nonstop action!!

well, if you're still keeping track of my movements then you hopefully figured out that i made it back to new orleans safely on friday afternoon. it was smooth sailing the whole time, no traffic problems. thanks again to all who sent their well wishes and thoughts and prayers and encouragement while i was in evacuation mode. while we tried to lighten the mood, there were many many tense moments. i'm sending out my love in thanks all over!!!

as soon as i got back i got to packing up all my stuff to move over to the new apartment, which i had intended to do last weekend. i am really amazed at how quickly it all happened!! needless to say i couldnt have done it all without some amazing help from my church family--they really did all the big heavy stuff, i sort of meandered around trying to give instructions =) my stuff is slowly making its way out of bags, boxes, and piles into some sort of order in the new apartment, but it will be a slow process i'm afraid.

all this and we're also keeping an eye on hurricane ike!!!! i really hope it stays away from us. i've been thinking a lot about haiti, with all these recent storms. we think here that we are somehow immune from a second storm after we've been hit by one but there's no reason why we're out of harm's way. haiti has been hit by gustav, hanna, AND ike. i think it probably got hit by fay last month too! anyway, i recently finished reading "mountains beyond mountains" which tells some of paul farmer's story of starting several health clinics in rural haiti and his philosophy of preferential treatment for the poor. this is not intended to be a book report, though i highly recommend it, but rather a backdrop for my thoughts on the country. we talk about how katrina revealed poverty and brokenness in new orleans but as i was reminded by reading the partners in health website, haiti never had any levees to hold water back. while its bad when the levees fail, imagine if we never had any kind of structure to keep the waters away. and talk about a foundation of poverty and no infrastructure--while new orleans seems like third world sometimes, it is still a part of the world's richest country. haiti is probably a lot farther down on the list...

back to n.o.

hey y'all
looks like i'll be headed back to the big easy tomorrow (friday) i've heard from several friends that power is on in my neighborhood (perhaps even that it never went out) and i know now there are several grocery stores and gas stations re-opened. probably will be even more by the time i get there tomorrow afternoon.
if you hear nothing else, i'll be on the road soon!
emily

quiet day

today was pretty quiet, compared to the excitement of yesterday. i went out with some friends to get an evacuation pedicure, which was lovely. i relaxed around the house and almost won a game of scrabble. everyone's been asking all day when we can get back to new orleans. they're doing the re-entry in phases so that all essential personnel will be prepared for the influx of residents. that includes not only first responders and utility workers but store owners, gas station people, etc. i texted a friend and he said he thinks that power never went out in my neighborhood, but it's hard to know for sure. entergy is working as hard and as quickly (and carefully) as they can, but we're not able to get very speedy updates. gustav is not quite letting go--there were still tornado warnings in the new orleans area, as well as up here in the jackson area.
will update as i have new information!
love, emily

not quite over

well, we have not seen the last of gustav. the outer bands were still causing tornado warnings and watches into this evening, as far north as here in jackson. i heard some tornado sirens, but nothing hit the immediate area that i'm staying in, praise the Lord! it looks like it's still raining in new orleans, so that hopefully won't accumulate too rapidly to cause flooding. c.ray says that new orleans residents will not be allowed to return tuesday, and maybe not even wednesday. he hopes to give an update tomorrow evening on our allowed return to the city. i wonder what the reverse migration traffic will be like!

i cannot say enough how much i appreciate all the love/concern/prayers/care that has poured in from all over the place. clearly i am not in evacuation with my own family, although i am with people who have become my extended family in new orleans. it was very encouraging to know so many people were thinking about us here in the path of gustav, checking in on what was happening. i dont know how to thank you all!!!!!!!!

til tomorrow =)
emily

praise the Lord!

looks like the worst of it is behind us--crazy the ups-and-downs of emotions that this kind of thing can put you through. as the storm continues inland, it will die down evenutally. everyone is saying the damage is not near what was anticipated and there was much less storm surge than was forecasted. there is still a need to keep an eye on those outer bands (n.g.v.--new gustav vocab) which have some pretty active tornadic (ngv) activity, but other than that we missed the worst of it. looks like the overtopping of the levees has stopped with a shift in the wind direction and the streets are no longer flooded. praise God!!!!! thanks for all your thoughts and prayers!

upper ninth

there is water lapping over the top of the levees on the industrial canal, causing flooding to the west in the upper ninth ward--my neighborhood!! please pray for the neighborhood, as it sustained much damage from katrina and the news just said there are still people there who did not evacuate. the neighborhood usually floods a good amount each time it rains, so flooding is not new to the area but we dont want the water to get too high!! the levee has NOT breached, and the army corps is saying they don't think it will, but the water levels are high enough to be overflowing. please pray with me!!!

here he comes!

last night i was watching the weather channel before bed. the anchor in the studio was talking with a reporter standing in front of a house boat in houma, la. there was a family still in that houseboat--the anchor asked the reporter what he could say to that family to convince them to leave. the reporter says he tried to tell them, there'd be the surge of the waves, the wind, the rain, but they refused to leave. "i asked them why they were staying and, blieve it or not, they said because the kids wanted to....." he reports "...I mean who's in charge here?" he asks, stating the question that would be on any sane person's mind. After a few stumbling seconds of just trying to come to terms with the situation, he frankly looks into the camera and says, "You know folks, we can't save everyone..." and moves on to tell of gustav's current movement. i couldnt believe it.

last night i was really feeling nervous--what would i wake up to? what would be left of new orleans? and even in jackson, there's forecasts of flash flooding, thunderstorms, wind gusts. during katrina, i have learned, power was out here for a week! we have contingency plans galore, so we wont be stuck. it's just the nervous anticipation. and not something that we fear might happen...now just a matter of watching it happen before our eyes and just wondering how bad its really going to be.

with katrina, maybe i heard about it ahead of time while flipping through the channels but i didnt know anyone who was in the expected path of the storm. there wasn't all this anxiety of the build up, watching the system spin around, "barrelling" closer to the shore. with katrina, it was just the aftermath that i watched. this is a whole added component, seeing it from before, anticipating it.

as of this morning, it appears that the eye (and eye-wall) of the storm will be hitting southwest of new orleans, though still making direct hit on the louisiana coast. it's coming on shore as a category 2, though they're saying there's a lot of rain that will last for days with it. the most recent shots of new orleans that i saw didnt show any street flooding, so that's good. but, as we know, it doesnt take too much to flood the streets so we'll see how long that lasts.

here's hoping!
emily