that the generator can power, so we’ll be all right.
Hurricane Opal in 1995 was the worst here. We went 24 days before electricity was restored.
I attempted to go to New Orleans on Saturday to move my daughter into University. As we were preparing to leave Jackson Miss that a.m, my sister, who lives in NO, called to advise me that we should fill up our gas tanks on the way in at Hammond because lines were already forming at stations in NO on account of people who wanted to get out. That’s probably the best advice I’ve ever gotten, because by the time we wanted to leave NO the lines at the stations were incredible; some stations had run out of gas.
She had checked the Uni’s web page and no sign of cancelling moving-in day. Here’s a snippet of what I wrote my family about the trip:
My sis left NO at 10 am on Sunday. She made it to Jackson by 7 pm. :eek: A trip of three hours, normally, took nine. I shudder to think of what she will go home to - probably not any kind of home, just their lot there with ten tons of nasty debris laying all around.
I got very emotional today, fielding calls from my sis in New York and my brother in Memphis, even my crotchety old ex-husband, wanting to know if my sis and her family, and my dad & his lady friend had made it out. I’m very glad to have her here safe and sound, and my dad-n-them made it to North Miss without a scratch.
BUT. Tomorrow the forecast calls for tropical storm winds here, with a probability of 85%. We can expect high winds and torrential rainfall. I went to the grocery at about 2 pm and their gas station was already out of gas. The store was a complete zoo with mobs of people grabbing what they could.
My baby sis lives here in a house trailer, so in the a.m. I’m going to go collect her and her young son to come hang out here until the worst is over.
My hubby works for the City so he will likely be working for the next 24 to 48 hours on the damage from the storm, flooding, and tornadoes.
The devastating part is waiting for my NO sister and her husband to realize that it might be weeks, months until they can return home. Everything that they have worked for all these years is fixing to be tossed into the Gulf. I don’t think words can express how I feel about that.
Like lots of others in the thread, I’m also in Baton Rouge. It’s very difficult to believe that there’s a storm headed this way. There was some rainfall this evening, but it stopped hours ago. Beyond that, there wasn’t much else. It’s pretty calm now. I can’t imagine that experts are supposedly predicting that New Orleans will become the next Atlantis or what have you. I guess we’ll see who’s right tomorrow.
I do have the next two days off school and work, so that’s nice. I stocked up on books and movies from the library and Hollywood Video before they closed early today. I’m at my mom’s right now, but I’m a bit sad that I didn’t have a chance to go to my dorm room and secure everything, but I’m hoping that won’t be necessary.
Finally got an email from a N’wallins friend earlier tonight; he took his girlfriend and his Siamese kitties and holed up with family in Baton Rouge as of yesterday evening. Whew.
Aaron Brown on CNN earlier, paraphrased: “Not to be confessional, but we in the media occasionally indulge in exaggeration, making things sound worse than they are. This time? Not so much.” That’s… a significant statement.
When I visited NO, one of the things that I really remember most is that there are a lot of really really poor areas. I am really worried about those people - people who don’t have cars, or money, to evacuate. And what are they all going to do when their neighborhoods are gone? So sad
My guess is that the stucture is built to withstand 200mph winds, not the building envelope. I have never seen a stadium that could be made airtight. I suspect that some windows or doors will break and the pressure will at least partially blow the roof off. There may be a few deaths, but it’s still the safest place for most people to be.
There’s no safer place to put 40,000 people. All of the glass in the skyscrapers will be blown out before the eye hits and there’s no other place to get above the water, and even if they were able to completely evacuate the city, there would be just that many more people stuck on the ground on a freeway in South Louisiana.
Parents woke me up before 5am, wanting to know how I was doing. Some rain, some winds, nothing as bad as other thunderstorms I’ve been through (and hurricanes).
I have two days off, which I don’t want to have, since I’m in vet school. Sigh This means they won’t “forget” those days… we’ll make them up by staying in school later.
Percypercy YAY for the doggies!
Why is it that reporters have to stand out in the middle of everything and report how bad it is? Is it Darwin waiting to happen?
We can expect high winds and torrential rainfall. I went to the grocery at about 2 pm and their gas station was already out of gas. The store was a complete zoo with mobs of people grabbing what they could.