BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES!

Here we go again! De Ja Vu to three years ago this weekend. Louisiana seems to be in the direct path of Mr. Gustav. As life time Louisiana residents, we realize that a hurricane is a very unpredictable monster. You never know, for sure, where it will hit. Mother Nature likes to be in control and she is definitely in control when it comes to hurricanes. Here is the latest posted picture of Gustav bearing down upon the Gulf of Mexico. If you have ever been to the beach on the Gulf, you know how warm that water can be. Hurricanes love warm water and feed off the tropical weather that we live with day to day.
This image provided by NOAA taken at 3:45 a.m. EDT Thursday Aug. 28, 2008 shows Tropical Storm Gustav located about 80 miles east of Kingston Jamaica.

Here is the potential track of Mr. Gustav-but you will note how large the potential strike zone is. The latest weather report has the hit to be more in central Louisiana and not New Orleans, which is on the East side of the state. No matter where it hits-it is trouble! If the hurricane continues North, we could feel the effects with large amounts of rain and possible tornadoes which spin off the storm.

I well remember three years ago when Katrina and then Rita hit. I worked in the local Red Cross shelter for four weeks at which time they moved the remaining residents to Shreveport. There is no way to tell you about that experience. I watched displaced residents day in day out try to sleep in a room with around 250-300 people in it. As much as we all tried to make it a tolerable situation, it was horrible at best. I had to take a bank of immunizations since there was a danger of all kind of health problems with people jammed together like that. I have a memory of cars packed tight with all that the evacuees had left in the world. Babies crying, sick children, the elderly with numerous health concerns, some less than upright citizens, and on and on. The school age kids had to attend school locally since there was no way to know when they could go back home, much less back to their schools-new home, new school, no friends-HOW SAD. Their were no showers in the local shelter, so they bused the evacuees to the local university to use their showers. Think about it-you have to get your stuff all together, climb on a bus, and go across town to shower. This meant laundry-LOTS of laundry-towels and linens that had to be washed, dried and folded. The entire process was beyond any words that I might have to describe it all.

Pray for our state and the South Louisiana residents as the storm bears down upon us. Three years after Katrina and Rita-we have still not recovered and now another storm is bearing down. PRAY FOR LOUISIANA!