Eva's Hurricane Georges Story: Sunday mornig at 9:30 a.m., Olive and I were leaving our homes and heading for higher ground. It was a strange feeling to go through the neighborhoods and see all the windows on homes boarded up to serve as protection against Hurricane Georges. The neighborhoods were desirted. Most families were already gone. On my block, only 5 familes decided to stay at home to protect their dwellings. I was not going to be one of them. I lived through Hurricane Betsy which was a Catagory 3 and Georges was expected the reach Catagory 3 statis by evening as it approached New Orleans. In Catagory 3 hurricans, winds begin at 111mph. I was running for my life and I was taking my pets with me! My husband didn't want to go. I was going alone with our "children" (my cat, Baby and my dog, Clemi).
As we were leaving the city, the Mayor was annoucning that all Interstates out of New Orleans would be closing by noon. It was very sad knowing I was leaving my husband behind and knowing after noon, he could no longer get out of the city if he wanted to. I could not return until the hurricane was over.
As we were crossing Lake Pontchartrain, I could see feeder bands from the hurricane across the sky. I just wanted to get to safty at my older sister and brother-in-law's house. Alabama here we come! Car packed like the "Hillbillies" and caravaned out of town.
The weather was nice in the small town of Alabama. We survived the trip and were all ready to relax. Clemi was going to the back yard to stretch her legs and meet the neighbor dogs. Clemi first met Maddy, the next door neighbor's dog. They were instant friends. What a sight! Clemi is about 2 feet tall and 3 feet long. Maddy is a wiener dog and a small wiener dog at that! Clemi met Scooter next. Scooter is the back neighbor's dog. Again Clemi had an instant friend. Clemi loved the yard. The yard was so large and well kept that Clemi thought she was in a park. My brother-in-law, Tom, does a great job on the yard. There are always various flowers blooming year round. Naturally wild life is attracted to the yard. The yeard is very peaceful. Clemi is an inside dog and I knew the yard and her new friends would only hold her interest for a short period of time.
Baby too was settling in. She was upstairs in the bedroom hiding under the bed. I went upstairs from time to time to check on her but she refused to come out! Cats are so independent and stubborn. She wouldn't even come out of hiding for her favorite food.
The night approached quickly and we were all very tired from the day. I was ready to turn in for the night. As I went upstairs to the bedroom, Clemi started to follow me. She followed me as far as the bottom of the stairs but would not come up. I thought she wanted to stay down stairs with my two sisters and Wendy to visit with them. As soon as I closed the bedroom door and turned my attention to Baby, I could hear Clemi crying at the bottom of the stairs. I called her from the top of the stairs but she wouldn't come. The reason hit all of us at one time.
Clemi had never seen stairs and was afraid to climb up them. Since Wendy workes for veterinarians, she was willing to carry Clemi up the stairs. Oh! Is this a good time to tell you that Clemi weights 60 pounds? Once up the stairs, Clemi was happy to be reunited with me for the night.
The quite of the night didn't last long. The wind and rain began to increase as Hurricane Georges approached land fall. Baby was the first to wake up. It was about 3am when she ventured out from under the bed. She heard the tree out front rustling in the wind. She wanted to investigate. Baby was batting at the blinds. She was trying to move them out enough so that she could squeeze behind them and sit in the window. Much to her surprise, upon looking out of the window she realised that she was above the tree and not below the tree! She had never been up stairs either. Needless to say that Baby went running for cover under the bed. She only came out for very short inspections of the room.
Clemi woke up 2 and a half hours later. Yes, now it was 5:30 in the morning. She was ready for a trip to the back yard. There was one problem. It was those stairs! She was afraid to go down the stairs! Everyone was still sleeping and there was no way I could carry that dog down the stairs. After sitting on the stairs and having a good laugh, I decided to wake Olive up for assistance. She was going to try and carry Clemi downstairs like Wendy did the night before. I started laughing then she started laughing. Clemi's eyes bulged as she was trying to figure out what was going to happen to her next. We had to put her down before we dropped her.
