Shreveport, Meet Ike

Horrible Hurricane

I am trying to figure out why people don't evacuate in a hurricane like the one about to decimate Galveston, Texas. I just read this article where an estimated 11,000 to 20,000 people did not leave an area where officials told them they would face "certain death." If someone told me that, and then instructed me to write my social security number on my arm with a permanent marker, I think I might pay attention.

It is so horrible to watch what is likely to be such a tragic situation develop. God knows we hope that the weather folks are giving worst case scenario but it sure sounds dire. I totally don't understand Geraldo Rivera standing on a beach in Galveston broadcasting on Fox News right now. He's holding up a meter saying "117 mph winds! 117!" All kinds of junk is flying all around him and he has another guy standing next to him holding him up! What a freaking idiot!!

As for us, WAY up here in north Louisiana, we are supposedly looking for winds 39-74 mph and 4-6 inches of rain with possibility for tornadoes. I'm paying attention. As I am sure all over the country, gas is hard to find. I got gas on the way home from work with little problem but I saw my neighbors around 5 who had been out for a while looking for some. It's OUT all over town. Where there IS any, there are long, long lines.

What is so scary about this storm is these media folks talking about how this is the worst storm in YEARS; how large it is and how large the eye is and how large the storm surge is. They are using adjectives that they don't usually use! Those poor folks in south-western Louisiana who are just beginning to recover from Hurricane Rita...

Say a little prayer tonight for those folks that stayed behind all over that part of Texas. I have some friends in Houston that I'm worried about. Hopefully this will be the last storm for this season!

I Don't Like Ike

I'm not freaking out yet but I'm not happy with this picture. We have just cleaned out the shelters and gotten those poor people back home! I seriously hope this track changes over the next few days; I don't wish a hurricane on anybody but we've had it in Louisiana. It wasn't on the national news so much, but we got some major damage from Gustav. Once the levees in NOLA didn't break and flood everything, the national media got up and left, but in Alexandria, Natchitoches, Baton Rouge, and other places further south and west, they took a hit. Huge numbers of people were still without power yesterday.

As far as the shelter business goes, Darrell Rebouche covered that pretty well in his blog and posted some photos as well. For me, the last photo he posted tells the story (go ahead, go look!). Steve's department went on 12s, (12 hour shifts) and he just went back to regular schedule yesterday. He's beyond exhausted.

From all accounts, most of the evacs were grateful for the help but as always, there were some that were not. There were some that thought FEMA ought to put them up in a Ramada Inn instead of a shelter. Some didn't want to obey the rules at the shelter, such as the curfew. Others wanted to fight and several were arrested. Some complained about the food and some complained about the facilities themselves.

We got into a discussion about this in my first block class yesterday as we were talking about this new hurricane. Even my students had heard the press about the ungrateful evacs and were displeased. I tried to caution them that we need to put ourselves "in their skin" as Atticus Finch would say, and try to imagine the incredible stress they are under. Most of those people did not know if their homes were okay; everyone remembers the Katrina pictures and certainly people were worried about looting. And then Ray Nagin was telling them they couldn't come home (as soon as they wanted to). Quite stressful, I'm sure. People were worried about their pets, and some pets were even evacuated here and were housed in a special shelter. In Steve's shelter a chihuahua got left behind when its owner left and Steve has been worrying about that dog getting back home for days. (It will).

At any rate, Dear Ike, we hope you weaken to a little late summer thunderstorm and drift away to someplace other than Louisiana. We don't need you.