Happy (belated) Rita Day!

A year ago yesterday Rita blew through Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas. I knew the anniversary was coming, but I didn't even notice as it passed. I think it's time for a retrospective:



September 23, 2005: Gettin' the Hell Outta Dodge. Two hundred miles in ten and a half hours.

September 24, 2005: Saturday, September 24, 2005. Planning the return.

September 25, 2005: Where's my damn money? A rant before returning.

September 25, 2005: Still living like a refugee. Watching TV in Tyler.

September 25, 2005: Sunday, September 25, 2005. The long road home.

September 26, 2005: Monday, September 26, 2005. Surveying the damage.

September 27, 2005: Tuesday, September 27, 2005. Gettin' ripped off.

September 28, 2005: Wednesday, September 28, 2005. No news is good news (because it's all bad).

September 29, 2005: Thursday, September 29, 2005. Enjoying the hospital food.

September 30, 2005: Friday, September 30, 2005. An uneventful day.

October 7, 2005: Friday, October 7, 2005. Internet's back on at the office!

October 17, 2005: Monday, October 17, 2005. The power's back on!

October 18, 2005: Price Gouging. The hospital bill came. Ouch! That hurt way more than the fall.

November 4, 2005: What I learned form Rita. Some people just don't think I'm all that funny.

November 14, 2005: Price Gouging--Reprise. Just as I thought.

The Weather, Revisited

A little over a month ago, I commented on this year's Atlantic hurricane season falling far short of what was advertised. Last year, we were repeatedly told that Global Warming was to blame for the record hurricane season, and that this year we were in for more of the same.

After anther quiet month and Ernesto's failure to regain hurricane status before hitting Florida, the good folks at Colorado State have revised their predictions, and now say that we can expect a below average Atlantic hurricane season this year. If I remember last year's Talking Heads correctly, the Colorado State crew was not among those hyping the alleged Global Warming connection, so they're not the ones with a whole lot of explaining to do.

But I would like to hear all those who were insisting that Global Warming would bring us an unrelenting hurricane apocalypse admit that they were just blowing hot air. Come on, admit it, guys. You don't know what the hell you're talking about.

Back when Ernesto was on the other side of Cuba, computer models had it anywhere from New Orleans to Greenland in a week. Here's what the computer models were saying four days ago:



Of course, a couple days before that, they all had it heading straight into the Gulf of Mexico:



Which is a long way from where it's going now:



Obviously, we couldn't get that level of precision without really good data and a very clear understanding of the processes involved. And if our understanding of the weather is such that we can devise computer models that can predict a storm's track over about a week with a margin of error of only a couple thousand miles, just imagine the precision involved in models that predict the weather a few decades down the road.

What's up with the weather?

Last year we kept hearing about global warming and increased surface water temperatures making for more and more powerful hurricanes. Last year at this time, our seventh named Atlantic storm--Gert--was just petering out.

The first half of this year is supposed to have been the hottest on record. And we've had a lousey two named storms. So where the heck are the hurricanes?


Edited to add: Well speak of the Devil.... Here come's Chris now. Click on the link and scroll down to "Another dangerous Loop Current Eddy in 2006" for the good stuff.

What I learned from Rita

You can always get new friends and family members, but reapiring the damage and replacing all that stuff is expensive as hell.

Monday, October 17, 2005.

Refrigeration!
Air conditioning!
Electric lights!

Yup. The power's back on. The phone and internet connection are supposed to be fixed by Thursday.

Friday, October 7, 2005.

Still no power or internet access at home, but the server's back at the office. I found that I can sit at a computer for almost 15 minutes at a time.

Friday, September 30, 2005.

Not doing much other than sitting around the house and keeping an eye on things.

Interesting week.

Thursday, September 29, 2005.

Breakfast at the hospital was good. The eggs had a bit of picante sauce mixed in, and just a hint of cilantro. Cilantro is a dangerous herb. Good in small amounts only.

They gave me lunch and sent me home with prescriptions for Vicodin and Soma.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005.

Another oppressively hot and mostly uneventful day. Got some gas for the generator, cleaned up the house and yard a bit. Helped a friend take care of some holes in her roof. Felt the ladder slip out from under me. Woke up in the hospital. Nothing much.

They did a bunch of x-rays and scans and stuff. I heard one and then later two fractured vertebrae, and one broken rib, although the doctor said there were likely more that didn't show up. It was only a total of about a 20 foot fall (in two 10 foot segments with a bounce of a first floor roof to make it interesting).

