President Bush is at it again! NOLA be Warned!

[Vedubin01]

+1

I saw what a hurricane can do when Dennis (or Andrew) took out Navarre Beach about ten years ago.

When I say "took out", I mean "levelled" it.

I drove down the Mississippi coast a few months ago after a trip to Houston to pick up a car, and the MS Gulf is STILL f'ed up from Katrina. NO looks bad, but the MS coast is still gone.

Andrew was Homestead/Miami I was there for Navarre. I lived just off 17th bridge then. That was nothing compared to Andrew in 92 which I also went though and Katrina which I helped in the aftermath. Navarre was split in 2 that one. The house is still underwater where the old rib place was just before the bridge.

[Lair]

We spent the night in the Quarter on the way back from Houston, and noticed dozens of houses with boarded-up windows on the way out of town.

It's depressing to see that level of destruction.

[PiercedE30]

Well, we are just starting to get the first feeder bands. The rain is pretty light right now. Not much wind either. Put my car into storage until about Thursday. A buddy let me put it in his garage.
Just got done making my rounds at the local hurricane parties, the only thing good about a hurricane, other than the days off. Had a friend pick me up. Had a few drinks, forgot the damn camera. Good shit.
We should start getting some serious rain around 3 or 4 A.M. I'll update later after I wake up.

[Vedubin01]

dude, stay safe and take pics. Good luck to all you guys that stayed!

[Tavern Gnome]

Crazy shit. Be safe man.

[Lair]

Crazy shit. Be safe man.

x2

[Jon325i]

Just got done making my rounds at the local hurricane parties, the only thing good about a hurricane

Hurricane parties? I guess that's the nice thing about these storms - you get plenty of advanced warning and can get prepared by throwing a bash. Out here in California, since we don't get any warning when an earthquake hits, we have no time to set up a party. Sucks to be us :???: :p

Again - stay safe!!!

Jon

[PiercedE30]

Yea, hurricane parties are always fun.
Just went and did a tree damage possibility assessment. There is ONE tree that I am legitimately worried about. It is about a 30 foot pine. Looks like most of it is dead, unfortunately. Very few limbs that are more than 2 feet long. It is right next to the power lines that come into the house. The power company put a piece of, what looks like, PVC to help protect the wires from abrasion. Only bad thing about if that tree comes down is it will take down some of the limbs on the oak tree that extends out into the street, over even more power lines. I moved my truck closer to the house out of the way of the possible falling tree.
Winds have started to pick up a good bit. Some of the pines that were swaying a mere 7 - 9 feet have started to sway up to 15 feet. Luckily pine trees are capable of swaying a good amount. We just had the worst power fluctuation so far. But it was still barely noticeable. It was just enough to bump the AC and cause the fans to barely turn off and come back on. It was just a flicker.
I sure am glad I went and bought that rope. Looks like I MAY need it if the winds start to pick up a little more. We are getting gusts of up to about 45 MPH, but the sustained is only about 15 or 20. Not really much rain. Just feels like a mid strength summer rain. Not really too heavy, but not light at the same time. I've been walking around outside a little and it is kind of awe inspiring.
Hopefully, I will give another update later this afternoon, assuming I still have power.

[Vedubin01]

yeah, looks like the storm is not going to pack as hard as predicted. Thats great news. Keep the reports up, and take pictures. Always cool to see those. Stay safe!

[assoutE12]

you guys should consider not having all those gay pride marches.

[PiercedE30]

ok. i am posting from my phone. we lost power yesterday around 2. there are about 10 houses with trees on them in my neighborhood. there is one tree around the corner that split in 2 and landed on 2 different houses. we didnt have any damage luckily. there are over 1.5 million without power right now. last night it was wierd looking out the front door and not being able to see the end of the driveway due to the lack of power. hopefully we get it back soon.

[Vedubin01]

Well in MS today I saw about a 5 mile convoy of utility trucks headed south. Time for them to make some real money. Glad to hear all is well.

[CorvallisBMW]

you guys should consider not having all those gay pride marches.

lolz

[PiercedE30]

Ok. Another update. I am running my cable modem and computer off of an inverter that is connected to my truck. I am also planning on connecting my computer so that the battery stays charged. It is hot as balls right now and humid as a mofo. There are a few places around town that have power but there aren't many. We have a curfew that runs from 6PM to 6AM since most of the state still doesn't have power and they don't want people to be running around not being able to see anything. They are focusing on returning power to the hospitals and businesses first. I was surprised to see that they came and cleared out a lot of the debris yesterday. We managed to get the yard cleaned up and all the debris cleared. A few of my friends have tree damage to their houses. One of my friends, that I know of, had his entire roof torn off of his home. I didn't find out until late last night. I am going to be going over to his place this afternoon to give him a hand cleaning up and putting up tarps to try and keep the little water out of there until he and his family can figure something out.
We have been watching the news fairly regularly. The max sustained winds that we saw where about 58 MPH. The max gusts were in the 91 MPH range. They said it was worst than Betsy, back in 1965.
No matter where you go you can hear the constant hum of generators. We have been out of power for almost 48 hours now. It appears, from what the governor was saying, that most of the recovery efforts are now on the shoulders of the energy companies getting power back up. That is the one thing holding up everything.
The one tree that I was worried about definitely did not come down, fortunately.
I am going to pick up my car later this afternoon when I get a hold of the guy who owns the house it is at. I haven't heard anything from him so hopefully that means nothing happened, other than losing power, in his neck of the woods.
I have been trying to find out when I am supposed to go back to work but my boss hasn't heard anything from his boss yet. Hopefully we go back in the next day or two so we can at least pick up our checks and get some hours in for this week.
I believe they are beginning to let people return to their homes in the more southern parishes, including New Orleans. A good sign of recovery.
Traffic has been insane on the surface streets. I don't know how it is on the interstates since I haven't been on them yet. People are going crazy trying to get fuel and food. Not surprising though.
Well, now that I know the little inverter that I have will supply power for a computer and a cable modem, I will be able to give more updates and I will do my best to get some pictures of what has happened.

Jon

[PiercedE30]

Fucking shit. I am going to fucking explode if the fucking Entergy crews don't come out and fucking fix the god damn electricity. I've been on edge since fucking yesterday and it shit just came to a fucking boil.
I went to go pick up my car earlier. Couldn't get in touch with my buddy Hank. Turns out he left for Hattiesburg, MS without even trying to call me and let me know. I would have gone and got my fucking car if he had told me that shit. Hell, he could have even rolled it out into his driveway with the keys locked in it, I would have been cool with it. But fuck no. He leaves and, while my phone was dead for one fucking hour, left me a message saying he's not coming back into town until fucking Sunday.
I'm tired of not having fucking AC, hell, it wouldn't be bad if I had a fucking fan bigger than my dick blowing on me. I'm tired of having to watch the fucking news about god damn destruction. I don't need the fucking news to tell me shit got fucked up, I can look out my front door and see that shit. I'm tired of fucking not having something to god damn do. Let me go back to work, let me do fucking something other than fucking sit around and be bored.
All I really want to do right now is fucking drive my god damn car to try and relieve some of this fucking stress. But FUCK NO. Can't have any of that shit. Fucking bull shit.

/rant