Normally I would only post a story like this on my Xanga, since that is where I post my more mundane things. But, I figured this was the one exception to only posting my “deeper” musings on this site. Now that I’ve had some time to decompress, I figured I’d share my story of evacuating.
It all actually started Friday night. I watched the news, and figured it was a good idea to keep an eye on the storm. At that point, they were still predicting it would turn North and hit the Florida panhandle. I really wasn’t worried about it. I went to bed around 1:30 Friday night/Saturday morning. My only worry then was getting a good night’s sleep for the first time all week.
Saturday morning I woke up later than usual. Initially I was excited that I had gotten both the quality and quantity of sleep I had been lacking. That quickly changed. I turned on the tv and started channel surfing. Caught the news, and saw that everything with Katrina had changed overnight. Got on the computer, and checked the school’s website; that’s where they post updates on emergencies and issue the evacuation order. Sure enough, they were recommending that all students enact their personal evacuation plans. Started making phone calls to family just to make sure they weren’t too worried yet.
Got a call from Kurt, and found out I had to attend an emergency staff meeting with the Res Life people in 15 minutes. Went down there, and listened to what they had to say. Basically, told everybody to encourage students to go ahead and evacuate if they could. And reminded them that as staff, they had signed contracts saying they would stay during emergencies to help out. My boss asked me to stick around for awhile just to make sure they didn’t need extra help.
Went back to my apartment, and tried to find a flight out. No luck. Everything was already booked. Tried finding a rental car. No luck there, either. Said a prayer, updated the family, and started making preparations in case I couldn’t evacuate (filling up containers with water, making sure I had plenty of unperishable food). Got a call late Saturday night saying that I was released from all my duties and could go ahead and evacuate. In the meantime, my sister had managed to get me on a flight leaving Sunday at 1:00pm. So, I started packing, preparing my room as best as possible to survive the storm, and prayed that my flight wouldn’t get cancelled. At that point, Delta and United had already stopped flying in and out of the city.
Got up early Sunday morning, after a couple hours of sleep. Finished packing, and got a ride to the airport. Got in line to check in for my flight, and kept praying. The longer I stood in line, the more announcements were being made that flights were being cancelled. About 9:00 or so they announced that everything after my 1:00 flight was cancelled. Only 30 minutes later, they announced that everything scheduled to leave after 9:45 am was cancelled.
During all this, I had been making conversation with a couple in front of me in line. They had come to town from New Jersey to move their son into one of the dorms at my school. They were scheduled to fly out on Sunday evening. As soon as they announced everything was cancelled, I suggested we share a rental car and just get away from the city. They agreed, and off we went. We got one of three rental cars left in the city! We loaded our luggage, and hit the road.
Initially we had some problems getting going the way we wanted to go. We wanted to head NorthWest toward Baton Rouge so that they could catch a flight from there and I could continue towards Dallas. Because of the contraflow, we couldn’t get onto any main road. We finally were able to head North on a backroad all the way to Baton Rouge. We got there, got to the airport, and parted ways. Before we did however, the man was nice enough to offer to take care of all expenses related to the rental car for a week; we agreed if I ended up having to keep it longer, we’d work out details for me to pay him back at a later date. He also offered to give me some cash for gas and snacks along the way. I declined and off I went, headed West towards Tx.
Traffic was horrendous. Baton Rouge is normally an hour drive. It took us closer to 3-4 hours. I’m unclear on the times here, as the last thing I paid attention to was the clock. Traffic continued to be slow until I got to I-49 and started heading North. Managed to make some decent time until things started slowing down. At one point during the day, traffic was at a complete standstill for at least 30 minutes. Once I got to Shreveport and headed West, traffic was great. I was able to make up time. Finally arrived at my sister’s around 12:30 Sunday evening/Monday morning.
During the drive, I received more phone calls than I had in the past month or more!! I don’t think my cell has ever rang so much. Not to mention the calls I missed because of no signal. I heard from some people I hadn’t talked to in 3, 4, and 5 years. Words cannot express what those calls meant to me. And the prayers. It blows me away and leaves me amazed and in awe.
So, that’s my story. Not very exciting, but plenty stressful.
Now, I’m camping out in front of the tv. Praying, watching, and waiting to see what happens. Looks like the earliest I’ll be able to return is early next week, if then. All the news stations show the downtown/quarter area. Nobody has shown much of uptown, which is the part of the city my school is in. And since the power is out, the school’s server and website is down, so I cannot get updates directly from the school.
I did talk to my classmate, Liz. Her and her family were able to evacuate. From the information they and I have been able to gather, they are pretty sure their house is gone. She lived in the Slidell area, which seems to have gotten hit by the west side of the eye. Her house was pretty much right on the water. As she said on the phone today, “We’re pretty much screwed.”
Continue praying. All those in the areas hit will need prayers for months to come. I’ll keep y’all updated as best I can.
So Completely 