Katrina is going to suck...

...for Louisiana and Mississippi for sure, hopefully we will be spared the worst of the devastation. I don't mean to wish it on someone else, but two hurricanes and two tropical storms in less than a year is enough for one city.

Katrina isn't being compared to Ivan - the worst hurricane in the last few years. No, Katrina is so ugly she is being compared to Camille from 1985. Camille literally rearranged the layout of the Biloxi, MS streets after she came through. 185 people were killed because they were having a hurricane party in a hotel on the coast. Biloxi didn't take it seriously because no hurricane had ever hit them before (or if it had it had been years).

New Orleans was having hurricane parties up and down Bourbon Street last night. 1000s are still there and most of the flights have been cancelled out of the airport. N.O. is below sea level. Residents take comfort in the fact that no hurricane has ever directly hit their city.

Not good for N.O. Whether good or bad, residents in this area take any threat of a storm seriously. 1.5 million people evacuated from FL and AL with Dennis a Cat 2 or 3 (Katrina is a Cat. 5). The areas of MS and LA projected to be hit have a far greater population and do not seem to be quite as nervous as this area gets. Maybe folks here are paranoid, but they know what can happen.

Katrina at a Cat. 1 killed 7 already, there is no telling what will happen as a 5. The Barometric pressure is at 908 Millibars. This is a very scary number. That is very low for pressure in a storm which means the winds are stronger. Camille was 909 and Andrew was 922 (I think). That means Katrina could have stronger winds than both and it is heading toward an area, N.O., least able to handle a hurricane.

Rusty and I are still trying to determine what we will do. We have to figure it out soon - we are running out of time. I don't know that his parents house will be any better. They will be north but will still have such strong wind and it is like a forest. Spin off tornadoes were bad after Ivan and this could be worse. Further east might be good, but I don't know exactly were to go.

I just talked with our neighbors (there's is a weekend cabin - they live in Birmingham). They are tying everything down and we were looking at the canal. It is already high. After Dennis it was just over the dock across the canal from us. It is nearly there this morning. Annette and Leslie were moaning. They just redid their sea wall and sodded the whole back yard. They put in centipede grass and knew that the water would kill it but the water has never before come over their wall. Now they may be resodding the lower part of the yard. We hope that is all they suffer from damage.

They are also tying their sailboat in the middle of the canal. Anyone familiar with storms will know you can't moor a boat too securely to a dock because of the damage it would cause as the water rises above the docks/piers. They will tie in the middle actually across it in the neighbor's yard on a tree. Rusty has his boat on a trailer and we will move it to the side of the house where there is more shelter and tie it down. We will move all outdoor stuff to inside and that is it. He didn't board up for Ivan or Dennis and the winds shouldn't be that bad here. We hope.

Ok I think I am done with all of this. I would give more info as to our plan, but I think at this time we are staying. Let's hope that is a wise decision. If it continues in the same direction and the high pressure system holding it down doesn't move too quickly we should be ok as far as wind is concerned. The flooding will be the problem. This neighborhood, or part of the neighborhood hasn't flooded before, so we don't have flood coverage on our insurance. Let' s hope this doesn't prove to be the time we are wrong. Rusty is calm, so I will stay calm.

I should put a disclaimer on the deaths already. I nearly forgot, two people were killed from carbonmonoxide poisoning from their generator. It also seems as though more and more people are leaving N.O. which is great to hear. I am going to go and paint some more and hang up stuff and scrape of some old paint in the bathroom that is peeling.

Ciao!
B