Bayou Renaissance Man

Predictably, the politically correct are trying to turn the impact of Hurricane Harvey into arguments in favor of their various causes - particularly climate change.  To take just one example, last weekend Nicholas Kristof fretted in the New York Times:

Scott Pruitt, President Trump’s head of the Environmental Protection Agency, says it’s “misplaced” to talk about Harvey and climate change.

Really? To me, avoiding the topic is like a group of frogs sitting in a beaker, fretting about the growing warmth of the water but neglecting to jump out. Climate scientists are in agreement that there are at least two ways climate change is making hurricanes worse.

First, hurricanes arise from warm waters, and the Gulf of Mexico has warmed by two to four degrees Fahrenheit over the long-term average. The result is more intense storms.

“There is a general consensus that the frequency of high-category (3, 4 and 5) hurricanes should increase as the climate warms,” Kerry Emanuel, a hurricane expert at M.I.T., tells me. Likewise, three experts examined the data over 30 years and concluded that Atlantic tropical cyclones are getting stronger.

Second, as the air warms, it holds more water vapor, so the storms dump more rain. That’s why there’s a big increase in heavy downpours (“extreme precipitation events”). Nine of the top 10 years for heavy downpours in the U.S. have occurred since 1990.

“Climate change played a role in intensifying the winds and rainfall associated with Hurricane Harvey,” says Charles Greene, a climate scientist at Cornell. He notes that there’s also a third way, not yet proven, in which climate change may be implicated: As Arctic sea ice is lost, wind systems can meander and create blockages — like those that locked Harvey in place over Houston. It was this stalling that led Harvey to be so destructive.

Frankly, it’s staggering that there’s still so much resistance among elected officials to the idea of human-caused climate change.

There's more at the link.

However, it turns out that "climate scientists" are anything but united about how anthropogenic climate change is affecting storms such as Hurricane Harvey.  The Wall Street Journal noted:

Who says progressives don’t believe in religion? They may not believe in Jehovah or Jesus, but they certainly believe in Old Testament-style wrath against sinners. Real Noah and the Ark stuff. Witness the emerging theme on the media left that Texas, and especially Houston, are at fault for the devastation of Hurricane Harvey.

. . .

“Harvey, the Storm That Humans Helped Cause,” said a headline in one progressive bellwether as the storm raged. An overseas columnist was less subtle if more clichéd: “Houston, you have a problem, and some of it of your own making.” In this telling, Houston is the Sodom and Gomorrah of fossil fuels, which cause global warming, which is producing more hurricanes.

The problem is that this argument is fact-free. As Roger Pielke Jr. has noted, the link between global warming and recent hurricanes and extreme weather events is “unsupportable based on research and evidence.” Mr. Pielke, who is no climate-change denier, has shown with data that hurricanes hitting the U.S. have not increased in frequency or intensity since 1900, there is no notable trend up or down in global tropical cyclone landfalls since 1970, and floods have not increased in frequency or intensity in the U.S. since 1950.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently said that “it is premature to conclude that human activities—and particularly greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming—have already had a detectable impact on Atlantic hurricane or global tropical cyclone activity.”

No less than the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says it lacks evidence to show that global warming is making storms and flooding worse. But climate scolds still blame Harvey on climate change because, well, this is what the climate models say should happen as the climate warms.

In other words, Houstonians, you’d better go to climate confession, mend your sinful ways, and give up all of those high-paying oil-and-gas jobs. Maybe all those drillers and refiners can work for Google or Facebook.

Again, more at the link (which may disappear behind a paywall).

I have no problem whatsoever believing in climate change as a generic, ongoing reality.  After all, the climate's been changing every year since this planet developed a climate!  The question is, are humans causing it?  I suspect our influence is much less than alarmists would have us believe.  After all, the so-called "Medieval Warm Period" saw higher temperatures than we experience today;  the so-called "Maunder Minimum" saw much colder temperatures than at present.  Both are evidence of climate change, but not of anthropogenic (i.e. human-caused) climate change.  Natural disasters such as the eruption of volcanoes are yet another factor in climate change;  indeed, the Toba super-eruption, some 75,000 years ago, may have led to a 1,000-year period of global cooling known as a "volcanic winter".

It's going to be fun when alarmists for one aspect of climate change collide head-on with those from another background or school of thought.  For example, there are those who believe that current low sunspot activity levels may presage a new period of global cooling, similar to the Maunder Minimum.  It's even being referred to as an imminent "mini-Ice Age".  On the other hand, it's been argued that low solar activity might offset global warming, even perhaps cancelling it out altogether.  So, global warming?  Global cooling?  Who knows? - and, among those who claim they know, how can they prove their respective cases?  The answer, of course, is that they can't.  We don't yet know enough about global weather and temperatures to say for sure.  Despite all claims to the contrary, the science is not settled.  Follow these three links for more discussion of the issues involved.

I just shrug my shoulders and get on with the business of living.  When the experts can't agree, I have to make the best judgment call I can, based on incomplete and/or inadequate information.  Since I can't do anything to change or affect this sort of influence on my life, I'd better be ready, willing and able to deal with its consequences, whatever they may be.  That may not be politically correct, but it is, at least, a practical solution.

Now . . . do I need a climate-change-powered barbecue grill in the back yard, to take advantage of all the heat that's coming our way, or a flash freezing facility, to preserve the food I won't be able to grow in the extreme cold?

Peter

The weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth continues.  From someone in Staten Island, New York:

Domingo Isasi, waiting in a gas line on Staten Island, minced no words about the divide he perceived between Manhattan and the outer boroughs.

"The priorities are showing, simply by the fact that Manhattan got their power back," he said, adding that Staten Islanders are used to being lower on the list. "We're the bastard kids who keep getting slapped in the head and told to shut up," he said.

Clearly, he's never figured out that if you live on - wait for it - AN ISLAND, and you lack your own power station, then the power lines have to reach you from places off the island.  That means the neighborhoods through which those lines run will inevitably get power before you do, because the lines running to and through them will have to be fixed before repair crews can do your neighborhood any good.  That's not discrimination - it's geography.  However, I suspect Mr. Isasi's mind is made up, and he won't want to be confused with the facts . . .

I fear New Yorkers have a different definition of 'uninhabitable' to many of us.  Governor Cuomo is quoted as having said:

"People are in homes that are uninhabitable ... It's going to become increasingly clear that they're uninhabitable when the temperature drops and the heat doesn't come on."

