Update on Gustav

I’m really not sure what I am going to write here. I just got done updating Plagiarism Today with my plans regarding the storm, setting up the linkroll and doing the show notes for the Copyright 2.0 Show.

I’m preparing to leave my office in an hour or two to head home. There, we plan on boarding up the house (the previous owners were kind enough to provide us with the needed wood, pre-cut) and then, most likely, head out.

This storm has me very worried. It’s track takes it west of us, which puts the city on the strong side and puts the West Bank side of the river, where I live, in the greatest danger.

There are a lot of things that favor my wife and I personally, the location of our house, the nature of my closest levees, etc. but with my side of the river being more at risk, I am finding it difficult to consider staying.So, the tentative decision has been reached to evacuate late tonight, though we will watch the next report or two to see if anything changes, barring some kind of huge shift to the West, I don’t see us being in the city this time tomorrow.

Right now though, I think the biggest toll is emotional. Like many who were in the city before and after Katrina, I have no desire to relive memories of the days and weeks after the storm.

Those were memories neatly placed in a box within the back of my mind. Now, they are coming forward again. Like some kind of waking dream, they now envelop every thought and make me feel as if I am living in two places at once, the past and the present.

Because of this, I’m finding it very hard to focus. I have a lot to plan for and do before we go. Thirteen windows to cover, a garage door to secure, decisions to make about what to take and planning a route.

However, I’m doing all of this knowing full well that evacuating is a risk for me too. All of my evacuation points are well north of the city, but actually closer to the eye of the storm. Combine that with shoddier housing and more trees and you have a recipe for a tragedy of your own.

Everything, right now, is a calculated risk but those calculations are based upon unknowns and uncertainties. You can’t guess the actual danger of something until you know what and where it will be. Though neither my wife nor I are short on imagination, we are struggling to wrap our heads around this one.

We’re just trying to take a look at the facts we have and make a good judgment on them. Will we be right? Probably not. So many wrong answers, so few right ones. However, I just hope we aren’t wrong in a way that leads to a (worse) disaster for us personally.

Regardless, I’ll be updating my Twitter account regularly over the next few days. I’ll let everyone know what I am feeling and thinking.

Thank you to everyone for your support. I will be in touch.