hello everyone. i am in central Texas and even i am worried about the hurricane. we are in Bryan college station home of the fightin TX Aggies and home of TX task force 1. if any of you in these areas don't leave because you have nowhere to go. just give me a holler. we don't mind helping. gather up some food and head away from the gulf. we plan on stayin here unless they tell us to leave. no one should try to ride it out just because they don't know anyone anywhere else and they don't have the money to rent a room. we are all friends here. i know any of yall would do it for us so we will do it for yall. maybe now is the time for a DOS...lol stay safe everyone. don't take the chance and then it ends up being another Katrina.
Just checking in with y'all. Last load of laundry is in the washer. All the dishes are clean. Nintendo DS's and phones are fully charged. Located the phone that plugs in the wall since cordless phones are useless in a power outage. Don't have a generator, but the neighbors do.
We are far enough inland that we are not under mandatory evacuation. Several neighbors are staying home, as well, so we won't be alone in the neighborhood.
I'll check back later tonight. Thanks for all your prayers and well-wishes.
Kim, Im glad you guys wont be alone up there!! Good idea to get everything clean and charged beforehand too!! Keep us posted!
One thing that stands out in my mind after Katrina--and it's an awful thing to have to remember--was them saying after the fact how important it is to keep an axe in your attic. Just in case you end up in your attic from floodwaters, and have no way to get out of the house. 
Scary to need to remember something like that. Shoot--If I was still on the coast, I think I'd also have a boat up there!
Hmmm...don't think we own an axe. But our closest neighbors do have a boat. Thanks for suggesting that I fill the washer. Hadn't thought about that! It would be good for flushing toilets! In fact, I just remembered that we have a HUGE rubbermaid trough that we use to wash our barbecue grills. I just dragged it next to the back door and have it filling with water, also good for flushing toilets or other non-drinking needs.
I hope all of this is for nothing...
Just checking in with y'all. Last load of laundry is in the washer. All the dishes are clean. Nintendo DS's and phones are fully charged. Located the phone that plugs in the wall since cordless phones are useless in a power outage. Don't have a generator, but the neighbors do.
We are far enough inland that we are not under mandatory evacuation. Several neighbors are staying home, as well, so we won't be alone in the neighborhood.
I'll check back later tonight. Thanks for all your prayers and well-wishes.
Hee, hee Kim, I'm with you there. I'm in extreme South Mississippi. I'm visiting CC in between loads of laundry and relishing the comforts of electricity while we have it. I think you will have it worse than we do, bless your heart. We have jugs of water on the counter, all the cars parked out by the street away from the trees, and our lanterns and flashlights ready to go.
I'm thinking of all my CC friends who may be in the path of the storm. I'm worried about sarahnichole because she was under mandatory evacuation. I really hope they don't get much water there but they are predicting as much as 18 to 24 ft.
I'll share some pictures too.
Boy, I hope you're spared this time around! When we bought our house I was kind of disappointed that we don't have any mature trees. But when hurricanes and strong winds blow, I'm thankful for my young oaks.
I live down a country road that used to be a pecan orchard. Several homes around here are nestled in huge clumps of pecan trees. And if you know anything about them, you know pecans tend to break. Those are the neighbors who have left because they fear that their trees may snap in half and fall on their houses.
The first image is of the two homes directly across the street from me. They are woodframe homes built on pillars and surrounded by trees. If you look closely you can tell that the tops of the pecan trees are missing because they broke off during hurricane Rita.
The second image is of my house. As you can see we have a young oak in the front yard and crepe myrtles on each side. We also have a young oak in the middle of the back yard, away from the house. The picture is about three years old so the trees have grown a bit and we have landscaped since then. And I removed the ugly green shutters, not that it's important to this topic. 
You know Kim, the homes around here like yours, with no trees around them fared pretty well during Katrina. Everyone mostly had shingles blown off. It was falling trees that did the major damage. My house was surrounded by large oaks and about 5 of them were on top my house. Also, our experience was that the pecans uprooted before breaking. My step-mom has an orchard and so do many of our neighbors and friends...lots of pecans around here. Anyway, Katrina uprooted probably 3/4's of the pecan trees. The oaks uprooted too. It was the pines that snapped. The latest news sounds good, it is not quite as strong as they thought it would be. I hope it weakens before it hits.