Mr. Cuomo, I have news for you.  If your property becomes uninhabitable just because the power's out, it's not the fault of the power company;  it's the fault of whoever failed to properly build and insulate your home - plus, it's your fault for not rectifying those deficiencies long ago!  This isn't rocket science.  We've known for a very long time how to properly construct and insulate buildings.  If those standards are still not in common use in New York City, whose fault is that?  Even if the building is cold, you can still shelter in it.  Just bundle up to keep warm, huddle together in a single room to share body heat (and close off the other rooms to conserve the warmth in the shared one), improvise heat sources (always providing adequate ventilation if open flames are involved), and so on.  Shelters can be set up to provide warmth (even tents will do, if they have forced-draft ventilation).

Perhaps the quote of the week concerning Sandy comes from fellow blogger Acair Fearann:

"The blogosphere is apparently composed of an equal number of Manhattanites claiming the world ended and Midwesterners/Texans claiming the world didn’t end and anyway if it had they would have dealt with it better than those wimpy Yanks who are stupid enough to live in a city.  California is oddly silent."

Peter

I'm finding the post-Superstorm-Sandy angst more and more irritating.  Here are some samples of news reports from just one source (click each headline for more information).


Feeling Forgotten After The Storm

In Staten Island, Yonkers and Bridgeport, Conn. officials lashed out at power companies for responses they called slow and inadequate. And in Coney Island, residents roamed the streets, looking for help and wondering if they had been forgotten.

As millions remained without power for the fourth straight day, tempers began to fray. A growing number of neighborhoods expressed fears that somehow in the massive recovery effort, they had been left behind—even as their supplies dwindled and temperatures dropped.

I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous!  With over 60 million people affected by this storm, which subsided less than four days ago, how the hell do officials expect power companies to respond any faster?  The USAF is flying in power trucks and personnel from as far away as California to help out.  It's not that they're not doing enough - it's that they can't possibly do more!  The same goes for other forms of assistance.  The government doesn't exist to look after you at all times.  If you want more of that, try joining the military, or going to jail.  You get three hots and a cot, most of the time - but not always, and only in exchange for a significant loss of personal liberty.  The latter is the price you pay for the former.

It's going to take weeks, possibly months, to deal with all the damage left by the storm.  Come on, New Yorkers - suck it up, live with it, and get on with what you can do right now to help yourselves.  As President Theodore Roosevelt (himself a New Yorker) famously urged, "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are".  I don't think he'd be impressed if he could see you now.


A Grim Fear Engulfs Areas Lacking Light

With floodlights, police patrols and power outlets, authorities in and around New York sought to deter looters and calm nerves in swaths of the region where the lights remained off.

In many places, they succeeded, catching would-be looters and reassuring residents. In others, they failed.

At least 41 people have been arrested in Brooklyn and Queens on looting charges, police said. Some were caught taking food, while others are accused of stealing items such as alcohol and electronics.

. . .

Still, fear and rumors swirled in darkened neighborhoods, including lower Manhattan. Residents worried about thieves posing as officials to get into apartments complexes. Lawmakers voiced concern about those preying on vulnerable, disaster-stricken homeowners.

Too bad, New Yorkers.  You've permitted your city government to restrict your Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms for decades - in fact, for over a century.  This is the result.  Your criminals have guns, because they don't care about obeying the law in the first place!  If they're prepared to break laws against theft, assault, drug-dealing, murder, etc., what makes you think they'll obey those prohibiting them from possessing firearms?  All you've done by accepting such laws is to disarm yourselves, the law-abiding citizens of the city - and that makes you prey for the (armed) predators among you.

Even owning (let alone carrying) a handgun in New York City involves jumping through so many bureaucratic hoops that it's effectively impossible unless you know (and/or bribe) 'the right people'.  For those who conquer the somewhat lesser bureaucratic obstacles to owning a long gun (i.e. a rifle or shotgun), they at least have available an effective means of home defense (although they're not allowed to carry it with them outside their homes, or in their vehicles).  However, if they use it,  even in legitimate self-defense, they're very likely to be arrested and charged with a crime, because the New York City prosecutorial system is set up to presume that a shooter is, by default, a criminal.  Only those in NYPD uniform are given the benefit of the doubt.

I wouldn't live under a system like that if you paid me . . . but if you've chosen to do so, the consequences are on your own head.  This outbreak of crime is one of them.


Scramble for Cash In Sandy's Wake

Banks hustled to make cash available as persistent power outages in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania from superstorm Sandy kept hundreds of ATMs offline just as the same woes left many businesses demanding cash payments.

. . .

In some areas, it was hard for banks to keep up, as people seemed to be withdrawing more cash than usual.

A Chase ATM housed in a Duane Reade pharmacy in Brooklyn, N.Y., ran out of cash at 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, according to store manager Elizabeth Almonte, who described the lines for the machine since the storm as "insane."

On a typical day, she said, there are generally about four people waiting in line for the ATM. Sunday, she said, lines snaked across the pharmacy and out the doors. She said Chase had said it would put more money in the ATM on Monday but by midday Thursday she hadn't heard from the bank. Customers "understood but were annoyed," she said.

. . .

The demands for cash post-Sandy have come from customers who have fewer withdrawal options thanks to power outages and storm damage, and businesses that are accepting cash only due to communications woes that leave them unable to accept credit and debit cards.

We experienced the same thing after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.  I warned then (and ever since), and many others have warned, of the need to keep a 'nest egg' of cash on hand, available for emergencies like this . . . but too many people either didn't or wouldn't listen.  The result is financial gridlock as everyone discovers at the same time that their bank and credit cards won't work without power, and that banks are unwilling to cash checks if they can't electronically verify that the balance in your account is sufficient to cover the sum you want.

The same goes for keeping basic emergency supplies at home.  Those who've been following my series of articles on emergency preparation (see the list in the sidebar) know that I'm not a manic doomsday prepper.  I've written all of them as encouragement to keep on hand a basic, thirty-day stock of essential supplies, including cash for emergencies, food, a means to prepare it, fuel for cooking and your car(s) (and a generator if you have one), medication, etc.  If you've achieved that level of preparedness, or close to it, you'd most likely be sitting pretty right now in almost any of the areas affected by Sandy.  Unless your home had been destroyed or rendered uninhabitable (which has happened to less than one per cent of the buildings affected), you'd have food, light, and all the essentials you need.  It's pretty clear that by the time your supplies ran out, most of the essential services would have been restored.




I suppose the most frustrating thing for me is to read all the appeals for 'the government' - be it federal, state or local - to 'do something'.  They are doing something - they're doing everything possible - but that's simply not enough to cover all sixty-million-odd victims affected by the storm.  If our various governments and their agencies had stockpiled sufficient supplies, and hired and trained enough workers, to cater for every need in a situation like this, they'd have absorbed most of our economy, leaving nothing over to live on!  As President Gerald Ford put it, "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have".  I will not live under such a government.  Neither, I trust, will anyone who has any love for liberty, personal responsibility and human and constitutional rights.

