Monday, September 13, 2004

Harumph! New Orleans is in the midst of hurricane hysteria today. We entered the "cone" of probability yesterday, and now we're listed as having a 16% chance of getting hit. The National Hurricane Center's discussions still suggest that Hurricane Ivan will veer off to the right and hit the Florida Panhandle. However, discretion being the better part of valor, I made a hotel reservation in Alexandria, LA, through Expedia.com at 5:30 a.m. today -- or so I thought. I called the hotel directly around noon today, only to find that the hotel had no rooms at all and hadn't received my stuff from Expedia anyway. I spent the better part of the afternoon on the web trying to find another hotel, and it looks like we will be spending a couple of days in Starkville, MS, home of Mississippi State University. It beats sitting in a dark house with no air conditioning and a pine tree sticking through the roof.

8 comments:

Ann said...

Thanks to Trent Lott, MSU has a huge national fire ant lab. My BIL is a world-renowned expert on fire ants, and they recruited him hard. SIL wouldn't go. They don't even have a daily paper, she said, and she's not going to spend the rest of her life packing his lunch.

More than you were interested in knowing, I'm sure.

Are you going for sure? We're not going to decide until tomorrow, I think, and we're not leaving until Wednesday. Since it looks like everybody else is leaving tomorrow, we will dodge the crowd :)

Randy said...

Well, so far tomorrow is a work day for both DW and me. My office only shuts down if an evacuation is ordered by the City of New Orleans -- the usual "please leave if you can" is not good enough. TPTB in the city will be holding a press conference in an hour or so; I doubt they'll order people out until tomorrow morning. But I could be wrong. Ivan is a very nasty storm.

doug said...

I will be keeping watch hoping for you, Ann and all and their safety.

Phoebe said...

I am hoping you will stay in contact with us and let us know what is happening. Good luck to you.

Ann said...

At least your DW now has the day off, as does my DH. Can't you just call in sick or something?

Randy said...

My read of the N.O. Mayor's and Jefferson Parish President's comments tonight was that the evacuation order almost certainly will be issued at 8 a.m. tomorrow. The mayor looked particularly solemn. In any event, we'll be out of here in the morning.

Ms-Chievous said...

Awww Geez. :o( I'll be thinking about you and Ms.Banana.

Ann said...

I called you this evening and got no answer. Did you decide to take a nice long weekend? Return and report.