August 30, 2008

Saturday before Hurricane Gustav

The LSU game was held this morning at 10am, instead of 4pm, to give the football teams and the fans a chance to see the game before preparing for the hurricane.

The weather today was absolutely gorgeous! Robin’s egg blue skies, white fluffy clouds… not too hot or humid…  To look at the beautiful weather, it was somewhat hard to believe the terrible storm brewing just a few hundred miles to the south.

We ran a few errands in town, checking the post office box and turning in a ‘mail hold’ card for until Oct 1 (until we know what the weather will do…. Don’t want the hurricanes to blow our mail away). We then went to the Big Easy Po-Boy Sandwich Shop in Zachary, I ordered the catfish poboy (YUM) and Van had a hamburger on a poboy bun.

Stopped at the Dollar General store, purchased some masking tape (for taping of windows) , and a few candles. I brought my mother some masking tape,  a set of candle and some Peanut Butter cups, telling her it  was her ‘Hurricane Goody Bag.”

Stopped by the cemetery to say hello to Kerri, a classmate of mine as a high-school student, then walked around the cemetery for a bit, and the mausoleum.

The roads were so crowded today!  The gas stations had lines 4 cars long and the police were out in full force.

At Winn-Dixie, the employees were removing all the frozen, dairy and meats from the display cases to large boxes. Either they were sending the merchandise back to headquarters (for the duration of the storm and after-effects) or they were moving all perishables to the freezer in the back of the store.

They had a fair supply of water, but were still out of bread, spaghetti’s, tuna, crackers and other ‘instant meal in a can’ products. As I passed the Wal-marts in both Baker and Zachary, their parking lots were full, all the way to the street on all sides. I shudder to think what pandemonium was going on INSIDE the stores!

On the news today, the Governor, Bobby Jindal, announced that East Baton Rouge Parish was NOT evacuating, and that East Baton Rouge Parish was NOT an evacuation site.

I honestly think the girls and I will be just fine, staying HOME for this storm, and have no plans for evacuation. If something changes and we do decided to evacuate, we will head north, most likely to my dad’s home.