Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Hurricane Gustav #1

Sunday Morning ten of us met to worship and pray prior to evacuating for Hurricane Gustav. One couple planned to stay through the storm. They are in an area where little water was expected.

Several people wanted to attend worship with us, but didn't know if they'd have access to travel.

After loading up all our necessities and my wife's "Treasures," we raised everything possible off the floor to avoid possible destruction by flooding.

We left Slidell about 4:15 PM with a four vehicle caravan. We traveled Highway 11 to Pearl River, La; then Highway 41 to Bush, La where we hit Highway 21 which took us through Bogalusa and on the the Mississippi State line. Mississippi Highway 35 took us across Highway 98 to Highway 84 which we took to Laurel, Ms. Total travel time was less than four hours.

As we traveled, we listened to news reports to people traveling to Laurel, Ms from Slidell which took 8-10 hours. I tried to reach radio stations to suggest our route, but was never able to connect.

There was plenty of fuel and food along our route also. Radio stations reported several exits along the I-59 corridor being blocked because there was no fuel. When I arrived back in Slidell Saturday Evening, I found only one station with diesel fuel and gasoline. That was about dark Saturday. I was glad I had filled up before leaving Stonewall.

We arrived at the home of Diane's Mother about 9:00 PM and immediately began unloading frozen foods from the ice chests into her freezer. Bed time was very welcome when about 11:30 we began crawling under the sheets.

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