My Evacuation and Return From Gustav Pt. 2

First thing is first, my thoughts and prayers go out to those in Texas dealing with Hurricane Ike right now. I know well what you are going through and it is not someone I wish on anyone. I wish those in the Houston/Galveston area all of the best and I hope the storm passes quickly and that the recovery is swift.

I know that if there is anything that I or the city of New Orleans can do to help, we will gladly do so.

Now to continue from part one.

Tuesday, September 2

Tuesday should have been damage assessment and cleanup day but it wasn’t meant to be. Gustav had parked himself a little bit north of our location making it a miserable day.

Though the winds were calm, there was plenty of rain to still be found. Worse still, the humidity kept rising through the day, making an already muggy un-air conditioned home even more unbearable. Though we opened windows as best we could with the storm, the house was quickly becoming a heat trap.

It was miserable for everyone there. The only breaks we got from the heat was when we took Calico outside to use the restroom and were dunked in ice cold rain water. The day was spent in a vicious cycle between freezing cold and burning hot.

To make matters worse, the water pressure had dropped like a stone overnight. We had running water, but only about a quarter of what was necessary for normal living. For example, filing up the toilet would take at least 20 minutes.

This made showering impossible and it didn’t take long before the heat, the dogs and the lack of bathing made the house extremely foul.

Still, everyone did their best to grin and bear it. According to the power company, it was only for two or three days and as long as we kept ourselves occupied playing games or talking, it wasn’t that bad.

Even if everything else was going to Hell, the company was still good.

Wednesday, September 3

Wednesday was the day in which our spirits broke and our united front crumbled. Lack of sleep, high heat and rough living conditions pushed everyone to the edge. Tempers were high and, though we all tried to put on a brave face, everyone was worn down.

The problem we were facing was that we were in an extremely rural location. Cell phone reception is spotty on the best of days and even radio reception does not always work. Communication was tough and, to make matters worse, we had not heard from Crystal’s grandparents due to a downed cell tower and the lack of a land line.

When we finally got in touch with them, we learned that they had sustained some damage to their house in the storm but already had power. We drove over there first to check on things, where we learned that the damage was purely cosmetic, and then drove back a second time to drop off the contents of our refrigerator so the food would not spoil.

At this point a split came up between us. Crystal’s mom wanted to move in to their house for the night. However, I felt that the house was too crowded already, with two families living in it before the storm, and that it would be even worse over there. Though I was not keen on sleeping another night without air conditioning, I was less keen on sharing a bed with near-strangers or curling up on the floor.

I had made the decision to stay and hope that the power company would make good on their promise to get the lights back on. However, the radio seemed to indicate otherwise. Not only was the power company dealing with a larger outage than planned, but it was still raining in nearby Alexandria and parts of the city were flooded.

Everyone was in for a rough night no matter what, it was just a matter of a hot house vs. a crowded one.

The only thing that was clear was that everyone was miserable and on edge. However, before we reached the breaking point, Crystal and I stopped at a gas station in the nearby town of Montgommery. Our goal was to pick up some snacks but they had reopened their pizza line. We ordered a large and went to pay, only to find out too late that the credit card machine was not working and we did not have enough cash on hand to pay for it.

The lady, too pity on the situation and accepted a simple IOU for the pizza. It caused us both to take a deep breath and relax. As we waited for the pizza we sat in the eating area of the station and chatted while listening to what others were saying.

The area was a mess but the people were doing a good job of coming together to get through it.

The warm pizza was a nice treat after two days of scarfing down perishables before they could spoil and eating hurricane supplies but we were still faced with the prospect of another hot night. However, somehow, it was a little more bearable.

Thursday, September 4

On Thursday, we woke up to bad news. The landline, our only reliable communication at the house, was dead. Though the storm had been gone more than three days, the landline fell silent. The only means of contact we had was text messages sent from my phone.

However, even that required some effort. The phone had to be propped up against the window of one specific room in the house, in the corner of the glass, up against the metal frame. I had been using this trick for the past few days to update friends and family but now it become our only lifeline.

This, at first, seemed like only a minor complication but it turned a bad situation much worse. Where previously staying in the house was merely uncomfortable, not it was outright dangerous. There was no way to call for help in an emergency and no means of staying in touch with family members that couldn’t use text messages.

After using text messages to get in touch with my mother-in-law’s boss to make sure she didn’t need to go into work that day, we set out to find alternate accommodations. Crystal’s mom went to visit her parents while Crystal and I went north to Natchitoches, where we first stopped at a McDonald’s for a hot breakfast and cheap wifi (Note: We stopped on the way to pay for the pizza.).

