Hurricane season is difficult for those who live in the gulf coast region. The physical and mental stress of evacuating your home takes a huge toll on the residents. As I write, a rain band from Hurricane Ike is bringing a deluge. Thankfully, we look to be safe from the wrath of this major storm.
Myself and five cars worth of staff and church members, headed to Picayune, MS on Sunday, August 31st. We waited the storm out Sunday night. Monday (the day Gustav was hitting the area hardest), we decided to take a ride to Hattiesburg, MS to go to the Walmart to stock up on food. It was an hours ride away but worth it for the haul we brought back. The ride was quite adventurous, trees down along I-59. Pretty big wind gusts and me watching for falling trees coming our way. I thought we had made it through the worst when we arrived back in Picayune, but I was mistaken.
After a couple of minutes back from our trip to Walmart, we decided to go to Covington and stay at the LazyBoy store (owned by the Marquez's who were with us). Through rain and wind, our five car caravan made it to Covington only to find no electricity. Some idiot in our group said we should attempt to make it back to our church because it still had power (We kept calling the church phone number and kept getting the answering machine so we knew there was power).
As Gustav was hitting Baton Rouge, we were on I-12 in Hammond getting on to I-55 to bring us home. This put us on the southeast side of the storm. The wind was unbelieable. I guesstimate we were in some 70mph winds driving at 70mph. My car was roaming all over the interstate without me moving the steering wheel. We did make it back to Jefferson Parish. The storm was still finishing its path through the parish so the police had not yet blocked all the roads coming in. We made it home without a scratch. God sometimes protects even idiots like me who suggest coming home in the middle of a hurricane!
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