Hurricane Gustav Damage

A few pics I took before and after the Hurricane.

Before:

After:

Some differences are obvious: roof damage, boarded windows. Some are more subtle. Check out how neat the yard looks in the before picture compared to all of the small limbs scattered around in the after pic. Also, look closely at the neighbor's tree behind my garage. It's thinned out quite a bit after the storm.

I also saw some National Guard troops rolling through town.

While we're on the topic of Hurricanes, if you own your own home and you live in an area prone to Hurricanes, you may be surprised to learn that you probably have a "hurricane deductible" that is substantially higher than your standard deductible. You might want to look into it before the next storm comes.

A few more pics here.

Prayers and best wishes to those in Ike's path.

Hurricane Gustav Travels

Made it back from Dallas this evening about 5:30 pm. The electricity came back on at about 5:40 pm. (not bad timing). I've got a little roof damage and lots of limbs in the yard but other than that everything looks OK. I took a few pictures of the damage around town but my camera was full before I could get everything. I'm sure it will all be cleaned up by tomorrow. I'll post the pictures I have sometime this week when I have time.

We stayed at the Sheraton in downtown Dallas along with several hundred other Louisianians who had the same idea. There were a bunch of nursing home patients on one floor. I saw a bunch of LSU gear being worn. We also had what I assume were the representatives from the 9th ward of New Orleans fighting in the lobby and screaming expletives at each other in their rooms so loud that I could hear them down the hall near the elevators. I had hoped to avoid the 9th ward thugs by staying in an expensive hotel as geographically far from New Orleans as humanly possible. Apparently the barriers to entry weren't sufficiently high. Luckily we managed to get a room away from most of the commotion but I had a coon-ass life insurance policy with me just in case (a Browning .380 auto).

I may post more on this later. Right now it's time for bed. Pray for those who were hit hard by the storm. It may be a while before they get power.

Hurricane Gustav Blogging

Last night Gustav was expected to slowly grow to a Cat. 3 maximum by the time it made landfall. This morning when I turned on the news it was already a Cat. 3 and gaining momentum. That's enough for me, we're leaving.

We've stayed home for every Hurricane that has ever come through here without any problems until the last few years. Hurricane Lily was the worst for us, followed closely by Hurricane Rita. Debris everywhere and no power for about a week. Luckily we had little damage to our property but there were trees which had fallen on houses just blocks from our house, roofs were torn off of buildings, my neighbor lost his porch, CNN was filming our small town if that gives you any idea how bad things were. We also stayed home for Hurricane Katrina but we barely had a breeze (no rain) from that one in my part of the state.

Anyway, my wife is pregnant and nervous and so are the kids and I'm not looking forward to another week without power so we're heading to Dallas. Not because I like Dallas or have friends in Dallas mind you but because, frankly that was the closest room available. It was that or Birmingham, AL and the room in Dallas looked nicer.

I'm going to try to take some pictures along the way, I've taken some before shots of the house. Hopefully the "after" shots look very much the same. Keep us in your prayers over the next few days.