Swing Shift

(This was written during the storm and updated later, so it might be a little strange with tenses.  The slideshow down the page is rudimentary at best.  I’m bored but not that bored, nor do I have the battery power to want to waste it.)

Sept 1, 2008 – At 5 am, I looked outside to see if it was here yet.  There had been a little rain the night before, but it had stopped without too much fuss.  I stayed awake, waiting.  At around 8:30am the winds became noticeably stronger and the rains came.  Between 8:30 and 12:30, we lost power 4 times but it returned moments later each time.  There were several “explosions” – transformers and one must have been the large tree next door, splitting it into two – one part falling on the apartments behind ours.  I looked out, saw it and ran to get my camera.  When I returned the other part of it had fallen, narrowly missing my car by about 4 inches.  I moved my car across the street, rain and things flying all over the place.  When I returned, another tree fell where my car had been just moments previous.  There must have been a squirrel’s nest in one of those trees, because for the next 2 hours there was this incessant squeaking-squawking noise.  If I could have figured out what animal and where that noise was coming from, I would have brought it inside just to silence it.  The noise!

The power finally went out at about 1:45pm for the last and final time with either another part of that tree that tried to eat my car or the tree on the side of the house that was ripped from the earth, roots and all, and took part of the fence with it. In all the crashing, booming, howling it’s hard to tell what is going on.  The rain stopped briefly at 2:20pm and I moved the car yet again because another tree was threatening it.  People were on the street, trees and things still flying everywhere.  I guess when the 100mph wind stops, you think that the 60-80mph wind is just a breeze.

At 2:30 the rain is back and the squirrel has stopped making that awful noise.  According to the radio:  top recorded wind speed was 92 mph, although the 3 guys at the station swear that it was over 100 at Corporate and City.  Enh, does it really matter?  According to other statistics, LSU sustained winds of 75-80 mph.  By the look of things – yeah.  They say that this is the worst storm Baton Rouge has even seen.  Betsy in 1965 comes up, but they say there’s no comparison.  I don’t know.  I think we were lucky.  There have not been many reports of fatalities and even though there were 400+ houses reported to have been smashed, there are still an awful lot that are okay.  Vehicles look not too bad.  Everything is a mess, but we’re pretty good at cleaning up around here.

Heard on the radio, some person called in from Texas:  “I hear the Longhorns suck so maybe they can get this outta here.”

It’s about 8:30pm and it is DARK and quiet.  Curfew started at 8 and I still see a few people wandering occasionally in the shadows.  The only light outside is a reddish glow from somewhere near LSU.  The radio is interesting at least taking calls from all over, people asking about the power, telling their stories, looking for information and community.  The station keeps fading out though which is a bit annoying.  They say it might be weeks before power is restored.

Yesterday, Sept 2nd, I went out walking to see what was happening.  I heard the bells at LSU, signalling that there was some sort of power here.  I came to the Design Building and they were running on generators.  We (students, non-essential) are not supposed to be here, but the boredom gets to you.  It’s a little haven from the dampness outside and the internet is on, so you can see and hear something besides people asking where they can find ice.  The trees are uprooted everywhere.  These huge, magnificent oaks plucked right up taking concrete, sod and whatever else right with them.  Other trees are littering the ground, the houses, the streets.  It’s like they decided to show us how to really tailgate and have a good time.

Today, Sept 3rd,  has been interesting and stupid.  We tried to clean up a little around the outside of our apartment.  We have a nice pile going and picked up most of the large sticks.  The trees are still wrapped up in the powerlines so they aren’t going anywhere for now.  Someone left a flyer on one of them for stump cutting.  Everything is just plain wet.  Especially our wooden stairs going into the apartment.  My roommate and I were going to try to save some of our fridge food and put it in a cooler to take to the Design Building.  I watched her slip on our stairs with the cooler and thankfully not get hurt.  About an hour later, I of course, followed suit and landed with one of the treads across my back.  It’s going to smart for a bit, I’m sure.  I’m just glad that I can still walk.  With sleeping one of the few things to do right now, recovery should be easier.  Ugh.

I’m going to try to get out and get some more pictures tomorrow, although after a while one tree in the middle of a house looks the same as the next.  There are so many of these scenes.

It’s Sept 4th, I think.  They said garbage service might start up again so I moved the trash cans from the courtyard to the street.  That was fun.  I had to go through the back gate to get to them and dig out through the trees that are fallen.  There was a huge thunderstorm last night so everything is even more damp, if that is possible.  The sun is out right now which is nice, but I wish I had done some sink-laundry and put up a clothesline.  Maybe it will still be out in a little while.  My roommate is probably going to Houston to stay there for a while.  I have to decide whether or not I want to go with.  On one hand, there is at least power and stores there.  On the other, I kind of feel like I should stay.  I wish the school would just be realistic and tell us how long they think they will be out.  It’s a mess here and I can’t imagine people are going to be ready by Monday to get back to it.  It would be nice to know that we can leave for a period of time and not have to rush back.

