Yesterday, I shot some video of Baton Rouge pre-Gustav. Today, I’ve got video of the storm entering the Baton Rouge area (below).
After I shot that first video, and late yesterday afternoon, I went around the side of the house where I had stacked the patio furniture — away from the patio doorwall — and tied everything to some concrete pylons. then I tied down the patio table underneath the magnolia tree (”that way, it’ll be safe from anything that might fall on it.” I told Miss Julie. ” Like the magnolia tree.”)
I had put everything else movable that was in the yard into the shed, except for one of the garbage cans which was too big to fit through the door. Probably a good thing as it had a couple pounds of shrimp shells in it from the party we had the night before. The smell from that would blot out the sun. So, instead, I tied the can to the seesaw and another piece of patio furniture.
8:30pm: The rain starts. Local weather reports say that tornadoes were spotted east and south of here in East Baton Rouge Parish. The wind wasn’t blowing too hard here — yet.
3:30 am: The rain had stopped and what little wind there was has died down. Oh, and I found a dead rat in the hallway — no doubt a present from one of our cats, Itchy.
7:00 am: When daylight came, we still had power. The wind had picked up again from last night and it was raining again. The day Katrina hit, we lost power around 8am when one of the trees in the neighbor’s yard snapped in two (I’ll never forget that sound) and fell on another tree which then toppled over onto the power lines. We didn’t have power again for 8 days.
I’ll keep going unless (or until) that happens again.
Here’s what it looked like around here at 8am.
All in all, not as bad as it might have been — so far. Weather reports suggest Gustav might make landfall as a Cat 2 storm, turning west and south from earlier tracking estimates. Stay tuned.
P.S. The storm winds have not deterred the hummingbirds that continue to dart in and out of the trees, coming toward the house to drink from our feeder.
UPDATE: Here’s the radar map for the region for 9:30 am. Click the image to see a larger version.
UPDATE 2: Some talk about the Industrial Canal in New Orleans (below) being overtopped, although there is some dispute on that. Click to see larger image.
UPDATE 2A: No more dispute. We can see the video on local weather.
UPDATE 3: Landfall at 10am in Cocodrie, LA (below):
UPDATE 4: Not to pile on, but check out Tropical Depression Nine — and how long before it gets a name?
MUCH NEEDED HUMOR BREAK: Demetri Martin funny chart presentation —
OK, a 75 foot tall oak tree across the street just snapped off above the ground (winds are gusting at 50 mph or higher) and fell across the road in front of our house. Luckily it didn’t hit anything on the way down. And luckily we can get out by going in the opposite direction. But right now, no one is going anywhere. Not until the wind dies down quite a bit.
I think the 2nd video is more amusing than watching nature try to kill you. Unless, of course, the oak tree is wearing funnypants.
The oak tree was definitely not wearing funny pants.
I’m just saying.