Making Sense Out of Nonsense

Making sense of nonsense: Life in the land of Ivan

Many thanks for your prayers, emails, and phone calls to us about evacuating for Hurricane Ivan. Luckily, it became a great practice plan instead of the real thing. As Florida has been planning for weeks, due to their disastrous summer, those of us in New Orleans had a gathered nonchalance about the weather activities of our sister gulf state. It wasn’t until Sunday that the weather forecasters began making recommendations about finding “your evacuation kit.” Evacuation kit? Hurricane plan? Did it involve a snow shovel? How about using kitty litter on ice? Those are about the only weather-related tricks I know. (Carrying kitty litter in your trunk not only can be used for icy spin-outs but as additional weight for traction.) Where were those types of helpful hints in hurricane country?

We maintained the same attitude as the natives until I discovered that they had been covertly making hotel arrangements over the weekend. On Monday, I spent much time trying to track down a hotel room online. There was not a room in Mississippi, nary a one in Louisiana, and I had yet to worked up a desire to drive to Memphis. After a few hours on various sites, I found a room in Livonia, near the high security state penitentiary. I booked online, not wanting to actually make a long-distance phone call on company time. Later that same day, I bought some batteries, a tarp, more water, and bungee cords.

Here’s the thing that pained me: we had just moved two weeks previously. I had paid movers to place the furniture just where we wanted it. I was down to three unpacked boxes. We had moved in and were planning to stay. Instead, I was now moving most of the furniture to the far end of the room. The tarp, which I could never completely unfold because it was the size of the living room, went around the wardrobe that I could not move. I cannot say enough about a good bungee cord. I think they are the duct tape of the 21st century. I used bungee cords on everything. Even the dog was bungee corded into his crate. It was a beautiful thing. I felt as secure as one could keep their home. Things were away from the windows, in bathtubs, or up high when available. I was proud of my Midwestern efficiency and told my co-worker, who informed me that unless I tarped from the bottom up, most of my efforts would be eliminated by the pending flood waters.

New Orleans, the town that care forgot, the big easy, the big bowl. As you may recall, the town is built in a saucer with the Levee system acting, usually, as the gatekeeper to drowning the city. The irony, and perhaps interesting enough, when the levee breaks the first to drown would be those in the center of the city. Yes, like a cup or saucer, the system moves the water away from the edges and fills up like a bowl. Those living in the central city are, I’ve been told, the poorest Orleanians. I won’t get into tongue in cheek cleansing jokes. It wouldn’t be funny. I can only assume it was intended, since the rich people live near the levee or high ground. Needless to say, had the hurricane come to NOLA, there would have been nothing to come back to since everything would been under water.

Back to the evacuation. Some people did vertical evacuations, meaning they got to the 4th or 5th story of a building. Again, our Midwestern philosophy (“well, we’re goin’ anyhow, we might as well go now.”) served us well. Leaving at 7:30 Tuesday morning, we missed much of the traffic. We got to our destination before10 am while the mayor and adjacent parish (counties) administrators had not yet made an official evacuation announcement. Naturally, the motel lost our reservation, but pleading that I had an elderly person with me served me well. Instead of turning us away completely, we received a single accommodation. It was fine in its coziness. I certainly have a new appreciation to the phrase, “no room at the inn.”

In any event, we made it back, thanks to an alternate route and once again avoided gridlock (gridlock in New Orleans means taking 12-17 hours to go 80 miles. No that is not a typo). The dog, my mom, and I are all doing well. Only exhausted from the stress of this new activity; not Ivan.

Next time, we may evacuate vertically, but we aren’t sure. We haven’t determine the most efficient way to handle a very non-Midwestern dilemma.

Again, many thanks for being involved in our latest life event. Your thoughts and concerns humble us.