Tuesday, September 27, 2005.

An uneventful day. I had the tree removed from the house yesterday, and today the guy came around to grind the stump. That little project (tree removal and stump grinding) came to $4000. I decided to wait to have the other trees taken care of.

I seem to have lost my glasses.

Monday, September 26, 2005.

Today I secured a generator and surveyed the damage.

Here's a picture of the tree on my roof:



Here's the one that damaged the water and/or sewer line when it fell (the root ball is eight or nine feet tall):



Here's the one that took out the breaker box and phone lines:



And here's the detached breaker box:



And here's one of both the tree that took out the power and the one that damaged the water and/or sewer line:

Sunday, September 25, 2005.

Word was that the new Lowes in Lindale had gas cans. I headed out at about 10:00 a.m. and hit paydirt. Six two-gallon cans (and plenty left for those who came later). But I forgot to get the chain saw. Home Depot in Tyler had a few left.

I filled the gas tank and the cans and got out at around four in the afternoon. Traffic wasn't a problem as far as Lufkin, but that's where the gas dried up.

The plan was to go to Beaumont, or, if we couldn't get in, go on to Galveston. When we got to Lufkin, the sign said that the road to Beaumont (US69) was closed ahead. So we took 59 to 146 (the road to Galveston). Power was out everywhere past Lufkin.

59 was lined with hundreds, if not thousands, of abandoned cars. 146 was clear of abandoned vehicles, but traffic was slow-going. Then came the intersection with 105. The signs, and the DPS troopers, said 146 was closed, and forced all traffic west on 105.

Since we were obviously being steered away from any of the places we wanted to go, we cut off on a mostly southbound farm road. We made our way to Dayton where we eventually found our way to 90, which at a bit after 10:00 p.m., took us to the outskirts of Beaumont, where police cars blocked the road.

A driver's license with a Beaumont address was sufficient to get through, and the deputies (I think they were with the Sheriff's department) let us through, cautioning us to be careful of the downed power lines and advising us of the dusk-to-dawn curfew.

The main roads into town were relatively clear, but it took some doing to navigate the neighborhoods.

We stopped first at my ex-wife's house and found that she'd been looted. Bastards.

We'd been worried that a big oak tree next to her house would end up on top of it, but it fell to the side, with only one branch poking through the living room window.

And there were a few holes in the roof. More about that later.

We went on to my house and found the streets impassable. It looked something like this (camera phones aren't exactly the best):



My house is the second one down the block. I had to climb over three big pine trees that had fallen across the road to get to it. One of these trees had pulled up a water line when it fell, and at one point I ended up knee-deep in muddy water.

The neighbor with the tree on her roof (as seen on FoxNews) saw the flashlights and asked who we were. When I told her, she said she had some water if we needed any, and that her house had been looted too.

When I finally got to my house, I found one of those 100+ foot pine trees on the roof. The front door wouldn't open, but the back door would. It was still locked. None of the windows had been broken out (although a couple were cracked. Nothing was stolen. Probably one of the advantages of an impassable street.

Although the pre-storm forecast had called for cooler weather after the storm passed through, it was a miserable, sweltering night. I tried to sleep on the front porch, but ended up having a couple lukewarm beers and watching the crew clear the street.

They had started down the street before we arrived, and they got to my house at about 1:00 a.m. When they got there, I brought my truck around and parked in the front yard. Several hours later, they'd finishing clearing the street and I went to bed.

Saturday, September 24, 2005.

The storm, such as it was, blew threw Tyler, but it had shifted to the east and moved faster than projected. It knocked down a few trees, but didn't do much damage.

I saw on FoxNews that the house next to mine had a tree on the roof. The news also said that several looters had been arrested in Beaumont. Sounded like time to get back. Sounded more like I never should have left.

Gas was going to be a problem. I'd heard that they had gas cans at WalMart, but when I got there, the power was out. I went to the other WalMart, but they were sold out. It was after 9:00 p.m., so Home Depot and Lowes were out.

Maybe tomorrow.

Still living like a refugee.

I saw my neighbor's house on FoxNews. It had a pine tree on the roof. They didn't show my house.

Where's my damn money?