Went on a bike ride through the Garden District.  I took some pictures while out, but after a while it just feels like you’re seeing the same scene.  These massive trees are just everywhere.  There are houses with trees sticking out of them.  A lot of the damage can’t be photographed with any sort of clarity because it just ends up looking like a bunch of leaves.  There was an oak that fell on State street and the roots and dirt that lifted up with it stood from the ground to the second story roof of the building next to it.  Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of that one.

The news reported that 90% of East Baton Rouge Parish will be have power by September 17th.  100% by September 24th.  Really??

Sept 5, 2008 – LSU returned to the power grid at 7pm last night.  A guy down the street told me about it and said, “maybe that means we’ll get power too since we’re so close.”  I looked at the tree by our apartment that is lifting up the fence and leaning on the power lines.  I doubt it.  We haven’t even seen an Entergy truck yet.  And because our area is full of renting students, chances are we’re the bottom of the totem pole – we have to get our landlords to care and they have to set up the contractors.

LSU announced that yes, they are starting classes back up on Monday.  Ugh.  I hope they get the traffic lights back up before there is a stream of crazy motorists blasting onto campus.

 

 

We started receiving mail again on Wednesday.  As an experiment (and because there might be another hurricane on the way), I ordered a hand-crank radio from Amazon yesterday with over-night shipping.  I was so excited to see that package sitting on my stoop today!!  We may not have power, but we have mail!

Another good thing, when I returned to the apartment…  a couple of the guys from the department had taken off on an adventure to Florida to retrieve tree removal equipment from family.  They were there with chainsaws and ropes getting some of those crazy trees out of the way so that maybe one of these days they will get to ones laying on the powerlines.  Thanks, guys!!

6 Sept 2008 Still no power.  About a half of a block north of State Street some power came on last night around 8:30.  Every now and then, in the middle of the night there is this annoying, high-pitched alarm thing that wakes me up.  I’ve never know what it was, but it really is irritating.  With the power only coming back on in pieces, I discovered that it must be some sort of alarm at Jack in the Box.  It went on for 2 hours last night.  I’ve never wanted so much for some place to lose power.  Turn it off!  Turn if off!  And clearly it does a lot of good since people really come running to see if everything is okay.  2 hours… pfft.

  

I had a flat tire on my car.  Not surprising with everything on the roads.  AAA is amazing!  Even with all that’s going on, they were at my car in 15 minutes.  I can’t say enough about them.  Now I just need to find a place to patch the thing.  That will have to wait until Monday.  In other good news, I cleaned the fridge.  We had already taken the perishables out (mostly), but if we do get power soon then it will be nice to have a sparkly clean place to put the new groceries.  Yea.

The above pic is from the place with the huge tree that I wished I had taken a picture of before they chopped in into bits.  I didn’t even know there was an apartment back there…

I rode my bike the other way through campus this time.  I usually go through the sculpture garden, but since it still has debris all over it, I figure I might be taunting fate to give me a flat tire on my bike.  The above pic is taken of the enchanted forest.  Isn’t it lovely?

My worst find today was the Cedrus diodara that I really just loved.

Before:

Now:

So very sad. 

7 Sept 2008 – Not really much new to report.  No power still.  That big red spot above is where I am.  So since there isn’t much to report, I think we’ll go with top 10s.  These are subject to change at any time.

Top 10 Best Things about Hurricane Gustav

10.  Finally meeting most of the neighbors

9.  Being excited about receiving mail… any mail.

8.  Cleaning the refrigerator

7.  Cleaning the cupboards

6.  Peaceful and quiet nights at home with candles and kitties

5.  AAA rocks

4.  Seeing people help each other out

3.  Slower traffic on State Street

2.  The radio DJs getting slap-happy.

1.  Technology old and new.  Text messages, email, radio.  Who needs phones!

Top 10 Worst Things about Hurricane Gustav

10.  Damage to anything and everything

9.  Landlords

8.  LSU restarting Monday

7.  Garbage from warm refrigerators

6.  That noise at Jack in the Box

5.  Mosquitoes

4.  Entergy’s power map that is illegible.

3.  Curfew

2.  Slippery wooden stairs

1.  The national media

 

9 Sept 2008 – Still no power, nothing much to report.  We finally have a little bit of coverage buried somewhere in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/us/09power.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin.

 

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My slideshow with more pics:

 

These are some videos from the WJBO website:

And pictures from the WJBO site as well:

http://www.wjbo.com/cc-common/gallery/display.html?album_id=135696