You have a very cute house, by the way. I will be thinking of you as this storm passes and I hope all goes well for you and your family. I feel like I've made a new friend. Let's keep in touch with this thread and see how things go for us. I hope others will join us from the area. We can keep one another informed, well, until the power goes out. 
I hate the heat, I was 3 weeks post-partum when Katrina hit and I have some post tramatic stress when it comes to no A/C. 
Let the games begin!
I snapped this pic from my front porch looking east, just before the first thunderstorm began. DH and I were taking down the swing when a bolt of lightning cracked like a starter pistol signalling the start of a race. It struck so close that we saw the flash and it scared the crap out of us! The rain didn't last long and the skies are bright again. But that's how it is when the storm bands begin to arrive.
I've started a Hurricane Gustav photo set on Flickr, where I will document our experience with images as long as we have power.
This may sound weird but I think that the sky is very pretty in an eerie sorta way when it storms. Praying that you all stay safe!!
(((Hugs)))
I don't think it's weird. And actually I've always been fascinated by electrical storms. As a child, they didn't scare me. I have always found them exciting and love to watch them from my patio. And I also love how flying, white egrets stand out against a dark sky when the sunlight hits them, just before it rains. They seem ethereal.
OK. It's 9:30 pm and I just baked 8 dozen chocolate chip cookies because DH "needed" them. Of course I photographed them, because it's a compulsion of mine...Now I've gotta clean the kitchen again.
Will probably watch CNN and The Weather Channel for the next 24 hours. At least we have cookies and milk to comfort us when things start to go bump in the night. 
Well, we're still home too. We live about 30 miles north of Lake Charles. We're under mandatory evac too, but didn't go. I looks like we have dodged the bullet. (knock on wood). we are expecting heavy rain and some wind, but not anything nearly like Rita, which mostly devastated our town.
Hope everyone is safe,
Susan
Good luck and be safe. My family from Lake Charles and Sulphur all headed to Houston/Friendswood.
Some of them had some pretty major damage from Rita, so hopefully that area is spared.
Keep in touch.
Oh your cookies and milk look great. We had a hurricane party too. Ours was called "Eat anything out of the fridge and freezer that you want" Ice cream gets soft quickly when the power goes out. 
It does look like things won't be too bad now. We have had a couple of feeder bands come through but they just have heavy rain and a little wind. Oh I do hope this one goes easy on everyone! All the faces I see of residents and news people from New Orleans to the Miss. Gulf Coast look so tired and worn. No one wants to go through this again.
Prayers go out to everyone!!!!!! We are in the North, north west side of LA & we are worried. We are supposed to get some of this too. Schools have been closed till Thurs. just as precaution. This isn't anything to mess with.
If you are under a mandatory evacuation then you are asking for it by staying. Our state looked so bad during Katrina & I think we have revived ourselves by being prepaired this time. If you stay there is no one to blame but yourselves. (Making it clear that I'm not talking to anyone that has not been told to evacuate).
I think our Gov. & National Guard, police & others are doing a darn good job getting ready for this!! Kudo's for LA!!! I hope all this preparation is for nothing & everyone will be spared.
If anyone evacuates to Bossier City/Shreveport area send me a PM. My family & I willl help out anyway we can! 
God Bless! Praying that everyone will be safe!
I just wanted to check in before i head to bed, last load of our laundry is in the dryer. My power will definatly be off sometime tomorrow, ill check in whenever it comes back on, that'll be at least 2 days. Kim good luck im thinking of you and girl you take some awesome photos, everyone check in in the next few days so we all know that each other's ok! Im going to miss ya'll, good luck!
Vanna1487 - where are you exactly in Lousiana? I've sorta started a map with all of our CC friends areas marked on it and trying to keep up with the locations!! Check back in and let us know all is well asap.
Good luck everyone - and prayers to each of you!
Susan
Be safe Kim. I don't think I could stay south of Lafayette. We are in Mamou about 45 minutes northwest of Lafayette and I'm nervous here. It's those darn tornadoes I'm scared of. We live in double wide trailer, but are staying next door at my dad's (brick house) to ride it out. My DH is out of town working in North La. His company really sucks. He came home for a few hours this evening to help tie down stuff outside and tranfer the stuf and the kids next door. I packed up all my albums and photos, some clothes, okay alot of clothes. I have had to start over again after a flood before when we lived in Virginia and I hated it. Those pictures of the dining room are all too familier to me. Kim, I'm like you in hoping this packing is all for nothing....I did stop to think...should I pack the cake supplies. 