If people have been so deaf to entreaty and blind to reality that they've ignored suggestions about emergency preparation from government agencies (federal, state and local), and from people like me who've been through disasters of one sort or another, they're just going to have to suck it up and live with it.  I'm not going to waste any sympathy on them unless they were too poor to afford any preparations at all - and there are vanishingly few such people in the USA today.  Even most of the homeless are better prepared than that!  Just visit one of their camps, and you'll see what I mean.

Finally, more details are beginning to emerge of just how big a job it's going to be to reopen New York's subway trains and road tunnels.  Much will have to wait for the restoration of power and the availability of rail cars to replace those damaged by Sandy.  The armed forces are actively involved in pumping out the tunnels - Wired has a good article illustrating what's involved.  Reading the details in both articles, I doubt whether full service will be restored before next month - possibly some individual tunnels and stations will be out of action for much longer than that.

If you're one of those still suffering from Sandy's after-effects, I hope you're better prepared, and coping better, than most of those reported in the news articles cited above.  Please let us know in Comments how you're doing, and share with us any important lessons you may have learned from this experience.

Peter

Those who've been following this series of articles will have found much food for thought in the events in the north-eastern United States as Sandy - first a tropical storm, then a hurricane, then a so-called Superstorm - moved through.  I hope my readers in the areas affected by Sandy are as well as may be expected, and that your emergency preparations were (and will continue to be) sufficient to see you through.  Unfortunately, to judge from news reports, very few appear to have been sufficiently prepared.

One story that really got my goat was the tragic tale of a mother and her two sons, aged 2 and 4.  Her vehicle got stuck in flood waters, and she took her two children with her to a nearby house to ask for assistance.  Unbelievably, the man who answered the door turned them away, refusing to help - and shortly afterwards, while she was clinging to a railing and struggling to hold onto her kids in the storm, a wave washed them out of her arms.  Their bodies were found today.  I can't say what I'd like to do to the man who refused to help her and her sons, because such actions would be illegal . . . but that doesn't stop me hoping that the Golden Rule still applies.  I hope he really needs help soon;  and when he does, may he receive precisely as much assistance as he rendered to that poor woman and her children.  At that time, I hope he remembers that "what goes around, comes around".

It seems that gasoline shortages will endure for at least another week.  There have been reports of fistfights and guns being drawn over access to gasoline pumps, queue-jumping, etc.  I hope my readers stored extra gasoline at home, so they could fill their tanks without having to be part of the post-storm madness.  (This is likely to be even more important in the light of the ongoing closure of New York's subway system, which doesn't look like coming online anytime soon - certainly not until next week.  Certain routes may be shut down for weeks or months while spare parts are ordered and repairs made.  Since parts of the subway are well over a century old, few of the firms that made the original equipment are still around, and they don't have stocks of spare or replacement parts any more.  That's going to cause big delays.  Until mass transit systems are fully operational once more, private transport is going to have to take up the slack - but with limited gasoline supplies, that'll be impossible in the short term.)

I've been particularly annoyed by attempts on the part of big-government supporters to portray the recovery effort as essentially a big-government operation, 'proving' the necessity for FEMA and other agencies to be expanded.  This is complete and utter nonsense.  I presume you've already read my comments about FEMA, the Red Cross and other relief agencies after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, so I won't repeat them here.  Suffice it to say that private individuals, organizations and agencies did a heck of a lot more, a great deal more efficiently, than any government body.  (Have we so quickly forgotten the tens of thousands of formaldehyde-contaminated trailers distributed by FEMA, and the effects this had on the health of those who survived the hurricanes?)  As Breitbart points out, private businesses do a better job of relief than government organizations.  I'm thinking that right now, those living within range of a Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Lowes or other big-box store are going to have much better access to essential supplies than those relying on FEMA!

As PawPaw puts it (and living in Hurricane Alley in Louisiana, near where I used to live, he should know):

Get to work, quit whining, and start rebuilding.  That's what Louisianans and Floridians do after a storm.  Y'all had a little measly Cat 1 and I didn't even see that it spawned any tornadoes or anything.  The death toll is what?  About 30?  Sucks to be them, but that's not hardly enough to talk about.  Hell, Tuscaloosa lost more than that to a tornado last year.

I thought New Yorkers were tough.

I can't help thinking that he has a point.

Finally, in the wake of Sandy (and remembering my comments a few weeks ago about 'bugging out' and vehicles in which to do so), if you're flush with cash, a California company has just what you need.  It's overkill to the max (insanely so), but if you want it, they'll build it for you!  (I'd use the money to buy several more normal vehicles, plus travel and cargo trailers and emergency supplies.  For the maximum price quoted, I reckon I could equip a dozen people to survive for a decade - with vehicles, clothing, food, medication, firearms, ammunition, the lot!)

Peter

EDITED TO ADD:  I've written a follow-up article with more post-Sandy reflections.  You'll find it here.

Having just been through Hurricanes Gustav and Ike down here, I'm very interested indeed to read a new theory, described in 'New Scientist', of how hurricanes might be 'tamed' at last.

Each year, hurricanes or typhoons may cause billions of dollars' worth of damage and a large number of fatalities. It would be hugely significant if we could find an effective way of reducing the destructive power of these storms, which convert heat energy from warm oceans into damaging kinetic energy in the atmosphere.

Now Arkadii Leonov at the University of Akron in Ohio says that the complex air flows and other atmospheric "machinery" that produce this prodigious power are surprisingly delicate.
Supersonic solution

In a patent application, Leonov and colleagues say that they can put a spanner in the atmospheric works by flying supersonic jet aircraft in concentric circles around a hurricane's eye, the calm area around which the storm rotates.




The idea is that the sonic-boom shockwave would dramatically raise air pressure in the eye, disrupting the upward flow of warm air that drives the hurricane.

But how many planes would you need? Sonic booms spread out as they travel away from an aircraft, so even a small number of relatively small aircraft could do the job, say Leonov and colleagues.

"Two F-4 jet fighters flying at approximately Mach 1.5 are sufficient to suppress, mitigate and/or destroy a typical sized hurricane/typhoon," they claim in their application.

Well, well, well! I'll be interested to see whether this works in real life. There's only one problem that I can foresee - that of getting volunteers to fly their aircraft into and through the hurricane for a few hours! If it doesn't work, the hazards to the aircraft (and their pilots) will be very real.

Peter

As regular readers will know, I've been engaged in extensive home repairs after a small house fire in August, followed by further damage caused by Hurricane Gustav in early September. It's been a long, exhausting process, but it's finally complete. The place looks great in its new coat of paint, with new carpet, window blinds and ceiling tiles to brighten things up.

