I'm going to stay out of all the ill tempered bashing and name calling in another thread, I don't have my rubber boots with me...
I'm in north Louisiana, not in the "danger zone" if you will, but Isaac stomped through here yesterday, pretty much dead centered us. I'm at the local library right now, looking at tree limbs down all over the place, small ones fortunately, but have seen some pretty good sized ones down in other parts of town.
Lots of rain, my gauge said about 4 inches, which is not much compared to what the Louisiana coast was supposed to get. I haven't looked up any detailed info, but the south Louisiana region apparently got really pounded, but mostly with water. Flooding in some areas was up to the roofs of houses, at least 150 people had to be rescued in one parish (Plaquemine parish). Flooding there was around 10 feet in places.
On the flip side, this is all nothing new to south Louisiana. I've been through at least 6 hurricanes in La, and a couple in Texas myself. Alicia, Camille, and so forth. The first one I remember was 1963 or 64, it flooded the area but not bad enough to run us out of the house. I got into loads of trouble when I saddled up a horse and took a short ride during the eye...the water was just above knee deep to the horse. That may have been Hilda... I need to look it up some time, see which ones I've seen...some were pretty rough. 120 MPH winds can get pretty scary...and a couple came through stronger than that...
Grand Isle, where it hit pretty hard, has been wiped out at least a half dozen times that I remember. I've gone there for years to fish, and we took summer vacations there during the 60's. It changed almost every year...but every time it got stomped on by a hurricane, they rebuilt it. Some people stay where they are either because they can't leave, or they already know what to expect, lots of us have been through this a bunch of times.
Right now we have a lot of evacuees here, and a lot of people aren't happy about it. Katrina brought us a big crime wave, stores closed because they couldn't stop the evacuees, so many were just walking out with whatever they wanted. People loaned them travel trailers to stay in until they could go home, all of them were trashed out. They had a lot better place to stay than those in New Orleans, and they did nothing but complain about it. They even raised hell because they had to walk outside through the rain to get to the portable toilets. So where do you expect to put 30 porta potties???? One cop stopped a guy drunk, walking down the middle of the street, and was going to just take him back to the shelter...he started cussing the cop so he got a ride to jail instead. It was ugly...everyone I know here did not want them back, and we got it anyway. Everyone I know is carrying a loaded gun...Including me. It really got that bad last time, we had so much trouble people are scared.
OK I'm just trying to point out some of the other side of the story here. I haven't heard what's happening this time, but the police started doubling the patrol around the temporary shelter soon as they started coming in, I don't think anyone is loaning out trailers this time...or letting anyone into their homes...I've been looking out the window or door every time I hear a noise outside...my sister worked with a girl who wouldn't admit she was from New Orleans...because of the bad reputation they got from Katrina...She was going to school, getting into a better career, improving and trying to rise above it, I have to respect that.
Fortunately I don't think we've had so much trouble this time, I haven't heard as many sirens...we did get a lot of rain, and some pretty good wind but I think the wind had dropped considerably before it got this far north. No tornadoes that I know of around here, the only wind damage I've seen is fallen tree limbs Katrina loosened some shingles on my house and started a roof leak, fixed long ago. We think limbs slapping it caused that, those were trimmed back too.
All in all we're doing ok here, but south Louisiana is still not out of the woods, they took a lot of water damage, flooding in several areas, a town in Mississippi got a tornado, one place had to do a controlled release of the dam so it wouldn't fail entirely, a lot of southeast Louisiana was evacuated before that, due to the chance of flooding from the river release.
The people on the gulf coast will go back and rebuild, they've been trough this more than once. I haven't seen any reports on Grand Isle, but I know the place has been pretty much demolished at least a half dozen times, they always put it back together...A lot of people build houses that can stand up to the wind, the flooding is what they can't deal with. Nothing stops all that water...especially if it pushes a storm surge in first.
It's been a bad day or two, but I think we'll get over it.