Hearing all the laughter outside of the room, Baby was ready to investigate. Baby was crying and scratching to get out of the room. I went back inside the bedroom to quite Baby. Olive was left to figure out Clemi's dilemma.
After Baby was settled again, I came out of the bedroom to help poor Clemi. Much to my surprise, Olive and Clemi were half way down the stairs! Olive was sliding down the stairs on her butt and coaxing Clemi down behind her. Olive and I laughed as Clemi shook with fear. Finally at the bottom of the stairs, Clemi headed for the back door.
During the day, Wendy tried to teach Clemi to climb the stairs. Clemi was not a happy student. She was getting comfortable coming down the stairs. That night, Clemi and I went upstairs one paw at a time. By the time we were ready to leave our hurricane shelter and head back to New Orleans, Clemi had mastered the stairs but she was still a little shaky climbing up. If you think the rest of the trip was uneventful, keep reading!
Olive's Hurricane Georges Story: Good Ole Georgie.....yep, he swung right all right and headed right where I was! I was at my oldest sister's house in central Alabama. The thing sends out all kinds of tornado warnings. I'd rather the hurricane, I think. And you think I don't have a story to tell.....HA! Let's see...where should I start? Hmmmm....the 5 hour car trip with 2 cats, 1 dog, and 1 snake followed by Eva with her dog and cat....or arriving at my sister's house who owns another 3 cats? We felt like we were waiting for Noah to arrive with a total of 6 cats, 2 dogs, 1 snake, and 4 people in one house.
Leaving was funny also. It was raining really hard while we were packing up the car. My daughter, Wendy was carrying the 5 ft snake (in a plastic tank) to the car while I am walking out behind her. All of a sudden, I see the snake tank flying in the air, and no Wendy. I looked down and she was on her butt.....tank on ground...no lid.....I screamed! My sister, Mary Jane, came running to the door and yelling, "Don't let him get in my garden! Make sure you catch him! Don't leave him here!" Ok!....we get snake packed up again, loaded the rest of the car and are on our merry way. End of story? Noooooo.
We are stuck in traffic and I have to go to the bathroom really bad! The traffic was moving 5mph on the Interstate. After about an hour, the woods were starting to look pretty good. People in an RV passed and I almost asked them to please let me go to the bathroom. My eye balls were floating. I asked Wendy if she would please look out of the window and tell me if she could see any green signs coming up. "Ok", she says and looks out "Mom you're in luck!" I finally inched up enough and see the sign. It was a green mile marker! I look at her and we start laughing.
Now I am on to better things...I start praying...."God, please do something with this traffic or I am not gonna make it!" Finally, I see the exit sign. Ok, I can do this I think. Pulling into the gas station, I try to put the car in park. It won't go! I think, what now? I jammed it in park then I realized what was stopping it. A plastic cup filled with about 16 oz or so of coke was in the cup holder. The cup was tilting because the little door that hides the cig lighter was open. Well! You guessed it! When I jammed it in park, the cup broke....and yep, coke all over the place. I ran out of the car while Wendy cleaned up the coke.
Guess who was in the gas station? About 30 other people who had the same game plan. When I saw that line I thought uh oh..this is not good. There was even a long line for the men's room. A little old lady came in and she was car sick so they brought her to the front of the line. She lost her lunch! I mean all over the place! That cleared out the men's line....all but about 3 guys and 10 ladies. Wendy is walking in about this time, I tell her to stand in the mens line. She does and I jump in line a head of her. She saved the day! End of story now? Noooo!
While walking back to the car, and I hear some one yelling...."Don't back up!....STOP!.....STOP! DON'T BACK UP!" I look over, and this goof ball is backing away from the gas pump with the nozzle still in his tank! The hose was completely broken off! Eva was facing the guy in her car. I am in front of her car, and I tell her to, "get out of here!" The guy gets out of his car, takes the nozzle out of the tank, gently puts it on the ground, and speeds off!
