Hurricane Storm Warning

We’re under a hurricane storm warning now. Xy and I took a walk around the neighborhood, watched people boarding up their windows, stopped in for a drink at the Red Door.

I notice that the New Orleans doomsday scenario is getting some play on the Internet. That’s the scenario wherein the hurricane sucks Lake Pontchartrain down into the bowl that is our fair city, flooding us for weeks, with massive loss of life and destruction of property. The story in USA Today bears a strange resemblance to the story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer… Even the photos are similar… I guess they must be editing the same wire story.

I’ve heard it all before, of course. And, make no mistake, I believe it is all too possible. Maybe this hype will mean some measures are taken to improve the situation in the future, though I doubt it. Bob Breck (a local weatherman) has been ranting about how people are stuck in gridlock trying to get out of the city, asking why contraflow wasn’t put into effect sooner, and recommending people not leave the city just yet. What’s the point when traffic isn’t moving? I just talked to my boss and it took him something like six or eight hours to get out to Slidell. (And why is he going east? Turns out he wanted to drop off his chickens at his in-laws’ house before heading west to Baton Rouge.)

It looks like Ivan will make landfall to the east of New Orleans. That would put us on the weak side of the storm. In any case, Xy and I will probably ride it out, which is a bit of a gamble. Ivan could turn at the last minute. No one knows what these storms will do. But we are packed and ready to leave at a moment’s notice. I’ll check the scenario at four o’clock tomorrow morning.

If we had kids, we’d have left last night. So I tell myself.

On the way home from our walk, I saw a chef in front of a neighborhood restaurant, in his puffy chef’s hat, washing his dog with a hose. I thought that was a great pre-hurricane New Orleans image.