Both K’s and I are from Louisiana, Baton Rouge to be specific, so we kept a close eye on Hurricane Gustav over Labor Day weekend. Fortunately, it looks like the storm weakened and the damage wasn’t as bad as it could have been. There were a couple of levees in New Orleans that were topped (a good thing the storm surge wasn’t any higher or there would have been major flooding).
Baton Rouge is about 90 miles inland, so we weren’t too worried about flooding, but the rain and high winds can cause a lot of damage. Since Gustav seemed to hold together pretty well, they did receive hurricane force winds in Baton Rouge, and online we saw the parish sheriff say that this was the worst storm damage he had seen in BR in his entire life.
I heard from my parents yesterday. Everyone there is fine. They did lose one of the three large pecan trees in their yard. Fortunately, it wasn’t the oldest one which seems to be dying, but whose trunk is about 8′ in diameter and would have caused massive damage to anything on which it fell. Even more fortunately, the tree that did fall fell in the one way that wouldn’t cause significant damage to my parent’s house or the neighbor’s house (see picture below). It did take up a water line, so no water until they can get it capped off (assuming that the city pumps are working).
We still haven’t heard from K’s parents or sister. We don’t have any reason to think that they aren’t okay, but it would be good if we could get through to them sometime today.
Update: We received a voice mail from K’s parents today around 2pm. Everyone’s fine. They had some carport damage and noted that there’s a lot of damage around the area. We still haven’t been able to get in touch with them, but it’s good to know that they are okay.