They're saying that Beaumont's closed. There's a dusk to dawn curfew for those who are there, and they're going to try to remove them, and no one gets back in. Damn them. Who the hell are they to tell me I can't go home to my own house? So what if there's no electricity or drinkable water? I have propane for the grill. I'm picking up a generator tomorrow morning. I have a sufficient supply of gasoline. I have plenty of food and water and bourbon and candles and tequila. I have everything I need there (assuming the house is still there). I can take care of myself just fine. I don't need their damn "services." I don't need them to make things "safe" for me before I'm allowed to go home. I don't need them to take care of me and make it all better. I live there, damnit. I should be there attending to my own house and my own neighborhood, not sitting here in Tyler without a damn thing to do. It's a dry county, for chrissake! There's not even a liquor store within 20 miles!

But if they're going to make me a refugee, what I want to know is when they're going to give me MY $2000 debit card? Damn it, I want my money, and I want it now!

I knew I never should have left town. I'll never listen to those bastards again.

Never again.

Gettin' the hell outta Dodge.

We left Beaumont at about 9:30 last night. There are about 300,000 people in the Beaumont-Port Arthur area, and only one hurricane evacuation route. And it narrows to one lane each way in places. Sometime Thursday someone at TexDOT realized that it might be a good idea to make both lanes run north (southbound folks got to use the shoulder).

By 10:00, we had almost reached the mall, which is about 3 miles from my house. 2:30 a.m. found us approaching Woodville, about 50 miles from home. But the reports on TV said traffic started moving once you got past Woodville. And it did. For a while.

It seems that a lot of people couldn't find a gas station with anything to sell and set off with less than full tanks. There were a lot of gas stations along the way that still had gas, but where ever one was, traffic slowed to a crawl for miles. And that was pretty much the story of the trip from Woodville to Lufkin.

Lufkin is about a hundred miles from home, and about half way to Tyler, which is where we were going. That was another huge bottleneck. That's where the road I was taking--Route 69--meets up with I-59, and I-59 was full of people leaving Houston. I finally got through at about 6:00 a.m.

Once past Lufkin, things got a lot better. The gas station bottlenecks were fewer and fewer, and traffic actually started to go speeds resembling the speed limit. But for some reason, after spending so long going so slow, people seemed to have forgotten how to drive normal speeds. All along the way, even where the speed limit was 65, there were lots of people who couldn't seem to bring themselves to go above 40.

Anyway, the sun rose somewhere around Jacksonville, and we arrived in Tyler in time to catch the morning rush hour. We reached our destination at 8:00 a.m.

Now here's the good part: compared to other people I've talked to, we made unbelievably good time. A friend who left for Dallas at 1 o'clock yesterday afternoon called this morning. She had only made it as far as Livingston. Livingston is mostly north and a bit to the east of Houston. It's 87 miles from Beaumont. She was almost out of gas and there was no gas to be had anywhere. And, of course, the roads are packed with tens of thousands of other people who have been on the road for 18 hours and are out of, or nearly out of gas. And this was one of the official evacuation routes. TexDOT is supposed to be sending fuel trucks.

And here's the bad part: This morning's storm tracks predict that Rita will make landfall at Port Arthur as a Category 3 storm. The eye should pass over Beaumont early Saturday morning. Beaumont is only about 30 miles inland, and it's still supposed to be a strong Category 3 at that time. Unless the storm makes some last minute adjustments, the storm surge will flood all of Port Arthur and a good bit of Beaumont.

The storm surge shouldn't make it to my house (the maps say it would take a Category 5 storm for that to happen), and even with the storm surge and backed up bayous, it probably won't dump enough rain to flood my house, but there are lots of tall pines in the yard that I've heard are prone to breaking in half when the winds get above 80mph. There are nine of them in my yard, and similar numbers in the neighbors' yards.

I wonder what I'm going to come home to.

I'm starting to get a little worried about this.

Forgive me, New Orleans

Through it all, the words from the Simpson's episode "A Streetcar Named Marge" have been running through my head:

Long before the SuperDome,
Where the Saints of football play,
Lived a city that the damned called home,
Hear their hellish roundelay...

New Orleeeans...
Home of pirates, drunks, and whores!
New Orleeeans...
Tacky, overpriced, souvenir stores!
If you want to go to Hell, you should make that trip
to the Sodom and Gomorrah on the Mississipp'!

New Orleeeans...
Stinking, rotten, vomiting, vile!
New Orleaaans...
Putrid, brackish, maggoty, foul!
New Orleeeans...
Crummy, lousy, rancid, and rank!