We hall butt away from there also. We call 911 and this old country guy tells Wendy, "Well, not our problem." Wendy said, "Well what about an explosion? Or fire? Lots of people are at that gas station and the station right across the street from it." He said, "Well, I guess we could send a car by." Can you believe it? And you thought I didn't have a story to tell? You should know better!
Wendy's (my niece) Hurricane Georges Story:
For me, it all started at 4:00pm Saturday night. While almost everyone in the whole south of Louisiana was evacuating, I was driving to work. I work in an animal hospital, which was overbooked with animals due to the threat of Hurricane Georges. For some reason, the clients thought their pets would be safer locked in a cage than in another state with them. If something were to happen, how was I, alone going to save over 100 dogs and cats? Luckly I made it through the night, even though I narrowly avoided getting bitten by several scared animals. Sixteen hours later, I finally get off from work. On my drive home, I was only thinking of how comfortable my bed was going to be.
When I pulled in to my driveway, I saw my mom running around franticly packing the car with anything and everything of importance from the house. Before I could even get out of my car, my mom was yelling orders of what still needed to be done before we left. One hour and half later, we were on our way to Alabama escaping the terrors of Hurricane Georges.
I had now been awake for the past 20 hours without sleep. With a dog on my lap and junk surrounding me, it didn't seem too hopeful I was going to get any sleep. Somewhere in Mississippi I was finally overcome with sleep. It only lasted 2 hours, thanks to my dog who kept spinning in circles in my lap. He was tryng to jump into my mom's lap. We finally reach Alabama and I was tired and agravated. Once we got settled and slept we actually had a good time.
We stayed there for two days, but the real terror started when were going home. I was helping my mom pack the car. Everyone in my family is affraid of my snake so I had to pack him in the car myself. I slipped as soon as I stepped out of the front door and onto the wet brick front porch. The snake cage went up. I went down. My mom screamed then started laughing her butt off. I was mad because I thought I broke my elbow and all my mom could do was laugh. I was soaked, covered from head to toe with dirt and leaves, and in pain. I had to put the cage back together before the snake realized he could get out. Thank goodness I changed him from his glass tank to his old plastic one.
Then the whole gastion situation that seemed like a chapter out of the latest Steven King novel. I thought I was going to have to actually fight the men in the bathroom line. They weren't too pleased that I was standing in their line and was actually going to use their bathroom, but when you have to go...you have to go. There were 15 women in the ladies line and only 3 men in the men's line. What can I say, I'm was the only one with the guts and smarts to get in the shorter line! When you have to go to the bathroom that bad, gender means nothing.
Then this dumb guy outside almost blows the whole gas station up (and they say women can't drive!) by ripping the hose out of the tank. I guess he didn't think anyone else would need it! I bet when he goes threw the banks drive-up window he takes the plastic tube with him too.
Well that is my story in a nut shell. When we got home the only damage in our neighborhood was to the gas station. The shelter over the gas pumps was ripped off by the winds. Our man Georges followed us to Alabama! Sometimes, you can't win for losing!
Stephanie's (my niece) Hurricane Georges Story: My family's experience with Hurricane Georges was not bad at all. Although many of our friends and family evacuated, we chose to stay and ride it out. We did not believe that New Orleans would get the worst of it.
We did leave our home on Sunday and go to my mother-in-laws home since her home is located on the second floor of a building that survived all of the other bad hurricanes. Ironically, power was lost to her home on Sunday evening and just around the cornor power was not lost on our block.
We stayed with her until Monday morning when the wind and the rain were minimal. My children were hot so we packed up and went home to the air-conditioning. My in-laws got the power restored Monday afternoon. We had no complaints about the power company.