There, we took turns using our EeePC to update our sites. I also took advantage of the strong cell signal to call friends and family, including those I had not touched base with since we had left. It was nice to hear some friendly voices but we had to keep ourselves focused. Not only did we have supplies to purchase, but we had to find a hotel fast.

Of course, finding a hotel was not an easy challenge. Not only was Natchitoches a major evacuation destination for those leaving New Orleans, but we were not the first to try and find refuge there from closer parishes due to the power outages. Combine that with the need to find a room that would allow dogs and we had a recipe for failure.

We started with hotels in the city center. Though I-49 runs near the city, it doesn’t come by the downtown area. This meant that evacuees were, most likely, going to cluster near the highway. From the looks of things, we were right. The first hotel we went to had two rooms for us but would not work with us in holding the rooms until we could get the credit card there (we were making arrangements through Crystal’s mother until we could get back and straighten out our finances to pay her back).

The second hotel, however, was nice enough to help us. We booked the rooms, one which allowed pets, and made the drive to tell Crystal’s mother. We told her the good news and left from there to head back to their house to collect a few things.

However, as if the day had been going too good, we hit a light rain patch on the last leg of the trip. We turned on the wipers but watched in horror as they stopped in the middle of the windshield about a mile from the house. Fortunately, the rain wasn’t too heavy to drive in but now we had another worry to top everything else off.

We were soon followed by Crystal’s mom and her father, who returned from work for the day, dead on his feet. We quickly broke up into unofficial teams and tried to fix all of the problems. Crystal and her mom packed while I and her father worked on the wiper situation.

But where the packing went smoothly, the wiper situation was hopeless. The problem was not as simple as a fuse and closer inspection of the car showed evidence that, during the storm, a tree limb had struck the front of it right where the windshield meets the hood.

All evidence pointed to a bad motor and that would have to be replaced before we headed home. A plan was hatched to get the motor in town and then take it by the prison for them to replace. That way, we would only pay for the part, not the labor.

However, making that work required getting the motor that day so we could take it by in the morning. It was already getting to be mid afternoon so we would have to hurry.

Hastily, we sprayed a double coat of Rain-X on the windshield, so light rain would not be an obstacle, and finished packing before caravaning to the hotel. Fortunately, we didn’t hit any rain on the way so we did not need to test our ad hoc fix.

The hotel was something between a dump and a dive but it was livable and it even offered free wifi access. We had two rooms, a small one for Crystal, myself and Calico, and a larger suite for Crystal’s parents and brother. It certainly wasn’t home, but it was miles better than what we had.

I set about updating my site and trying to answer email, Crystal went with her family to dinner and brought me back a to go box (I needed to watch the dog). After that, we settled in for the night. A hot shower and a cool bed, it was a great feeling.

Friday, September 5

New Orleans had reopened the day before. We knew from calling our home that we had no phone and Internet and, from calls to neighbors, we knew that we had no power. We were in no hurry to get home but, now that we were in livable conditions, the focus began to shift to making preparations.

The primary concern, at this point, was the wipers on the car. Though we had tried to get the part the day before, we didn’t make it in time. So, Crystal’s father took it to the prison to see if there was anything they could do without it.

Unfortunately, all their testing did was confirm that it was the motor and that we would have to wait until Saturday to fix it. At this point Crystal and I got in the her father’s truck to drive to the parts store and pick up the motor.

At this point though, Murphy’s law kicked in full force. Her father’s truck has always had what could generously be called a “trick ignition”, one that involves a complicated starting process involving a key, pliers and an understanding how to activate it. I knew how to use it, but it was in the hotel parking lot that it flat out broke.

Crystal and I were stranded at the hotel, with no confirmation we’d have the room for a second night. We tried for over 30 minutes to get the truck started with no luck. We called in for help but there wasn’t much anyone could do. Crystal’s mom agreed to pick up the wiper motor for us while she was running around for her job but the only other thing we could do is re-book the room. Any hopes of leaving for New Orleans that day, even in the evening, were dashed.

This was probably the greatest moment of frustration. Where I had remained relatively calm during most of the “murphy” moments up to that point, this was a breaking point for me and I needed to get away for a bit to calm down. After I was done cursing at the truck and pounding the steering wheel with my palms, I took a short walk to find my nerves and talk things over with Crystal.

We went back to the room and tried to make the best of it, getting work done on the laptop, spending time with Calico and waiting for everyone to get home. When they did, we all enjoyed a dinner out at a nearby diner and called it a night early.

It was a rough day that left all of us feeling defeated, but at least it was over.