New Orleeeans!

I understand that The Simpsons caught a lot of flack for that.

I can't really argue with any of this, and, although I've shared the sentiment while walking through the Quarter during Mardi Gras, I love it just the same.

I really do. I can't think of any place I'd rather live than the Quarter.

Decadence Day

If it's the Labor Day weekend, that means it's time for everyone's favorite annual gayfest, the Decadence Day Parade in New Orleans. Not quite the hundred thousand plus turnout that they normally get, but despite everything, a few stalwarts turned out:



I'm not a fan of gay parades (or any of that gay stuff, for that matter), but in this case I'll make an exception. To all those folks in the Quarter who refuse to pack it in when things get a little hard, who refuse to be beaten down by adversity, who persevere against all odds to maintian a state of normalcy, my hat's off to you.

Or it would be if I had a hat.

Not another Katrina post....

This is not another Katrina post. It's just an update of My One and Only Katrina Post.

While those areas of New Orleans under government control like the Superdome quickly deteriorated into hellholes and civilization ceased to exist in large parts of the city, the folks in the Quarter seem to have kept their heads in a way that the rest of the city hasn't. (Coming through the storm and it's aftermath relatively unscathed no doubt goes a long way towards head-keeping, even in the absence of police 'protection,' running water, electricity, transportation, and other niceties of modern life.)

But this is only an update of my One and Only Katrina Post, and that post dealt primarily with Johnny White's Sports Bar, which stayed open throughout the hurricane and provided Quarter residents a place to go after the storm had passed and much of the city degenerated into chaos.

It seems that some found my admiration of the never-say-die spirit of Johnny White's somehow misplaced. "What sort of people would be 'living it up' at a bar at a time like that?" "Why weren't they out helping their fellow man?" And so forth.

I never did figure out what folks stranded in the French Quarter were supposed to do to help folks in other parts of the city. I thought their unflappabble, business-as-usual attitude was exactly what the situation called for. It's the sort of thing that maintains civilization in the face of adversity.

Anyway, here's the latest news from Johnny White's:

Johnny White's is famous for never closing, even during a hurricane. The doors don't even have locks.

Since the storm, it has become more than a bar. Along with the warm beer and shots, the bartenders passed out scrounged military Meals Ready to Eat and bottled water to the people who drive the mule carts, bus the tables and hawk the T-shirts that keep the Quarter's economy humming.

"It's our community center," said Marcie Ramsey, 33, whom Katrina promoted from graveyard shift bartender to acting manager.

For some, the bar has also become a hospital.

Tryphonas, who restores buildings in the Quarter, left the neighborhood briefly Saturday. Someone hit him in the head with a 2-by-4 and stole his last $5.

When Tryphonas showed up at Johnny White's with his left ear split in two, Joseph Bellomy - a customer pressed into service as a bartender - put a wooden spoon between Tryphonas' teeth and used a needle and thread to sew it up. Military medics who later looked at Bellomy's handiwork decided to simply bandage the ear.

"That's my savior," Tryphonas said, raising his beer in salute to the former Air Force medical assistant.

My one and only Katrina post.

A snippet from a report in yesterday's (UK) Guardian perfectly encapsulated what I love about New Orleans:

After the storm passed, police circled the quarter with bullhorns shouting: "The French Quarter is closed. This is state of emergency. Please, please get off the streets or you will be detained."

But that couldn't dampen the indomitable spirit of one of the nation's most famous - and infamous - neighborhoods.

Tamara Stevens, 45, and her boyfriend Rick Leiby, 65, found their way to Johnny White's Sports Bar before the winds even stopped blowing. After spending a harrowing night in their swaying apartment, they needed to be out among people.

"This place will still be here," Leiby, a tour guide, said as he sipped a screwdriver from a plastic cup. "And it ain't gonna quit."


Today the Times Picayune confirms that, despite evacuation orders, curfews, power outages, rising water, and rampaging looters, Johnny White's is keeping the faith:

Johnny White’s Sport Bar on Bourbon Street at Orleans Avenue didn’t close Tuesday night, and had six patrons at 8 a.m. drinking at the bar.

"Monday night, they came by after curfew and wanted us to close," bartender Perry Bailey, 60, said of officers then patrolling the French Quarter. But all we did was shut the doors and stayed open.