The day after Gustav

What a mess! There is so much damage all throughout the state. I feel really fortunate that we are safe and didn't have any damage here. Our generator is working fine, but the house is hot, especially upstairs, because we can't use the window units when it's raining outside. The windows in our bedrooms are unusually shaped, so Walter had to use plywood around the window units to make them fit into the windows, but rain can come in too. Downstairs we were able to use the window units in the kitchen & the office to try to cool off the bottom floor. Walter & I slept on the sofas last night and the boys were happy to use several fans in the bedroom. This morning, the rain and wind has stopped, so I opened all of the windows upstairs. Hopefully, that will cool things off. I am expecting my mom & step-dad to come stay here as well as Walter's son, Sean & his girlfriend if they do not have power at their homes before long, so I am hoping we can have cool places for everyone to stay.

There was a surge of water in the rivers as predicted, but since we are up so high, that wasn't a problem for us. Our dock is underwater, but that isn't a big deal. I'm sure many houses in our area are about to get water in them, if they haven't already. Here is Walter out on our dock taking his lights off before they go underwater.

During Katrina, we lived in a condo down the street while we were building our house. We lived there until a year ago, when we were finally able to move into our house. We drove by the condo yesterday, and the chimney was ripped off the roof and there is a large, gaping hole in the roof!! I hope nobody lives there now and I'm glad we don't! I'm sure the place is full of water! Here is a picture of the condos with all of the boat house roofs ripped off on one side. Half of them are laying in the street on the other side! You can also see where 2 of the chimneys are laying on top of the roof. Our condo was on the other side, but the same thing happened.

Walter went to work this morning, but his plant is out of power, water, etc., so he came home and will go back when there is something he can do. The electric companies are saying there may be no power for weeks, so who knows when we will all be able to get back to school and work.