Mandatory evacuations have been issued for the entire city, and the coastal regions of, from what I can tell, the entire state. Curfews are being issued at dusk.
Non-buggin' diehards like me have been told not to expect any emergency services, they're not going to endanger emergency personnel, so don't even bother to call.
Nagin's exact words, well, a paraphrase, were, "you're gonna be chopping yourself out of your attic by yourself." They're evacuating very nearly all of the emergency folks to keep them out of harm's way.
I don't know if I believe him, or if he is taking artistic license to scare folks into evacuating, but Nagin claims that he know of not a single building in the city that has been engineered to withstand winds of more than 140 mph. Not even the downtown office buildings.
Gustav is currently running about 135, and was almost 150 earlier today.
Well, time to get some sleep. I'm going to try and get up early and take the bike through the French Quarter before things get too bad. It'll be weird to see it deserted. I want to take the camera and see what I can shoot.
A blow-by-blow liveblog of Gustav, from Mid-City New Orleans.
14 comments:
Be careful Bud. Gus looks like a large helping of trouble for NOLA.
I will check your blog frequently for news as the MSM will make the situation into a melodrama to pump ratings. Your Governor is competent. I am an old grunt too.
Nagin is still an ignorant horses ass. Stay Safe! I'll be back to read your commentary.
Good luck.
We're in Mobile and not going anywhere. However, I am keeping a paranoid eye on any signs of an unexpected more northerly turn today, in which case I *would* happily leave --we've got family in B'ham.
My sister in a somewhat low lting area between Gulfport & Biloxi is bugging out.
Godspeed.
Just get out. Seriously. Gustav is now a Cat 3 storm, if it intensifies to Cat 4 and makes a direct hit on Louisiana, the levees will fail and there won't be anyone around to help you.
Think about it, Katrina made landfall in Mississippi and the levees failed in NO. The city will be much worse off if landfall occurs in Louisiana.
Quite simply, a direct hit will be disastrous.
I'd worry less about the storm and more about trigger-happy cops. If you stay, stay low.
And please, forget about riding around on your Huffy like a hapless tourist, which is akin to a Tomkin's gazelle entering the lion's den.
Good luck.
I am not impressed. Any asshole can "hunker down." I think you're an idiot attention whore. There is no reason for you to stay.
Some posters project heir own fear on you. You have a sense of adventure. I admire what you are doing.
Do you have a generator? Sat uplink to post? Beer??!?!?! You have BEER, right?!?!
Where in MidCity are you?
I'm telling you, I don't know what it is. From the angle of approach and its track it looks like this one is going to surge half of the gulf into the Lake. Yet still, for some reason, I feel like the City is still going to be okay this time. Maybe it's just denial, or stupidity, or both, I dunno.
You should get out, but I am selfishly glad you are staying. Do you have the technology to keep blogging through the storm and post-apocalyptic aftermath?
Dammit, New Orleans is one of my favorite cities. This just sucks that you guys have to go through this again (and potentially worse this time, since you'll be on the east side of the storm)
But I did the same thing in 89 for Hugo when I lived in Charleston. Different situation to some extent, since we weren't in a bowl below sea level. Went down and lent a hand to the Guard troops after the wind died down, checked on neighbors, etc. Did some small measure of good.
You sound sensible and prepared to handle what comes up. Good luck big guy!
And another thing you can do that people don't think of - we took a boat to one of the barrier islands the day after Hugo and spent most of the afternoon/evening climbing trees and peeling cats out of them. We rescued 14 of them, and picked up a few dogs along the way that were wandering, and eventually found the owners for all but 1 (which I wound up keeping, and of course named Hugo).
People with pets can have a real problem finding a place for them since so many shelters won't take them.
Good luck. I added a link to your site here:http://survivalpreps.blogspot.com/2008/08/ridin-gustav.html
We are pulling in your blog and twitter feed into FriendFeed. Message with links to the FF room and a few twitters I suggest you follow: http://twitter.com/orangejack/statuses/904839205
requiescat in pace
Good luck and Godspeed. This is a pretty crazy idea, but if you (and technology) make it through unscathed, we'll get a lot of information that wouldn't have otherwise been available.
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