Gustav Watch, Day 6: Contraflow

We have successfully evacuated to Hot Springs Village, Arkansas. Special thanks to our generous host - my wife's mother and father. Despite the long drive, this is a great place to evacuate - familiar, safe, and with family. I believe that all in all, we were in transit for about 10 hours or so.

In general, southern Louisiana appears to have been evacuated pretty successfully and with creativity. These guys may not have made it very far, we saw them on our road this morning.


And this guy packed up a small village and put it in the back of his Kia. Pretty impressive. It is tough to see but that is a complete town made of Popsicle sticks. I am glad the Popsicle people are safe.

Seriously though, witnessing the first ever full scale implementation of contraflow was interesting. I-49 South was reversed and all lanes were headed north. Note below that across the median, the other cars are moving in the same direction as us. And moving slowly. Traffic was good up until the southbound lanes had to merge back into the northbound lanes.


Here's a view of contraflow in my side mirror.


So that's it! We are now watching via the Weather Channel and hoping that all of our friends and family who stayed behind stay safe. It looks like Gustav might hit as a 3 rather than a 4, which is decent news. I think we will all take any good luck we can get right now.

Departure

We have officially left Lafayette.

The Essentials Are Closed!

At least I get to say: I told you so.

Gustav Watch, Day 6, The Essentials

It may be hard to believe, but the morning of our evacuation started with a run to get coffee at Starbucks. Guess whose idea that was?

Gustav Watch, Day 5: The Hatches are Battened

It has been a long day of preparation here in Lafayette. We didn't have the ability, tools or supplies to board up our windows so they are taped. Hopefully that accomplishes something. I would say that about30-40% of the homes and businesses are boarded up at this point.




We spent the day securing the indoor and outdoor areas of the house. Tucking away electronics, covering furniture with plastic, buying random supplies at Lowe's and Target, along with thousands of other people making water, batteries and gas precious commodities.


Tomorrow is the day we head out. The storm has shifted projections to the east a little bit and New Orleans has gone mandatory with their evacuations. Traffic is going to be brutal tomorrow but it will most likely be better than staying behind.

Gustav Watch, Day 5: Traffic

Traffic cam of the primary evacuation route headed north from Lafayette is here. Watch closely and you will see us getting out of here, Jozy in tow.

Gustav Watch, Day 5: Mood Change

The mood in and around town is shifting quickly. People in the neighborhood are boarding up windows, we're trying to convince all of our friends to evacuate, Gustav is expected to hit Category 5 status any minute, gas stations are running out of fuel, mandatory evacuations have been put in place 20 miles south of us and the state is implementing contraflow evacuation routes starting tomorrow morning (meaning you can only drive north on the interstate). So all in all, it's abundantly clear that it is "get out of dodge" time.

We have spent the day getting our house as ready as we can and are wrapping up packing tonight so that we are out of harms way. This looks like it could be one of the biggest storms (if not the biggest) to ever hit our town.