Hurricane Gustav

One way to keep important papers & photos safe and easily accessible is to put them on a disk or the internet. You can easily scan documents and have a disk w/ pdfs instead of a stack of paper.

I have a dedicated gmail address that I email my pictures to for additional backup.

You? The queen of internet paranoia? :shock:

I tried to post some pictures of Hurricane Eloise. Also have a movie (old family 8mm now on cd). Maybe I'll figure it out tomorrow. It shows Lake Tresca and Eastern Lake joined. Water going through where now there is a house on the corner of SanRoy. You may just have to come by the house to see them. I drove back from Pensacola today and must have passed a dozen busses heading west, I guess towards New Orleans.

Let me know if you haven't figured it out and I'll see what I can do to help.

Does anyone know where to find one of those sea tempurature maps of the gulf? I was searching around but couldn't find a current one. I'm curious what Gustav will be passing over on it's way up towards us.

A client passed along a good tip:
If you have to evacuate or just want to try to protect valuables from water, put your laptop, photo albums and any other items you might want to protect from water into your dishwasher. It has a watertight seal. Be sure to turn off the water to the machine, just in case. You can remove the racks for more room.

This doesn't work too well, some friend of ours tried this in Mississippi during Katrina and came back to find no house whatsoever. If you want it, treasure it, and can't imagine losing it you're best off taking it with you.

I'm heading to the Bahamas on Wednesday. What luck if we get here and there!

Cash drop?

ok, things are starting to get crazy here. Wally world was almost out of bread and peanut butter. This lady today almost went off on me and the cashier b/c the cashier was leaving after my purchase. :shock:

Mr. IBD just went to home depot, he felt the need :roll: for a third generator. He got the last one...He said it was the DMZ! People were sitting and laying on generators waiting for someone they know to come and purchase them. So far the 5 gas stations he has been to are out of gas.

Being that it is a Friday, pay day, labor day weekend, storm is on the way and the LSU game time has been moved things are in complete chaos. Not us though. we are .

OMG not the LSU game! It's all over people!!! :funn:

While it doesn't look like Gustav will be stronger than a Cat 2, I pray for everyone in the path. NOLA and the Mississippi Gulf Coast will likely be affected to some degree. You guys be safe! Remember that things, and even precious photos, are not important -- people are important.

Speaking of precious old family photos, you can always digitally scan them as back ups in case something happens to the originals. If you don't have a scanner, you can still take them to places like the UPS store or Kinko's and have them scanned to CD. You can then upload them to the free storage websites like www.Flickr.com , www.photobucket.com , and sowal.com . Many of these free sites even have the ability to set your profile to private, so only you and people you choose, can view the pics or just select albums. You could have some public albums and some private.

Anywho, be safe! Think. Plan. Have contingency plans.

I am so pleased to see LA taking all these precautions. Hard lessons were learned.

My sister's computer just crashed and she lost all of her photos and music. I learned the lesson and went out and got a Western Digital Passport that holds 320 gig. $120 well spent in my opinion. I filled half of it today with my photos and music. It goes between my Mac and PC seamlessly. Tomorrow the rest of my docs are going on there and I am scanning every shred of legal paperwork I have and getting it uploaded as well. This isn't just hurricane preparedness, it is good overall planning.

My sister's computer just crashed and she lost all of her photos and music. I learned the lesson and went out and got a Western Digital Passport that holds 320 gig. $120 well spent in my opinion. I filled half of it today with my photos and music. It goes between my Mac and PC seamlessly. Tomorrow the rest of my docs are going on there and I am scanning every shred of legal paperwork I have and getting it uploaded as well. This isn't just hurricane preparedness, it is good overall planning.

I need to do this ASAP, as the dinosaur I'm using is almost a goner & we will be switching to a Mac. I don't want to loose the photos or music!

ok, things are starting to get crazy here. Wally world was almost out of bread and peanut butter. This lady today almost went off on me and the cashier b/c the cashier was leaving after my purchase. :shock:

Mr. IBD just went to home depot, he felt the need :roll: for a third generator. He got the last one...He said it was the DMZ! People were sitting and laying on generators waiting for someone they know to come and purchase them. So far the 5 gas stations he has been to are out of gas.

Being that it is a Friday, pay day, labor day weekend, storm is on the way and the LSU game time has been moved things are in complete chaos. Not us though. we are .

Riv's worried about Little IBD! Please tell her that she's thinking about her!

Cash drop?

What do you mean?

Weather Underground now has this thing going to a Cat 4 Sunday night and back down to a Cat 3 before making land.

Weather Underground now has this thing going to a Cat 4 Sunday night and back down to a Cat 3 before making land.

Our weathermen have been predicting the same thing.

Weather Underground now has this thing going to a Cat 4 Sunday night and back down to a Cat 3 before making land.

calbeach, the dishwasher idea sounds like a great suggestion, as does the emergency calling tree. Everyone should have more than one emergency contact person in different locations, and they should be aware of the others on the list so that they can communicate with each other.

