Grab your AX and your HAMMER and Climb For The Sky... City warning from NOLA

Know where an AX or HAMMER are if you stay in New Orleans .. so if you go up to the rooftop and need a way to get out.. you have tools with you.

Does anyone understand how surreal and yet very real this story is ...

Hello?

Yes, reminds me of Andrew. You go on automatic on everything you have heard and realize that somehow.. the not normal, the not real.. the unimaginable has somehow suddenly become "normal" and it is happening.

Understand something.. most of what you are doing right now is for after you come back. If you have something to come back to or....if you are staying and "riding it out" .. you are preparing for a Cat 3.. because a Cat 4 or a Cat 5 cannot be prepared for and all that water you just put away for every member of your family, those canned goods and snacks will be blown all away and found by someone else far from you waterlogged found after the storm stuck in a bush somewhere.

You are preparing for best case scenario. You are preparing for some miracle to happen.

And, yet.. you have to because there is that possibility. That chance that somehow it will spare your town or townhouse enough to suffer through the after effects of being hit by a hurricane.

My brother drove down to Miami Beach today to go to his chiropractor. He got electric back yesterday around 4. That was two full days after the storm hit ... and that was a Category One. Miami Beach has traffic lights out. Most stores are closed and cleaning up.. restocking. It's a mess and that's from a Category One. Will take weeks.. months for things to be normal after even a Category Three.. let alone a four or more..

And.. let me explain something else.

History of New Orleans. It is the road that built America into what it was and is.. the road up the middle of the country. It is the way in and out of many of the products in that area (including gas) that are shipped into the port and then from there.. move out into the rest of the country. It is a MAJOR port of entry.. as is Houston and people still ask "why would you build a city THERE?" Because if you remember your American History.. rivers were the roads we traveled into interior towns. Cargo went down to New Orleans.. goods came in. People came in.. Port of Entry. New Orleans didn't get built so that people could get drunk listening to Dixieland Jazz though it's not a bad idea to do at least once in your life.

Battle of New Orleans.

Stories of the Civil War.. War Between the States..

New Orleans is a big part of American History.

Somewhere along the line after years of not being hit by major storms (which has a habit of slowing down population growth demographically speaking) ...after years of not being hit people begin to feel they won't and they buy into the beautiful home sites available out and about the New Orleans area. Has some of the best colleges in the South let alone the Country. Has jobs ... businesses.. That is why people live there.. not because they want to get drunk or listen to Dixieland Jazz or eat some pralines.

Sitting here talking to weather friend ..good friend.. listening to audio from the TV station there and watching TWC.

Hoping for a miracle and the odd downside of a miracle will be that if Katrina veers away and New Orleans gets lucky... the next time she is threatened by disaster people won't want to leave because they did this time. Instead of giving thanks.. many will be pissed they left, call it hype and later in the season if the patterns prevail and another storm heads their way they won't want to leave.

Go figure. Crazy but true. Happens. Human Nature kicks in.

More later.. no money, no gasoline.. grab your hammer and ax and pray.

Bobbi
What can I say that I haven't said already?
Be back in a bit with more links and new info.
Yeah.. Fishing is out there somewhere thinking Hugo and knowing Bobbi is thinking Andrew. And, years from now .. so many people in this storm's path will be looking back to Katrina. AS much as disaster strikes..the story is not in the disaster. The truth is the story is in the recovery and the rebuilding. Galveston didn't really because by the time they did Houston Ship Channel opened up and stole their thunder and they were relegated to a beautiful vacation spot. Miami rebuilt. Charleston rebuilt. So will New Orleans or Gulfport or whoever gets hit. The real story is in the rebuilding and not the lives lost but all the lives spared.