The governor of Mississippi says that Highway 90 -- which in my boneheadedness I referred to as highway 49 in this bit of sloppily written nostalgia -- has been practically "destroyed."
Probably an exaggeration. But. Damn.
I've driven up and down that stretch of road enough to take such a thing a little personally. But I'm of course actually and prosaically worried about Rob, who I hope is safely out of the city now and not in the Superdome or some such. And about his house, which he's been working on for a while, and which is, I hope, riding out the storm. And about Gritty Kitty. And about some childhood friends of mine who are now married and live in New Orleans suburbs which are quite possibly underwater right now.
It doesn't do anybody any good. But I'm thinking about them anyway.
(By the way, KF -- glad to hear things are looking OK for your people.)
Posted by BT at August 29, 2005 02:59 PMHey Bill!
Rob here - safe in Pensacola (after a grueling 13-hour drive.) New Orleans dodged a bullet - some neighborhoods are devastated (not mine, as far as I can tell) but total disaster did not come to pass. Gulfport, MS got the big f*ck this time around, it seems.
For more detailed info, I've been checking the local paper's site - there's some good coverage at http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/. Plus some roundups at http://neworleans.metblogs.com/
Anyway, thanks for the concern! I'm just glad my city's still alive!
- Rob (in exile)
Posted by: rcs on August 29, 2005 08:25 PMThanks, BT. Here's hoping all of yours are safe and sound as well.
Posted by: KF on August 29, 2005 08:41 PMI've spent a good bit of the evening watching more of the puppet-heads of CNN than is probably healthy to imbibe, in hopes of seeing some serious footage of the areas in Long Beach and Pass Christian where I spent ages 8-15. I can't get the gist of how extensive the home damage is there once you get off the beach. Mostly though they just show the (sufficiently appallingly wrecked) commercial zones of the adjacent mini-city of Gulfport -- I'm sure it's similarly bad in my old hometown (right next door), but I'd like a bit more info than I've been able to find.
Rob and I spoke on the phone earlier, and he's pretty sure his nice little house in NOLA escaped the bad floods -- here's hoping the wind didn't knock any trees into your roof, Rob. Still don't know much about the other folks I know from the area -- too long out of touch to easily contact them when they are almost certainly not at home today...
Posted by: BT on August 29, 2005 11:38 PMHorrible to learn that you guys have personal connections to the area too, BT and KF - I think of you as NY and CA, so hadn't realised.
The thought that global warming will bring more and more of these disasters is pretty grim.
Posted by: Rory on August 30, 2005 11:41 AMBill, not sure if you're tracking the T-P site - there's a pretty detailed town-by-town breakdown of major damage in MS here:
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/breakingtp/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_Times-Picayune/archives/2005_08.html#075367
Posted by: rcs on August 31, 2005 02:15 PM