The Day I thought Would Never Come

Hi folks. This is for my family and anyone else who's interested. I live in Slidell, LA. At least I did up until two days ago when we were told to evacuate for the pending arrival of Hurricane Katrina. Slidell is just east of New Orleans and is located in St. Tammany Parish in case you want to look us up on a map. My home is on the south east side of where I-10 and I-12 cross.

There are storms in the Gulf all the time and they always get everyone excited around here, especially the media. You'd think the fricking sky was falling every other week. People have pretty much gotten used to their hysteria and don't pay too much attention to it. We DO pay attention to the maps of the predicted storm paths though, and then make our own judgement as to whether to panic or not.

Friday afternoon Hurricane Katrina didn't seem an immediate threat to our area. My daughter's Girl Scout troop had a weekend trip planned and we headed out. We were originally scheduled to return on Sunday. We weren't exactly watching tv that night being out in a pine forest and far inland, but by the next morning parents began calling and so we called our trip short and started packing up the girls for the drive home. Most of the girls' parents were so happy we decided to come back early in case they called for an evac, but apparently it wasn't early enough for one of the parents whose house flooded a couple of years ago in a tropical storm. I understand he was in a panic about trying to keep his house from flooding, but we did the best we could and I feel good that we got them all back safely.

As for my family, we spent Saturday afternoon boarding up our house. We still had the plywood and lumber from the previous hurricane threat (which turned out to be yet another false alarm). By that evening it was headed right for us, but it was still only a catagory 3 storm and my husband and I were actually discussing staying to ride it out. We went out that night and filled the cars up with gas anyway - just in case. I called a few hotel companies and tried to find a room anywhere. It was hopeless. They were booked for three states away, so we decided that if we needed to leave, we'd head to my sister's in Tennessee.

I went to bed that night mad that our fun camping trip had been cut short, and upset that we had to listen to hysterical media sensationalists again. It just seems like they are always crying wolf and it gets a little old. But, I guess they were finally right this time. By morning the storm was a catagory 5 storm and we got a phone call from the St. Tammany Parish president that had a recorded message telling us to evacuate immediately.

Hubby went and installed more lumber on a few more windows that we had not previously boarded. While he did that, I got the kids to pack some clothes and start loading the car. I grabbed a cooler and tossed in some things from the fridge like milk and apple juice and threw in a big bag of frozen chicken from the freezer that I figured would just spoil if the power went out anyway. I grabbed all the cereal they like, the peanut butter, jelly and a couple of loaves of bread for something to eat on the road. Then I made some backups of my important computer files and papers for my business.

Then there were the dogs. We have two silly dogs. One is a pug and the other a Welsh terrier (small dog, about 16 pounds). I packed a the crate for the terrier, along with her muzzle, some dog leashes and dog food, and then the big portable dog kennel.

We threw it all in the car and hit the road headed for Tennessee. Before we left, I stopped and took a "before" photo of our house. I'll write more about the evacuation next.