Saturday, September 6

The plan for Saturday was simple. Check out time at the hotel was 11. That gave us about four hours from when Crystal’s father in law would get the car on the prison grounds to get back to the hotel. Should have been plenty of time.

To speed things up we cleaned everything out of the car to help him clear security and shipped it with just the spare tire, jack and motor. Crystal’s mom went to her job at about the same time, leaving just Crystal and I in the hotel.

We slept in that morning and both took an extra long hot shower. We then packed up the hotel room the best we could putting everything in one suitcase and the laptop case and headed down to the lobby of the hotel. However, at a few minutes before 11, there was no sign of Crystal’s father.

The three of us, myself, Crystal and her bother, waited in the lobby. I passed the type getting updates on Hanna and Ike but grew more worries as the clock started to approach noon. We were officially checked out of the hotel and restricted to camping out in the lobby and we hadn’t heard anything from her father. We tried to call repeatedly but his phone was off, a clear sign he was inside the facility. We just hoped nothing bad had happened to him on the way back.

Finally, at a little past noon, we received a call that he was on his way and that the wipers were fixed. It would be another 30 minutes before he got there, but it at least took the worry off our shoulders. With everything else that had gone wrong, we were just waiting for the next shoe to drop.

We then had a logistical challenge before us. We had four people and one dog to get into one car. It was a tight squeeze to say the least but we did manage to get it. Fortunately, we didn’t have far to go to drop her Crystal’s brother off and that let the rest of us spread out.

We decided to relax. Since Crystal’s father wasn’t going back to work that day, we got an early lunch at KFC, took a moment to refill some prescriptions and then headed to the house to finish packing.

By this point the house was almost unbearable. Even though it was empty, conditions had deteriorated heavily during the days we had been gone. Still, we were able to stick it out enough to pack and do some basic cleaning. It didn’t take much to make it more livable, but no one was volunteering to stay the night.

We packed up the car and prepared to head to Alexandria to meet Crystal’s mother. Unfortunately, the items we packed during the evacuation not only filled the trunk, but also half of the backseat. It was fundamentally the same as traveling with four adults and a dog. This time though, the trip was much longer, about an hour total.

Still, we managed to get through it, most of it with Calico on my lap as Crystal drove, and met Crystal’s mom at her work. There, we stayed for a few minutes to talk and ended up heading to get a very early dinner. Since we had just eaten, most of us weren’t hungry but we made the most of it.

After that, it was time to finally head home. But not before I noticed something else wrong, a crack in the windshield. It was about six inches in length and had formed right at the base of the windshield at the center, about where we guessed the branch had hit.

There was nothing we could do about it then and the car was safe to drive, but it would be another hassle for when we got back.

From there though the trip was fast and the traffic was light. Most of the rush to get back in had long since passed and we were already part of the way home. We ended up landing in the city late that evening, pulling up to find our house intact.

A quick walkthrough of our home and garage confirmed that we had no damage and we also learned that we had both power and Internet access, something that was sorely lacking after Katrina. Everything was as we had left it (meaning a total mess, the storm didn’t even clean up after us).

We breathed a sigh of relief, dropped our belongings into the living room and then heading almost straight to bed. Even Calico didn’t mind sleeping outside that night, I think he, like all of us, were glad to be home.

Still, at that point, Ike was coming for New Orleans so we had to keep an eye on it. We kept the boards up on the windows and our bags packed. Just in case.

I’m glad it wasn’t a necessary precaution…

Conclusions

As far as an evacuation experience goes, this one was much worse than Katrina. Though Katrina had us much more worried about our home and belongings, it also missed the upstate, instead veering toward Mississippi. Gustav came right for us and we were caught in the middle of the path of destruction.

The worst part of Gustav was not what happened to our home, but what happened where we were. It was clear that the upper part of the state did not take this storm seriously and was caught off guard. The result was that, even as New Orleans was coming on line and opening back up, Alexandria and parts even north of that were still stumbling.

I have an old adage when evacuating from hurricanes that says “Don’t Go Along The Coast” or, for us in Louisiana, “Go North!” It’s usually a good strategy but here it did not work so well.

Still, thanks to both my inlaws, who provided much-needed help, and the people in the area, who pulled together even as the powers that be seemed to be caught with their pants down, the experience was survivable.

The only person I have an issue with now is Mr. Murphy. If every I meet him, I’m going to shove a copy of his laws down his throat.

Harsh? Perhaps. But when you’ve been stranded in hotel parking lot due to a bad ignition, you can practically hear him say “I told you so…”

Jerk.

Thanks again to everyone who helped us during this difficult time, you will always be in our hearts!