I've learned a number of lessons about the aftermath of this sort of damage, and I thought you might like to hear about them. If (God forbid) you should end up with a similar problem, knowing about these things beforehand should make repairs and recovery a whole lot simpler.


1. Insurance.

It's really important to understand what your policy covers, and what it doesn't: also, any deductible amounts for particular sorts of disaster. As I mentioned in an earlier post, many insurance companies in hurricane-prone areas modified their policies in recent years, slapping a very large deductible (known as an 'excess' to readers in English-heritage countries) on storm damage before they'll pay out. I got caught by this to a certain extent, as my insurers (Lousiana Farm Bureau, or LFB) had done the same: but their deductible was still reasonably low. Other companies have imposed a much more severe deductible. One nearby family suffered roof damage during Hurricane Gustav, only to find out that their deductible for hurricane damage was now $8,000! That was more than the cost of replacing the shingles on their entire roof. They had to eat the storm damage costs themselves. Needless to say, they're not happy.

It's also important to check the reputation of your insurance company when it comes to assessing damage and paying claims. LFB have been outstanding in this regard, and I'm very happy with their service. Not only did their assessor approve every quote I obtained for repairs, but he also authorized a second, supplementary claim for several thousand dollars when certain repairs proved to be more expensive than originally estimated. Of course, I helped him by staying on top of the contractors at every step (see Section 2 below). Since I made the assessor's job easier, I think he went out of his way to do the same for me. I appreciate that.

However, other insurance companies have developed reputations (particularly since Hurricanes Gustav and Ike went through) of being slow to get assessors on site; slow to approve claims; quibbling about the amount of claims, often authorizing payments considerably less than the damages incurred; and being slow to pay out, even after authorizing a claim. Among some home-owners in my area, mentioning the words 'State' and 'Farm' in the same breath will produce a barrage of invective better suited to a particularly foul-mouthed dockhand! There are other companies with equally poor reputations.

It's worth checking on the experience of those living in your area, to see which insurance companies respond promptly, effectively and appropriately to damage claims. The Better Business Bureau, local Internet forums and chat sites, and readers' letters to newspapers are all useful sources of information. I'd choose your insurer only after checking those resources. If your present insurer proves to have a less-than-stellar reputation, it might be worth considering a change.


2. Contractors.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there are lots of fly-by-night 'contractors' who appear after a disaster, offering repairs for what sounds like a great price. Unfortunately, most of them aren't licensed, bonded or insured, and many wouldn't know a hammer from a Hummer. A lot of them are also criminals, plain and simple, out to either extort money by threatening tactics, or actually breaking into homes and stealing what they can in the confusion following a disaster. I strongly recommend that you don't hire anyone who might fall into this category.

I was perhaps fortunate in that my house fire preceded Hurricane Gustav by a couple of weeks. I'd already lined up a contractor when Gustav arrived. In his immediate aftermath, you couldn't get a contractor for love or money! Fortunately, my contractor honored his prior commitment to me, and started work a couple of weeks after the storm (after asking me for a grace period to help home-owners who had holes in their roofs, or needed other emergency assistance, which I was happy to give him). However, in any widespread disaster, expect to have to do most urgent repairs yourself. That's just the way it is. Even today, three months after the hurricanes, it's still very hard to find a contractor in my area to do anything at short notice, and it'll probably stay that way well into the new year.

It also helps if you stay on top of everything, from quotation to completion. All the contractors involved in my repairs (five different companies, covering initial cleanup, general repairs, flooring, air-conditioning and plumbing) knew from the start that I'd be on site, supervising, inspecting and checking everything. Some of them weren't too happy about that: but, on the other hand, there were no problems whatsoever with work not being done to my satisfaction, or the wrong materials being used, or anything like that. It's worth being a pain in the posterior to your contractors (as politely as possible, of course). It keeps them honest.

If you have to be at work, and can't maintain that level of supervision, it might be worth asking a trusted friend to do it for you, or even hiring your own contractor to supervise the others. The latter option will cost more money, but I think your added peace of mind will be worth it. YMMV.


3. Dislocation.

If you have a house fire, or serious storm damage, you can expect your life to be very disrupted for three to six months. If you have to move out while repairs are made, the hotel bills can mount up very fast indeed. I was spared that cost, because all our local hotels were full of hurricane evacuees who weren't going anywhere! Of course, that meant I had to live in my house, with all the disruption of repair work. That wasn't fun, and I don't recommend it: but I didn't have much choice. If I had to do it again, I think I'd consider renting a travel trailer, and park it outside my back door. If you can get one from FEMA on a temporary basis, that's also worthwhile: but that'll only apply in a disaster situation, and the supply may be limited.


4. Finances.

This has been the biggest single problem for me. LFB's payout was sufficient to cover my repairs: but they wouldn't pay me directly. Because of their agreement with my bondholder, they issued the check, but I couldn't cash it. I had to sign it and send it to my bondholder. They released about a third of the funds to me, and held on to the rest. They won't release them until an inspector has certified that the repairs have been satisfactorily completed.

This has made it a nightmare to get everything done. The building contractor flatly refused to work unless he was paid weekly. I don't blame him, of course: he had staff to pay, materials to buy, and an unlimited demand for his services after Hurricane Gustav. However, I had to max out every credit line I have, and re-finance one major expense, in order to cope. If it hadn't been for the generous assistance of a few friends, who loaned me enough to make up the difference, my repairs would still be limping along. My bondholder informed me that they'd release the money in stages, if necessary, but only after completion of each stage - and the contractors concerned wouldn't do the work if they weren't guaranteed payment right away. They weren't prepared to wait for an inspector to approve their work. Guess where that left me?

This is made worse by the fact that any widespread disaster will overload the inspectors. I've been trying to get one to come to my home for almost a month, to certify that repairs are complete. After two broken appointments (without so much as a telephone call in explanation) I lost my temper, demanded to speak with a manager at my bondholder, and threatened all sorts of nasty things unless they did something about the problem. That produced results, and an inspector arrived yesterday. However, while waiting, I've been piling up interest charges on my credit lines, and those of my contractors who are still waiting for payment are getting rather rude. I don't blame them.

I've read a number of books and articles in which financial gurus tell you how to organize your life. Many of them suggest that you should have at least six months' expenditure in a savings account or other cash asset, to tide you over any emergency. After this experience, I'm now convinced that they're right - and I'll go further. I think it's worth trying to build up a one-year cash reserve. This may be very difficult for most of us (including me, at the moment), but it's a worthwhile objective. If disaster strikes, you'll be able to cope with it much more easily. Also, if you have to spend a lot on repairs in a hurry, it's great to have credit cards available, with a decent credit limit, that you're not using - or not very much, anyway. Because I try to pay off my credit card bills in full each month, I had access to their full credit line to pay for repairs. If I hadn't had that to fall back on, I'd have been stuck. Of course, I now have to use the insurance money to pay them off, plus the interest charges.