Anyway stay safe and I sure hope the power comes back on soon...my two little boys are going to be hard to keep entertained the heat. God bless all and hopefully spare.
shanacoleman, glad you're able to be at your Dad's house as it looks like this is going to be a wind event, which is better than water, but still not good. They're predicting that we're going to get sustained winds between 90 and 100 mph by the time the eyewall reaches us, if it makes landfall with wind speeds of 115 mph. Of course, there can always be gusts much higher.
I know what you mean about the cake supplies. I took a good look at my stash last night and thought the same thing. I laughed because most of my stuff is in an interior closet, which is one of the safest places to be!
Take care and keep in touch.
I know what you mean about the cake stuff, when my son was going through with the video camera (for insurance purposes) I said be sure and get my cake supply closet!
About the mandatory evacuations - we had plans to evacuate to family in Shreveport, but watched the storm closely. Where we are we could have waited till this morning to leave, but it had already made the little turn more eastward and we decided to stay. Also I could not leave yesterday till the hospital where I work closed.
Rita was a real eye-opener for us. We live about 100 miles inland and never thought a hurricane could do that sort of damage this far inland. Well, now we don't take any chances.
It is not supposed to reach us til this afternoon , so I'm like Kim trying to get all the washing and cleaning up done in case our power goes out.
Susan
Your mention of the video camera reminded me that I needed to do the same. I just went around the house taking pictures of everything, inside and out. I'm uploading them to Flickr for a back up. The house already looks like a tornado hit it so they'll never be made public!
Fortunately we still have power. It's raining and the wind is blowing similar to a strong thunderstorm. It's going to get a lot worse before nightfall, but at least it's going to hit during the day. Rita came in at night, which was really scary. Unfortunately, the eye is going to pass just to the west of us, so we're really in for it.
If you're watching CNN or the Weather Channel and you see New Iberia on the map, we are 18 miles due north. If you see St. Martinville on the map, we are 6 miles north from it in the Breaux Bridge/Parks area. I work in Lafayette. You'll hear a lot of talk about different parishes. If you aren't familar with Louisiana government, we refer to counties as parishes. I live in upper St. Martin Parish.
Take care and keep in touch.
Oh, Kim, I just saw an update and looks like you all are getting pounded right now. Hope it passes over quickly. They are predicting Gustav will pass right over us as a tropical storm. We're getting some light rain and a little wind, but the worst is supposed to be between 8 pm and 4 am. I was really hoping it would happen during the day light hours.
Keep safe,
Susan
just bumping the thread! Hoping all is well and waiting to hear from everyone. I pray that everything turns out okay. I have been watching the news and i'm worried about my dear cc'ers. Hopefully. we will hear from them soon.
Well, our area was pretty uneventful, thank God. We got some rain, but the wind never came. I think it took a northward turn and spared us. We never lost power which is a blessing. So I guess everyone will be returning over the next couple of days so keep them in your prayers as traffic will be heavy as well as rainy weather.
Hope everyone is fine after Gustav.
Susan
Well, we made it through. We were without power here for only 7 and a half hours yesterday. The wind was really bad and so was the rain. Actually we are still getting heavy, heavy rain now. I'll try to go out and get a picture of my yard. It is covered in tree limbs, leaves and water but all is well, especially now that the power is back on. I was just starting to have a major hot flash when it blinked back on last night.
Thanks so much tcturtleshell for your support and offers of help. We live inland and weren't required to evacuate but believe me we do evacuate for hurricane force winds. They predicted only tropical storm force for us so we stayed but some of the gusts yesterday were quite strong.
The Miss. Gulf Coast and New Orleans area are not out of the woods yet since so many of them are without power and can't go home. I also feel for those of you in its path now. It's dumping a lot of rain. Everyone stay safe.
It's good to hear from you kathy and susan. I figured some would lose power. I saw the winds and the rain on the news and it worried me a lot. I am hoping that everyone that has evacuated makes it home safe and those who stayed are also doing well.
Angela
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%