I'm in north Louisiana, not in the "danger zone" if you will, but Isaac stomped through here yesterday, pretty much dead centered us. I'm at the local library right now, looking at tree limbs down all over the place, small ones fortunately, but have seen some pretty good sized ones down in other parts of town.
Lots of rain, my gauge said about 4 inches, which is not much compared to what the Louisiana coast was supposed to get. I haven't looked up any detailed info, but the south Louisiana region apparently got really pounded, but mostly with water. Flooding in some areas was up to the roofs of houses, at least 150 people had to be rescued in one parish (Plaquemine parish). Flooding there was around 10 feet in places.
On the flip side, this is all nothing new to south Louisiana. I've been through at least 6 hurricanes in La, and a couple in Texas myself. Alicia, Camille, and so forth. The first one I remember was 1963 or 64, it flooded the area but not bad enough to run us out of the house. I got into loads of trouble when I saddled up a horse and took a short ride during the eye...the water was just above knee deep to the horse. That may have been Hilda... I need to look it up some time, see which ones I've seen...some were pretty rough. 120 MPH winds can get pretty scary...and a couple came through stronger than that...
Grand Isle, where it hit pretty hard, has been wiped out at least a half dozen times that I remember. I've gone there for years to fish, and we took summer vacations there during the 60's. It changed almost every year...but every time it got stomped on by a hurricane, they rebuilt it. Some people stay where they are either because they can't leave, or they already know what to expect, lots of us have been through this a bunch of times.
Right now we have a lot of evacuees here, and a lot of people aren't happy about it. Katrina brought us a big crime wave, stores closed because they couldn't stop the evacuees, so many were just walking out with whatever they wanted. People loaned them travel trailers to stay in until they could go home, all of them were trashed out. They had a lot better place to stay than those in New Orleans, and they did nothing but complain about it. They even raised hell because they had to walk outside through the rain to get to the portable toilets. So where do you expect to put 30 porta potties???? One cop stopped a guy drunk, walking down the middle of the street, and was going to just take him back to the shelter...he started cussing the cop so he got a ride to jail instead. It was ugly...everyone I know here did not want them back, and we got it anyway. Everyone I know is carrying a loaded gun...Including me. It really got that bad last time, we had so much trouble people are scared.
OK I'm just trying to point out some of the other side of the story here. I haven't heard what's happening this time, but the police started doubling the patrol around the temporary shelter soon as they started coming in, I don't think anyone is loaning out trailers this time...or letting anyone into their homes...I've been looking out the window or door every time I hear a noise outside...my sister worked with a girl who wouldn't admit she was from New Orleans...because of the bad reputation they got from Katrina...She was going to school, getting into a better career, improving and trying to rise above it, I have to respect that.
Fortunately I don't think we've had so much trouble this time, I haven't heard as many sirens...we did get a lot of rain, and some pretty good wind but I think the wind had dropped considerably before it got this far north. No tornadoes that I know of around here, the only wind damage I've seen is fallen tree limbs Katrina loosened some shingles on my house and started a roof leak, fixed long ago. We think limbs slapping it caused that, those were trimmed back too.
All in all we're doing ok here, but south Louisiana is still not out of the woods, they took a lot of water damage, flooding in several areas, a town in Mississippi got a tornado, one place had to do a controlled release of the dam so it wouldn't fail entirely, a lot of southeast Louisiana was evacuated before that, due to the chance of flooding from the river release.
The people on the gulf coast will go back and rebuild, they've been trough this more than once. I haven't seen any reports on Grand Isle, but I know the place has been pretty much demolished at least a half dozen times, they always put it back together...A lot of people build houses that can stand up to the wind, the flooding is what they can't deal with. Nothing stops all that water...especially if it pushes a storm surge in first.
It's been a bad day or two, but I think we'll get over it.
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If you see me running, better catch up!
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If you see me running, better catch up!
http://billy-griffis-jr.artistwebsites.com/