5. Timeline.

Finally, as Cheops' Law states, "Nothing is ever built on time or within budget": or, as the Fifth Corollary to Murphy's Law puts it, "Everything takes longer and costs more". This is particularly true of recovering from a disaster, and getting repairs done. Expect it, and you won't get too frustrated. If you're a person like me, who likes to work to timetables and organize everything . . . learn to chill out. You won't get anywhere chewing rocks in frustration because life isn't following your plan!


I hope these 'lessons learned' have been helpful. I hope I never again need to use the knowledge thus gained: but if I do, I'll be better prepared.

Peter

The Daily Mail has published some very interesting before-and-after photographs of the damage Hurricane Ike inflicted on the Bolivar Peninsula near Galveston. Click the pictures for a larger view.






Hard to think that anyone will be foolish enough to rebuild there . . . but I daresay some will. Certainly, if I were an insurance assessor, I'd instantly refuse to insure any building on the Bolivar Peninsula from now onward!

Peter

The Boston Globe has a fascinating series of photographs showing the destruction left behind by Hurricane Ike along the Texas coast. Here are a few examples. Click to enlarge.










The whole series is worth viewing. Recommended.

Peter

Hurricanes Gustav and Ike have powered their way through this part of the world, and affected the weather elsewhere in the US to a greater or lesser extent. Now it's time to count the cost.

Financially, they've been massively damaging. Initial estimates are that both storms together will cost insurers and the States involved well over $20 billion . . . but the cost in human lives can't be calculated. So far, Gustav has killed 44 people in Louisiana, and Ike killed at least four more. The figures from Texas aren't out yet, but there are so many destroyed neighborhoods in the Galveston area that it's a virtual certainty that more bodies will be found over the next few days. Ike's said to have killed 33 people in the USA by current count.

Seventy-seven lives. Each of those people left others behind. How many are mourning them today? How many families have seen their joint lives disrupted, severed, as one member embarks on that final journey all of us must take one day? The news media are great at providing pictures of destroyed homes, or flooded neighborhoods, but they can't convey or adequately portray the grief of such sudden and devastating loss.

Think of those who mourn tonight, and pray for them.

Peter

Hurricane Ike has been and gone. He's headed for Arkansas by now, and I don't envy those in his path. His wind speeds may have died down, but he's carrying an awful lot of rain! Those in Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana may want to batten down the hatches until he's passed through.

He left quite a bit of damage in our neck of the woods. The wind wasn't as bad as during Gustav two weeks ago, but the rain was heavy, and unfortunately most of the natural runoff channels in the area are still clogged with debris dumped there by Gustav. As a result, early this morning our local police were barricading certain roads to stop motorists running headlong into flood water. One policeman told me that a couple of roads were being undermined by the renewed rush of water. They'd been weakened by Gustav, and couldn't be repaired or strengthened before Ike arrived. I'm guessing it'll be months before they're all repaired.

To give you an idea of the sheer size of Ike, here's a radar image of his remnants taken from the Fort Polk radar station, just outside Leesville, LA, at 6.05 p.m. today (Central time). Clickit to biggit.




As you can see, the rain bands stretch from the Texas coast all the way up past Louisiana into southern Arkansas and south-eastern Oklahoma. That's a big swath of territory! I'm near Alexandria, LA, and you can see that we still had isolated wind and rain bands moving over us at that time.

It looks as if the catastrophic damage feared for Galveston and the barrier islands in Texas may not have been as bad as forecast, but it's still pretty severe. I hope those who stayed put have learned a lesson, and will get out next time! I've been shaking my head in disbelief at the reports of thousands of 911 calls for rescue by those who disregarded the evacuation orders and stayed put. How dumb can you get - and how selfish? You put yourself and your family at risk through your own stupidity, and then you expect others to put their lives at risk to get you out of the hole you've dug for yourself! I'm very glad that emergency services refused to respond to such calls until it was safe for the rescuers to venture out. That's only right and just.

I guess we can relax and mop up for a while . . . until another Atlantic depression strengthens into a storm, at least!




Peter

We've had strong winds, gusting to tropical-storm force, and bands of heavy rain throughout the afternoon. A few minutes ago, the downpour was so fierce I could hardly hear anything else, even the music from my computer speakers.

(For those interested, it was 'Fantasia para un Gentilhombre' by Rodrigo. Lovely music, but too refined to compete with Mother Nature at her loudest! If you haven't heard this masterpiece, one of the greatest of Rodrigo's works for solo guitar and orchestra, YouTube offers a virtuoso performance by Narcisco Yepes. Click the numbers for the movements: 1, 2, 3 and 4.)

Anyway, back to the storm. There have been some amazing images of Ike from space, like this one published in the Daily Mail. Click it for a larger view.




Spectacular, isn't it? The cloud bands look like waves advancing on the Gulf Coast. The image below was taken less than two hours ago, and published on the NOAA Web site. My parish (county) in Louisiana is circled in black, to show you where I am in relation to the storm center.




Ike's eye will make landfall near Galveston in two to three hours from now, but he's such a vast storm that he's been affecting Louisiana and Texas since this morning. I hope and pray everyone got clear . . . but judging from news reports, far too many decided to ride this one out at home. I fear greatly for their safety in the 20-foot-plus storm surge that's awaited in the Galveston area.

So far we still have power and telephone service. That may change overnight as the stronger wind bands hit us. Here's hoping for the best!

Peter

Hurricane Ike has grown so large in diameter that it's already sending rain and storm winds into central Louisiana. I've just looked out of my front door (at 4.15 a.m.) and it's raining and blowing hard. Given our existing hurricane damage from Gustav, we may have a tough time of it for a while.




Coastal storm surge and flooding is likely right along the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico, from southern Texas right through to the Alabama/Florida border. This composite image, derived from two NOAA maps, shows the areas that may be affected.




My own area of Louisiana is under a tropical storm warning, flash flood warning and tornado watch from now until Saturday morning. We're in the brown/orange band area, with a 50%-60% likelihood of tropical-storm-force winds.




We've been advised to prepare for power losses and other damage. According to the National Weather Service warning:

THIS STATEMENT RECOMMENDS ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN BY PERSONS IN THE
FOLLOWING COUNTIES OR MARINE AREAS:

ACADIA...ALLEN...AVOYELLES...EVANGELINE...JEFFERSON DAVIS...
LAFAYETTE...LOWER ST. MARTIN...RAPIDES...ST. LANDRY...UPPER ST.
MARTIN...VERNON.