All in all, everyone I talked with who evacuated said that they were glad they left. Their reasons for leaving was because most felt like their homes would be destroyed by the hurricnae. I guess there will always be people like me who believe that they can weather any storm, and people who have been though bad hurricanes and would rather not see it again.
My daughter, Ashley has her own version of the hurricane.
My sister asked that we take her son with us to Shreveport, Louisiana for she was staying behind along with my mother. I kind of got upset at the fact that my mother and sister didn't want to go, but hey they don't need me to make decisions for them! I just told them that if I saw them in the news being rescued, they would never hear the end of it.
We left at 1:30am Sunday after a brief 2 hour nap. I drove our car with my mother-in-law and the 2 kids, my son and my nephew. Becky, my wife, drove the other car with her sister. All was well until we hit THE TRAFFIC JAM.... from the second LaPlace exit to past Gonzales in 10mph speed zone. All of this time, I was thinking that Becky was right behind me. I wasn't paying attention until all of the traffic cleared and all kinds of cars were passing me and no sign of Becky! I kept going at 50mph hoping she would catch up. We crossed the Mississippi River bridge in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and still no sign of Becky. We pull over at a rest stop thinking she may stop and find us.
Well, to say that it was crowded would not even begin to say how PACKED this place was. I began to feel claustrophobic so we kept going. Right outside of Lafayette, Louisiana, I begin to realize that driving after a 2 hour nap was not the right thing to do. We pull over to yet another PACKED rest stop and get a 30 minute nap that felt as though it lasted a lifetime. I was the Road King once again, ready for the challenges ahead. It was now 6:00am and the kids were awake and ready to challenge that statement!
Becky on the other hand, had stopped at every rest stop between Baton Rouge and Lafayette looking for us with no luck. You ask, "What's the big deal, she'll just meet us in Shreveport and all's cool!" Well, never did it cross our minds that we would separate so she didn't have any directions on how to get to my sister's house in Shreveport!!! We had visited my sister in July, but Becky didn't remember where to exit.
As I turned off I-10 for I-49 in Lafayette, I thought to myself, "I know she can't miss this big 'ol sign 'I-49 Alexandria/Shreveport'" but deep inside I said "I hope she realizes to turn off before she hits the Texas State line!"
We kept going until we got to Natchitoches. That's where I had gone to college at Northwestern State and we had stopped at a Shell station back in July. I decided to pull over at that station in hopes that she would stop there also. Not 5 minutes passed and she pulled up right behind us! I know that I married the right person if we can think so much alike!
The crisis was over and we made it to our mini-vacation destination at 11:00am safe, sound, and tired.
We headed back on Tuesday morning just to hit THE 2ND TRAFFIC JAM 30 miles outside of Baton Rouge on I-10. With the gas tank filled with fumes only, we pulled off and gased up. Then that's when we heard the ANGEL from 104.1 FM tell us that Hwy 1 through Donaldsonville was deserted and what a coincidence...Hwy 1 exit was 1 mile away from where we had pulled over. We headed towards the promise of free open roads and were not disappointed. Even though I was in a crowded Corolla, I might as well have been in a convertible with the top down. I saw nothing but open road!
We made it home to find a few shingles had blown off the roof, but all else in good shape. We still had a home!!!
Until our next adventure.........................................
Megan's Hurricane Georges Story: I went to somewhere in Mississippi. We heard that the hurricane was coming our way. We went to somewhere in Alabama. We heard that the hurrricane was heading that way so we went to Memphis, Tennessee. We went home the next day and everything was ok.
Megan is a friend of mine and she is 9 years old.
Bernard's Hurricane Georges Story: It all started at 10am Saturday, when I was helping board up my mother-in-law's house and preparing to go get my house in order. Well, I ended up doing nothing to my house, just video taping our possessions and taking our insurance papers with us.
THIS SECTION IS FOR HURRICANE STORIES THROUGH YOUNGER EYES!