Survived Gustav, gained 2 lbs - And I don't care!

I'm just grateful to have come through as well as we did.  No major damage for us, and we got our power back last night about 7:30, so we were only out four days.   Not too bad considering 60% of the state still doesn't have power (and with Katrina we were out for seven days).  Our neighbor lost the whole back half of his house to a tree though - thank goodness no one was hurt.

We're just outside Baton Rouge, the hardest hit major city.  I drove in to the city yesterday afternoon, and it's pretty bad.  Lots of damage. Probably only 25% of the power is back on there. I believe the # they gave on the news was still 200,000 people without power just in the metro Baton Rouge area.  The entire state was close to a million without power to start, but I'm not sure where those numbers are now.   They are telling the people that live in the areas south of us, where landfall was, that they may not have power for a month!

The store's that are open are so wiped out of supplies it's not even worth going.

Some people are waiting a couple hours in line for gas, and I've heard up to 8 hours in the lines for MRE's, water and ice.

So, I can't complain about gaining. There was nothing to do BUT eat!  Canned foods, chips, crackers, packaged brownies, chocolate, you name it!  I'm surprised I only gained two.  Probably mostly water weight from the all the salty stuff. 

Is anyone else from my area back online yet?  I hope everyone else is OK too!

I am glad you are OK... I live in central Florida and we got hit with Faye (flooding) now Hannah, (just rain thank god) and Now we are bracing for Ike.  I hate this time of year! Ike is a scary one though Cat 4 right now, heading right for us!  I am in a brand new block home, so I am not TOO worried, but it is scary nonetheless. 

I am glad that you came out all right! 

Praise the Lord you and others are ok! I didn't get a chance to watch the news these past few days. So I was clueless to what was going on. I was wondering because your picture shows a horse. Is that yours or do you live near farm area?

Hope all that read this post know you are in my thoughts and prayers.  Sorry to hear that some will be out of electricity for a MONTH!!!!. Wow and I thought I had it bad when we were without gas for 12 days.

Take care and God Bless.

Thank you.  Yes, the horse is mine.  We have three, and we live in a pretty rural area. 

I'm not surprised you haven't heard much.  From what I can tell now that I'm back online, we are not getting much extended national coverage.  People don't seem to understand what a big deal that almost a million people without power is.  As of last night, the official #s are 798,000 lost power, and so far, after four full days only 100,000 had been restored. While we "only" have nineteen official storm related deaths, in this kind of heat and humidity, it's just a matter of time before we start having people, especially the elderly, die of heat stroke.   And as usual, FEMA is not on the ball.  Supplies did not arrive until Wednesday, and then not nearly enough. 

I guess CNN and MSNBC and Fox news etc, just don't care since they can't show pictures of slums under water like they did with New Orleans, just so they can get huge ratings.   It's just really frustrating, since I'm here seeing it, and feel like it should be a big deal to everyone else.

I actually posted this in your "gustav preparation" thread without seeing this one first.

RECOVERING from Gustav here!  I live in Baton Rouge as well, near the Garden District.  We just got power restored thankfully.  We have a branch through our roof, a tree down in the backyard, and a zillion limbs and branches.  Although we got damage, we were very lucky in comparison to those whose houses were ripped in half by trees.  Of course, I have an old water oak about 6 feet from my house that now scares me to death, I look at it like it's a weapon.  Unfortunately, I do not have $3500 to get it removed!

How did you fare the storm? (if you can read this yet).  I figure I gained a few pounds of hurricane weight from eating nothing but processed food for over a week, and not moving much.  I suppose that's the least of my worries though.  I'm also a teacher wondering when I go back to work and how we're going to make up the missed days...