...WATCHES/WARNINGS...

THE FOLLOWING WATCHES AND WARNINGS ARE CURRENTLY IN EFFECT FOR
THIS AREA:

FLASH FLOOD WATCH.
TROPICAL STORM WIND WARNING.

...PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

PERSONS SHOULD PREPARE FOR THE POSSIBILITY OF TROPICAL STORM FORCE
WINDS WHICH MAY RESULT IN POWER OUTAGES...BLOWN DOWN TREES...AND
SOME ROOF DAMAGE TO HOMES AND BUSINESSES.

...WINDS...

TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS OF 35 TO 45 MPH WITH GUSTS TO 65 MPH
WILL BEGIN LATER TONIGHT...AND PERSIST THROUGH FRIDAY...BEFORE
DECREASING BELOW TROPICAL STORM FORCE BY SATURDAY MORNING.

...PROBABILITY OF HURRICANE/TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS...

THE PROBABILITY OF HURRICANE FORCE WINDS IS 20 PERCENT.
THE PROBABILITY OF TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS IS 60 TO 80 PERCENT.

...INLAND FLOODING...

AREAL RAINFALL TOTALS FROM 2 TO 5 INCHES WITH ISOLATED AMOUNTS TO
AROUND 10 INCHES ARE EXPECTED. ADDITIONAL RAINFALL WILL PRODUCE
FLOODING ALONG RIVERS...FLASH FLOODING WITH HEAVIER RAINBANDS.

MINOR TO MODERATE FLOODING IS EXPECTED ALONG THE MERMENTAU RIVER
AS WELL AS THE VERMILION RIVER NEAR SURREY STREET IN LAFAYETTE.
SIGNIFICANT FLOODING CAN BE EXPECTED ALONG THE LOWER VERMILION
RIVER SOUTH OF LAFAYETTE DUE TO STORM SURGE TRAVELING UPSTREAM.

...TORNADOES...

ISOLATED TORNADOES ARE POSSIBLE FROM FRIDAY INTO SATURDAY.

So, if we lose power and/or telephone lines again, expect this blog to be silent for a few days until they're restored. Hopefully it won't be that bad, but with hurricanes one never knows! I'm just glad I got the damaged tree down before it could possibly fall on the house. I'll sleep easier now that's been done.

Good luck to those more directly in Ike's path. Stay safe!

Peter

Well, Servicemaster completed the cleaning of my home yesterday (Thursday). Their crew did an absolutely outstanding job, finishing the entire house in just two days (including packing just about all my possessions, including a 2,500-book library, and moving them to storage while the painting and repairs are going on). They'll be back in the morning to steam-clean my furniture with a special solution that removes the smell of smoke, then their initial work will be done. They'll return when all the other contractors are finished, to move all my stuff back from storage and set it in place.

I also received the checks from the insurance company yesterday. Hurricane Gustav delayed the checks for the fire - I actually received the check for the hurricane damage before the others! - but they arrived eventually. Now I have to liaise with my bondholder, get one check to them, and arrange to submit the bills to them for payment. I just hope they note those that say "Already Paid" on them, and reimburse me, rather than pay the contractor(s) twice, leaving me to try to get refunds from businesses swamped with hurricane repairs!

Speaking of the latter, the contractor who'll be doing the repairs and re-painting called yesterday. He's so swamped with urgent hurricane repairs that he won't be able to start work on Monday, as originally agreed. He hopes to be available by next Wednesday, but that may also slip a day or two. I'm not worried about that, of course. There are many folks needing the roof over their heads put back in place! That's got to take precedence over a simple refurbishment job. I can use the time to sort out a fair amount of stuff myself.

I finally collapsed yesterday evening. You see, following my disabling injury in 2004, I've been left with a fused spine and nerve damage in my left leg. I'm still fairly mobile, but my sleep is badly affected, as I can't get more than three or four hours at most without waking up in pain from my back and leg. I therefore sleep twice a day, in the afternoon and in the small hours of the morning, getting my normal ration of sleep in two doses rather than one. Unfortunately, since the fire, and then Hurricane Gustav, I haven't been able to follow that routine: so my sleep deficit has steadily worsened. Yesterday, it clobbered me. I could hardly keep my eyes open in the afternoon, and fell into bed with a double dose of pain-killers at about 6 p.m. I woke up after midnight, which is a minor miracle for me to sleep that long!

I've been catching up on e-mail and the Intarwebs, drinking tea, and popping a few more pain-killers. I'll update the blog, then it's hey-ho for a bit more sleep. Tomorrow's another long day.

Peter

Ever had to chop down a big, 50- or 60-year old oak tree, growing two or three feet from the corner of your home?

It's quite a business.

The contractor arrived this morning, sending in a pickup truck with an expert for a preliminary reconnaissance before the crane arrived. He advised me to move my truck at once, because once the crane took up position, nothing would be getting in or out of my driveway for several hours. I hurriedly took his advice.

The crane duly arrived, a monster extending-boom affair on the back of a huge truck. Its driver positioned it across my driveway, and extended the arm. One man climbed the tree; another stayed on the ground, manning a safety rope and observing everything; and a third operated the crane. For each major limb and section of trunk, the crane was securely fastened to the section being cut, the climber did the cutting with his chainsaw, and the crane then lowered the section to the ground, well away from the house. They worked fast and well, clearly very experienced in this sort of thing.

Once the main tree was down, leaving only a three-foot-wide stump about a foot off the ground, the crew turned to the other damaged trees, chopping off the twisted limbs and gathering them into a pile. The crane moved back up the driveway, and all major limbs protruding over it were cut off and piled. (I had them do this as a result of the hurricane lessons learned. Many people didn't have whole trees fall, but were trapped in their homes because their driveways and garages were blocked by fallen branches. I'm hoping I've cleared most of those likely to cause me similar problems.)

While the crane was working around the house, I and anyone else inside had to leave. As the operator explained, having a multi-ton section of oak tree come through the roof onto our heads might ruin our whole day! Fortunately, he didn't make any mistakes, but the Servicemaster crew went elsewhere for the day. They'll be back on Thursday morning to continue the post-fire cleanup. I headed for the bank, to draw cash to pay for the tree-felling, and brought back some cold sodas for the crew.

The crane left after three hours, its job done. A Bobcat skid-steer loader and its crew worked through the afternoon, gathering up all the severed limbs and sections of trunk and depositing them at the roadside ready for collection. (There are dozens of such piles up and down the length of every street here.) The skid-steer loader carved up my driveway and lawn, unfortunately, and parts now look as if a herd of prehistoric gigantic armadillos had been rampaging up and down: but nothing else could have handled the amount of work in so short a time. I'll have to have a garden services outfit roll the lawn after the next good rain, to smooth it out again.

