Update From A Refugee

This is just to let everyone know that I got out. Mike and I left at about 3:30 Sunday in his car. (I left mine parked in our driveway, which is a couple feet above sea level, so we'll see.) We were sitting in traffic on I-10 and the bridge (both of which are now underwater/gone) until about 9 PM. By that time it had started raining and the water along the road was starting to rise a little, which was making us nervous. We made it to Hattiesburg, MS by 11:00, and stopped above Tuscaloosa, AL to sleep on the grass at a rest area from 3:00 to 6:00. By 10:00 AM Monday, we made it to Aunt Carol & Uncle Doug's house in Nashville.

Last night we heard that New Orleans had been spared a direct hit, but from the news that's coming in today, at least one levee was breached and massive sections of the city are under 20 feet of water. My neighborhood is OK from what I've heard, except for a lot of trees down and structural damage. The roof on my house was new, having been destroyed in Tropical Storm Cindy, so I want to say it may have made it... but these winds were about 50 mph higher, and I am not confident about it. I am bracing myself to come home and have nothing. But right now we don't really know when that will be-- they aren't allowing people back into the city, and the road we took to get here is gone. I tried to call into work this morning, but I just got a busy signal. From the news I've seen this morning (the Times Picayune isn't producing a paper edition at all, just in .pdf form online-- as of a couple minutes ago, the water was rising at their building and they announced they are evacuating, so this may in fact be the last paper), water is still coming into the city and areas that were dry last night are flooded today. Spared? I don't know... Certainly it seems rude and presumptuous to say it was spared, when several low income neighborhoods are completely underwater and gone. A lot of these people are on the roof because they don't own vehicles and can't get out.

It seems like everyone was optimistic yesterday because the worst case scenario didn't happen. OK, the worst case scenario was a disaster and loss of life on the scale of December's tsunami. So while I'm glad that didn't happen... New Orleans is not fine. From the news I've seen this morning, the water is still rising, there may not be power for months, and martial law was just declared.

So we will sit here and wait. As the water trickles in.