One other good idea is to enter at least two "ICE" numbers in your cell phone, under the name "ICE" (In Case of Emergency). All emergency staffers and volunteers know to check for "ICE" in cases where the victim cannot speak. Having more than one located in different areas is also key, because very often, one of the people on our ICE list may be with us most of the time. Be sure to inform your ICE people that they are on a call list for emergency reasons. You should indicate the person's name and relationship to you on the ICE listing. Have cell number, work number and home number, as well as email address.

Those do sound like good suggestions, as does the "old school" answering machine that someone had suggested inanother thread: deactivate your telco voicemail, and plug up an electric answeringmachine, so that you can determine, remotely, if you have power. My wife, brothers and niece evacuated early Saturday morning before Dennis, July 2005. She and I drove back down Monday evening, expecting everything to be fine since landfall had been 60+ miles west in the Navarre/Eglin area. We arrived at about 10:00 that Monday night, (expecting to host friends for most of the week), only to find the building structurally damaged, without power, and condemned. It was one of the few severe damages in SoWal, but we were able to get the last room at Hampton Inn at Bluewater Bay for the night (the Clemson/UF Hurricane Study project had most of the rooms and all of the parking lot for their "Twister" type research trucks).

I had never thought of the dishwasher plan, but it makes perfect sense.

Based on the latest track posted by Shelly, it looks like my friends need to leave the Eastern Shore/Daphne area Monday morning. God Save the Dew Drop Inn, Fort Gaines, and Fort Morgan.

This is just so depressing.
We're from NOLA, 90% of my family is still there. My great-grandmother just got out of her FEMA trailer not 3 months ago. After Katrina, my parents had over 30 people sleeping in their house for weeks and ended up having to lease the house next door to put some of them in. Once again, they're panicking, seriously panicking. None of them think NOLA is anywhere near close to being able to handle this (the new flood gates are still under construction) if they take a direct hit. It's just depressing...

What do you mean?

Nevermind, bad joke referring to a trip to the caribbean.

If this keeps up then NOLA may be safe.

Curving downward? This looks really good, for Texas.

Looks like I have two days to decide whether to evacuate from Houston or not. It is really an electricity issue for us. Where is beachso2?

It's time to leave New Orleans
Today is the 3rd anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's catastrophic hit on the Louisiana/Mississippi/Alabama coast. Unfortunately, I think that people living in New Orleans should mark the anniversary of Katrina by getting the heck out of the city. You live at the bottom of a bowl, much of it below sea level. While New Orleans must exist where it is, this is not natural. Nature wants to fill up this bowl with huge quantities of Gulf of Mexico sea water. There is a storm capable of doing that bearing down on you. If you live in New Orleans, I suggest you take a little Labor Day holiday--sooner, rather than later, to beat the rush--and get out of town. Gustav is going to come close to you, and there's no sense messing with a major hurricane capable of pushing a Category 3 storm surge to your doorstep. Don't test those Category 3 rated--but untested--levees. Conventional pre-Katrina wisdom suggested that the city needed 72 hours to evacuate. With the population about half of the pre-Katrina population, that lead time is about 60 hours. With Gustav likely to bring tropical storm force winds to the city by Monday afternoon, that means that tonight is a good time to start evacuating--Saturday morning at the latest. Voluntary evacuations have already begun, which is a good idea.

I am glad to see officials in NOLA being a bit more proactive in the face of this storm ....

Those among New Orleans' estimated 310,000 to 340,000 residents who ignore orders to leave accept "all responsibility for themselves and their loved ones," the city's emergency preparedness director, Jerry Sneed, has warned.
Officials plan to announce a curfew that will mean the arrest of anyone still on the streets after a mandatory evacuation order goes out. Police and National Guardsman will patrol after the storm's arrival, and Gov. Bobby Jindal has said he requested additional search and rescue teams from other states.......
For the third day in a row, Jindal stressed that people with the means should stock up on food, water and other essentials, and prepare to head away from the coast.
"We all still have personal responsibility," he said. "Now's the time to begin making evacuation plans."..........
"We don't want folks worrying about their property. It is time for people to be worried about their personal safety," Jindal said.....

full story here

Kitty, I don't know why you are having such a dilemma....drive to SoWal

My experience living in Houston...when it rains heavy, the streets flood....EVERY DANG TIME! And God help it if it rains heavy for days and days.
But I was never out of power... Tough call.

I really hope the Weather channel isn't discounting other possibilities of landfall just to have the drama of a NOLA direct hit.

this is a pretty cool model for all you surfers out there...
http://magicseaweed.com/Gulf-Coast-MSW-Surf-Charts/9/

See the National Hurricane Center maps. As of Saturday morning, 8/30, it looks like SoWal has a 20% chance of 50 MPH winds, and a 40% chance of TS winds--39+ MPH. We need to pray for the folks to the west of us.

Well now it is a cat 4 hurricane. 145 mph. That can't be good.

Well now it is a cat 4 hurricane. 145 mph. That can't be good.