At least if another hurricane comes calling, the most "risky" tree near the house is now gone. An expensive job, but worthwhile. My neighbor across the street, seeing the tree-fellers at work, promptly hired them to come to his place in a day or two to trim all his protruding branches as well, and others further down the street gathered to watch and make arrangements of their own. I daresay the contractor will get several jobs here as a result. (Perhaps I should charge a commission!)

Peter

Hi, folks. It's been a loooonng day, and I'm one tired puppy! Blogging will be light tonight.

Servicemaster have been hard at it cleaning my house and disposing of fire-damaged carpet and other bits and pieces. I have to hand it to them: they're a first-class outfit. They work fast and hard, and I can't complain that they're not delivering value for money (particularly since my insurers are paying!). They wanted me to move out during the cleaning process, as the house is left stripped bare and pretty desolate, but there isn't a hotel room to be had for love or money at the moment. Some of the refugees from further South no longer have homes to return to, thanks to Hurricane Gustav, so they're staying here for the time being: and others are watching Hurricane Ike with a beady eye, and are unwilling to leave until they're sure the threat has passed. Result: all the hotels are full up, and don't know when they'll have rooms available again.

Speaking of Ike, it looks as if he's going to go to the South of Louisiana and clobber south-eastern Texas. I have to admit I'm relieved to be out of the bullseye (at least for the moment), but I feel for those who have to brace themselves for his coming. Hang tough, Texans!




I notice that my buddies JPG, Holly, Matt, Phlegm and Lawdog are scheduled to have Ike come calling in their vicinity sometime on Saturday or Sunday. Stay dry, friends, and be safe!

I've managed to find a contractor to cut down the tree from which fell the branch that damaged my house, and clean up several others, and deposit the wood and branches at the roadside for collection by the municipality. To my astonishment, his quote was almost double what I'd been led to expect by online investigation: but he was quite matter-of-fact about it. If I'm prepared to wait a couple of months until hurricane season is over, I can get the job done at the "normal" price. However, there are so many trees down right now (literally thousands of them), and so many homeowners crying out for contractors to deal with them, that he can basically name his own price in the short term. By offering cash (no checks or paperwork) I was able to bargain him down a bit, but it'll still be a hit of almost two thousand dollars to get the job done. Still . . . beggars can't be choosers, and all the other contractors I've approached haven't even bothered to return my calls. I guess he gets the job! I don't want another hurricane dropping the rest of the tree on my home!

Tomorrow Servicemaster tackle my study, where the fire started, and which will be the most complex room to clean as a result. I've got to deal with a mound of books, papers and clothes covering the floor in my bedroom, all tossed in there higgledy-piggledy after the fire to get them out of the way. The tree man's coming at mid-morning to take down the tree, so I'll have to get Servicemaster to move their vehicles to a safe distance - I'm sure they don't want several tons of oak tree through the windscreen of their van! I've also got to get to the bank to draw money, pick up mail, and do umpteen other things.

Who said life after a hurricane is boring?

Peter

There's a lot of information coming out in the aftermath of Hurricane Gustav. For those who might face a similar natural disaster, I'll summarize some of it here.

First, the flooding was much more severe than anticipated, and took all of us by surprise. It turns out that a great deal of the flooding came in the last hours of the storm, as the final rain bands on the back side of Gustav went overhead. For example, the city of Pineville had a foot or more of rain from Monday afternoon through Tuesday evening, and its pumps coped quite adequately with that volume. However, in the small hours of Wednesday morning, a couple of rain bands came through and dumped seven inches of rain in just two hours. There isn't a pumping or drainage system in the world that could cope with that amount of water, particularly as the ground was already completely saturated and couldn't absorb any of it. It's as if a dam broke.

I remember that particular incident. The roar of water on my roof woke me up, and I couldn't get back to sleep for some time. Looking out of my windows, I couldn't see the road, less than fifty yards from my bedroom! Talk about a gully-washer . . . Later on Wednesday, when I drove to the Post Office to get my mail, I went through hubcap-deep water six times in two miles. That particular road is still underwater in places. It appears that the sudden deluge swept trees and other debris into huge heaps, blocking natural runoff channels, all of which will have to be cleared by hand - only no-one can get to them at present! It's going to take a while.

Then there are those who try to take advantage of others' misfortune. I described some of the "contractors" in my post yesterday. Others are selling generators off the backs of trucks, or in shopping center parking lots. Unsurprisingly, many of these generators are breaking down within minutes of starting them up. Caveat Emptor remains a rule to remember!

Finally, a number of people (including yours truly) have been unpleasantly surprised to find that their insurance coverage isn't nearly as extensive or as comprehensive as they thought it was. It seems that many companies have changed their policies since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, often "disguising" the changes in annual letters that no-one bothers to read. I certainly didn't pay enough attention to mine! Items once covered, such as removing trees that are damaged, or paying for food lost due to one's freezer defrosting after a power outage, are no longer insured. This is going to cost me a couple of thousand dollars of my own money, to pay for cleanup and other expenses that I thought would be covered under my policy.

It's my own fault, of course. I should have paid more attention to those innocuous-seeming annual "disclaimer" statements mailed out by my insurer. However, I know there are many thousands of others in the same boat at this time: and in future disasters, there will be even more. Friends, if you have insurance on your home and/or property, now would be a very good time to review the policy, down to the last clause, section and paragraph, and make sure you understand what's covered, and what isn't. There have been some significant changes in standard policies over the past couple of years, and what might once have been covered may be insured no longer. It's worth checking on it now, before you need to submit a claim.

For those interested in further reading, here are three links to local newspaper articles dealing with these matters:


They're worth reading to prepare yourself for any natural disaster in your area, no matter how unlikely that may seem.

Peter

It's been a busy hectic shambolic sort of day.

I'm finding it just about impossible to line up roofing, siding and tree-removal contractors. They've all got more than enough work to keep them busy for months: and if you tell them, "Guys, this is an insurance job, and you'll have to wait for payment until after the bondholder has inspected your work and approved it for payment," they basically flip you the bird. There are too many people needing their services who are willing to pay cash up front! I've already asked my insurers and bondholder what they're willing to do about this, and (as I mentioned earlier) I'll be writing to the Governor to ask him to find a solution to the problem. I can't blame the contractors, of course - if I were in their shoes, I'd adopt precisely the same attitude!

Fortunately, ServiceMaster are honoring their pre-hurricane commitment to do the post-fire cleanup, and they'll be here on Monday. I'm hoping that a hotel bed will be available by then, as they tell me I really, really don't want to live at home while they strip the house around my ears! The painting and repair contractor has also honored his pre-hurricane commitment, and will move in the following Monday to do the painting and repairs to the fire damage. I'm hoping that if I can break loose some funding by then, I can also get him to tackle the storm damage: but since he won't work on delayed-payment terms, I'll have to sweet-talk my bank about that one. We'll see.

