Gustav --Part 2

I know that after almost a week the interest in the hurricane has waned considerably, but the power went off shortly after my last post, and I was unable to periodically update you on our adventures.

After my last video on the back porch, T.J. forbade me to go outside again. Probably because the wind was pretty scary, and he feared for my safety. Either that or he didn't want me ruining the camera. When I took the following video, T.J. was finishing up Bronwen's lunch, so it was about 3 hours after the power was out.



Don't worry--I know it looks scary, but the wind was blowing side-to-side, so I was confident the trees weren't going to crush us. Still, I admit I felt safer in the front of the house, away from the trees.



One last view from the front:



The storm raged on like this from about 11:30 to 4. It had been windy and raining all day, but the major wind gusts were the worst in the afternoon. Thankfully our next door neighbor plugged our fridge into his generator, and we were able to keep all our food from spoiling. Our house was down to about 71 degrees when the power went out, and I think by the end of Monday, it had only gotten up to about 77 in the house. By Wednesday, it was getting hot and stuffy, so T.J. and another neighbor went to buy a generator off a truck.

After Katrina, all I heard all day long were the noises of helicopters flying overhead. This storm, all I could hear in the neighborhood was the steady roar of generators.

We spent much time in our neighbor's garages, hanging out, eating food, talking politics, drinking beer (at least they were).

It wasn't so bad--the temperature outside stayed down, mostly, and Bronwen was a trooper. Thankfully we have awesome neighbors--letting us borrow a/c window units, fans, gas, and anything else we needed. We dined on filet, ribeye, jambalaya, pasta, black-eyed peas, stuffed crabs, and crawfish pie. Not too shabby.