All clear

Arrived home a little after 4:00 pm and to my delight discovered that power had been restored (despite the sketchy looking cable dragged across the parking lot by a fallen tree limb). A big hand to the 10,000 Entergy workers from 26 states who are in the Gulf South to clean up after Isaac and get the air-conditioning back on!

LSU classes resume Friday, just in time for the Labor Day weekend.  More important, LSU's first home football game takes place Saturday.  Any connection between the two events is purely coincidental!

Thursday Noon

Hanging out at the University today where there's still electricity, air conditioning, and internet.  All of the above has been out at my place since about 9:00 Wednesday morning.  I spent the day watching the palm tree outside my window do its best imitation of Willow Smith's "I whip my hair back and forth" (sorry about the ad!). After about 12 hours of serious wind and rain, it all suddenly stopped last night at about 10:30.  There's currently a little bit of blue sky peeking through the clouds -- but don't forget, sunshine means higher temperatures and without electricity there's no air conditioning at the apartment!

Wednesday morning

Surprisingly, I've still got power here shortly before 6:00 am, but that's not going to last too long I suspect.  Waking up to sustained winds of 20 mph (32 km/h) with gusts up to 50 mph (80km/h).  The wind speeds are expect to increase. The reports I'm hearing say that the storm will linger over Baton Rouge for 24 hours (!) and bring lots and lots and lots and lots of rain (10-15 inches, 25-38 cm).  The center of circulation, or eye, will pass directly over Baton Rouge this afternoon. If that is the case we can expect most of the damage from downed trees. The same thing happened with Katrina: the ground got saturated with water, the winds blew from east to west on the north side of the storm, and from west to east when the south side of the storm passed over.  Trees just toppled and crushed houses.

Luckily the trees around my apartment probably won't do much damage to my place or car. I'll check in again when I can. Keep a good thought, everybody!

Cue Tom Petty...

... the waiting IS the hardest part!

Tropical Storm Isaac has just been upgraded to a hurricane. Landfall along the coast of Louisiana is expected sometime tonight.  Coincidentally, tomorrow is the 7th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and Isaac is following the same path.

Hurricane Katrina (Wikipedia)

There's not much to do now but sit and wait.  I was a little ahead of the curve, buying water, staples, and batteries on Sunday.  I hit the gas station yesterday morning before the rush - by afternoon people were having to drive all over town to find a station with gas to sell.  At around 4:00 pm, LSU announced that classes would be canceled Tuesday and Wednesday.

I made the decision to stay put, rather than evacuate. The dangers on the coast or in New Orleans are greater than in Baton Rouge.  Here there is little danger of flooding, the wind will have lost some velocity after traveling 100 miles inland, although wind damage and rain could cause the roof to leak. Besides, I weathered Hurricane Katrina in Baton Rouge in 2005 and a 12-hour power outage was the worst thing that happened.

The power outages are what worry me most.  Friends who were in BR for Gustav were without power for between 10 days and 3 weeks (!).  That means no refrigeration, no air conditioning, no hot water, no hot food, no coffee... and no internet! No contact with the outside world, no way of knowing what is happening in New Orleans, or down the block.

So until the power actually goes out, there's not much to do but sit in front of the still glowing computer screen, and click refresh on the various storm radars.  These are the most dramatic:


The Weather Channel loop (click the map to zoom in to the Gulf Coast)
The NOAA Rainbow loop


It is a helpless feeling to see this huge amorphous blob heading towards that little group of pixels that represents your neighborhood.  But it is also impossible to get any work done, as the wind picks up in the courtyard and you wonder just when this adventure will go from an unexpected school vacation to Survivor: Baton Rouge!

Here we go again!

LSU has canceled classes Tuesday and Wednesday.  I've got water, batteries, non-perishable food and a full tank of gas. The storm (and we hope that it remains a tropical storm and doesn't develop into a Category 1 or 2 hurricane!) will likely arrive on the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, in the wee hours of 8/29.

If anyone wants to drink a Hurricane cocktail in solidarity with me, here's the recipe:

I get all my news from WAFB.  Check out www.wafb.com for the latest information.