Update on Hurricane Gustav

Well, we are safe. Hurricane Gustav was wild and made us a little nervous throughout the day on Monday. There were times when the wind was blowing so hard we were worried trees were going to fall on our house. So we all stayed in our back room away from windows. Power went out before Noon on Monday and is still off.

After the storm started to die down, we spent the evening in our exremely hot and humid house and didn't sleep much. It was too hot to wrap Laney in a blanket, and she woke up every half hour or so. On Tuesday morning we surveyed the damage in our yard and neighborhood. We had a lot off branches down and had a few trees fall in our yard. Fortunately they fell on the fences in our backyard. The neighborhood didn't fare so well. Trees were blocking the road and power lines were down all over the place. It became very clear to us that when people were talking about power being off for a week or so, they weren't exagerating. The power company says it will be several days before they can even have an estimate of when power will return.

So, we decided to leave town until LSU reopened or power came back on (whichever comes first). LSU is closed until at least next Monday. We'll hopefully be back before then. The only people we know not also affected by the storm is Lindsay's cousin and his family in Houston. So we made a 4 1/2 hour drive over to Texas and, alas, we have electricity and internet enough to update our blog for all y'all (and yes, people in the south do say "all ya'll" as if "y'all" wasn't already plural).

So we are safe. Erik is happy because Lindsay's cousin John has a dog and twin daughters aged 3 1/2. He's having a blast.

We love our home and our new hometown, and are anxious to get back and hope this is the last of the hurricanes for this season.