Val’s Whimsy

The power has been out since right after my last post.  House is getting warm.   Apparently Gustav has taken a slight turn northerly … right towards us.   We are under curfew from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., but the high winds of about 75 mph are to reach us at 8:00 p.m.   right now they are gusting at around 50-60 mph.    We expect power to go off again at any moment, so I’m signing back off.   Just crocheting, getting irritable, and trying to watch the news every time the power comes back on.   And keeping an eye on our elderly neighbor behind our house who lives alone.

ow, I was starting to figure we’re on the northern edge of this thing, but breaking news at our newpaper online reads:

“….beginning 10 p.m. tonight a curfew will go into effect until 6 a.m. Tuesday.   The curfew comes as Hurricane Gustav continues to push inland after making landfall this morning in coastal Louisiana.  The storm is expected to pass through Central Louisiana later today and into the night.”

Somebody’s something outside just blew and the lights flickered, but we still have power so far.  I think I’m going to the girls’ room to pick out a couple of games,  and see if we have a deck of cards anywhere around here.   Might as well make good use of a bad storm, right?   Good bonding time.

Thousands, by last count 30,000, in Baton Rouge are now without power; that is two hours south of us.  As of this point, they expect Gustav to still be hurricane strength when it reaches Lafayette, which is one hour south of here.   Our electricity has flickered a couple of times as the rain and winds get harder, but so far we’re still good.

Now that I’m no longer working today, I think I’ll sit and work on learning those WordPress codes again, so I can get this website changed up, new graphics, etc.   The layout will end up being basically the same, because I just like the three-column layout for me, but it will look very different otherwise.  More scrappy, less pixelly.

In N.O., the levees have not collapsed, but the water has topped them and is flooding streets.

Here in Cenla, it is now beginning to rain, and wind gusts are getting progressively harder, judging from the trees outside.

I’m not going to be able to type too much longer I think.   Not if the power starts flickering, but I’ll try typing until then.

Foxnews.com shows Gustav having hit the Louisiana coastline earlier this morning.  That’s just the first edge of the eye of the  storm.  More than 350 miles away, in central Louisiana, I just opened the blinds of my office window and see the winds already kicking up the trees outside.   Our local news says they are expecting winds in excess of 75 mph here.   Stores are boarded up, people are packing sandbags around their homes … I should go check on my next door neighbor on that topic, too.  Water tends to get closer to her house than mine, and she’s just moved in a couple of months ago.

Today I’m working, typing as hard as I can.   The atmospheric pressure is against me though, I’m fighting a mean headache and will probably end up taking something harsher than ibuprofen to beat it.   I figure we’ll be out of power tomorrow, so I’m trying to get at the least a good days’ work done, no half-day today.

The kids will not be doing their usual school schedule today either.   I’m having them work solely on Math, as they are both about a week behind, and making sure all their writing class final edits are completed.  I need to email their teachers about this, too.

I’m going to post updates throughout the day as I see changes.  I expect we’ll have some minimal damages here from winds, most of the damages will be further south of us.