What else today? I went to Sherwin-Williams to get two more paint samples. As I mentioned earlier, their online paint selection tool is a wonderfully useful thing, but there's still no substitute for actually testing samples of the paint on your walls to see what works. I've had to change my earlier choice for the living area walls, as it proved to be too close to white for my liking. I've switched to a very, very slightly yellower shade, to give me the warm, cosy effect I'm looking for, and I'll paint squares of it on the walls to check it out in various light conditions. On Monday I have to notify the contractor of the colors I've selected, and he'll then have Sherwin-Williams mix them in the necessary quantities.

I hit Lowe's, to select the ceiling tiles; the bank, to fill in more loan forms (!!! ??? @#$%& ??? !!!); the Post Office to collect mail; my favorite gunshop, to put some guns on consignment sale (I need money for repairs more than I can afford to keep the guns, I'm afraid); and sundry other errands.

This weekend I'll be clearing out the house as best I can, in preparation for next week's major cleanup. Almost everything I own has to go into my outbuilding, so that the house can be scrubbed from top to bottom, then painted throughout. Servicemaster will do the heavy lifting, fortunately, and bring everything back inside once the work's done. I'd never have believed how much work is involved in rectifying what seems relatively minor fire damage. The amount of sooty grease deposited on everything is remarkable. One can't easily see it with the naked eye, but if one runs a couple of sheets of white tissue paper down the wall, they come away bearing a black smudge. Icky! Servicemaster will be erecting what they call an "ozone tent" in one room, to fumigate my books and take the smell of smoke out of them. (I asked whether it would work for people, too, but they strongly advised against it!)

Meanwhile, we're all (rather nervously) keeping an eye on Hurricane Ike. His currently forecast track looks like he might move into the Gulf of Mexico, then come ashore somewhere in Louisiana.




Just what we don't need right now! Go away, Ike!

Peter

I'm still here . . . somewhat battered, rather wet, but here! It's been quite a ride.

Soon after my last post on Monday, the telephone line went dead, and within half an hour the power followed suit. That set the scene for a wild night. The wind picked up to sustained tropical storm force over the next hour, and stayed that way right through until Tuesday morning. The rain came in fits and starts. One moment there'd be nothing but a few isolated drops: the next, a curtain would fall over the scene, so that I couldn't see the road less than a hundred yards from my front door.

I was as well prepared as possible. I'd tied down my portable garden building, put plywood over the windows of my garden shed, cleared away any debris that could blow around, and so I sat back, made a nice mug of tea on my gas stove, and prepared to wait out the storm. I moved into my living-room, which is at the center of the house, and furthest away from the trees at either end.

I didn't sleep at all that night. It was far too noisy for a start, and I didn't want to be lying down in case something landed on the house. Turns out something did! The oak tree by the corner of my carport split in two at about 2 a.m., and the half facing away from the house did a neat pirouette in the storm wind and clobbered my roof. The bang was immense, certainly loud enough to have definitively cured any lingering problems I might have had with constipation. (Fortunately, I wasn't suffering from such a malady, otherwise things might have gotten messy!)

I didn't bother going outside, with the wind and rain howling around, but I nipped up into the attic to make sure that nothing was leaking. Fortunately, my house was built about 60 years ago, with larger, stronger timbers than are used today, so it absorbed the impact with relatively minor damage. Nevertheless, the impact was strong enough to shake the whole structure, and it brought down a number of ceiling tiles in my kitchen. I took this photograph just afterwards. Clickit to biggit.




I made some more tea, and settled down to wait out the hours of darkness. Fortunately, Gustav had brought cooler temperatures with him, so despite being without air-conditioning in Louisiana's hottest and most humid month of the year, things were bearable. When dawn broke (later than usual, thanks to the low, dark clouds blocking the light) I went outside to take a look around. The wind and rain had lessened enough to make that possible by then.

The fallen half of the tree was a good fifty to sixty feet long. It lay on the ground in front of my carport, extending all the way along my front porch up to my bedroom bay window. It had obviously caromed off the lower part of the roof, ripping the gutter loose in its fall, before landing next to the house. Here you can see the lower front roof, looking a little buckled, and in the second picture, a close-up of the gutted gutter.






The chimney in the center of the roof, which runs down to my wood stove, also took a hammering. Some of its anti-insect panels are gone, and it's leaning ominously (not very clear in the picture below). I guess it'll have to be re-mounted.




By 9 a.m. some local folks were helping all and sundry cut up the fallen trees and branches, sufficient to get their vehicles and themselves in and out. The roar of the wind and the rain had been replaced by the urgent whine of chainsaw motors, all over the neighborhood. Some helpers were rather too enthusiastic . . . we'd had at least a foot and a half of rain by then, and even though our area's well drained, the ground was so sodden that I couldn't walk on the grass without sinking ankle-deep in mud. A visiting tree surgeon tried to drive his truck over to my worst-damaged tree . . . with this result.




He had to be hauled out by others, to his embarrassment.

Everyone had lost power and phones, and to our dismay, the local cellphone towers also went out. To get a signal, I had to drive about five miles towards Alexandria, where a tower was still operating. With no traffic lights and the roads covered in leaves, branches and fallen power lines, that was interesting! Still, I was able to get messages out. Many thanks to Lawdog, Phlegm, JPG and Holly for putting the word up on their blogs that I was still OK.

The rain began to get heavier again, and most of us returned to our homes. For the next few hours we had a number of really heavy downpours as the back side of Gustav went overhead. I'm sure that the cumulative total of rainfall had to have been two feet or more. By mid-afternoon things began to lighten up a bit, although rain continued intermittently through Tuesday night as well.

By now I was really tired, not having slept at all since Gustav arrived. I collapsed early on Tuesday evening and slept in fits and starts through the night, being woken up frequently by torrential rain, gusts of wind, and thunder rolling overhead.

On Wednesday the big clean-up began. Crews from utility companies in many other States had been arriving in droves, and they set to work with extraordinary efficiency. It's the difference between night and day to see them working now, and think of what things were like after Katrina and Rita in 2005. Governor Jindal and his staff have done a superb job of mobilizing resources and planning ahead, with the result that things are being fixed much, much faster than before. For example, after Rita it took me three and a half days to get power and telephone service restored. I had power yesterday afternoon, less than two days after it went out, and my phone (and DSL Internet connection) came back on this evening. Much better! The technicians also got a local cellphone tower working this morning, so we were able to communicate more easily while waiting for landlines to be reconnected.

I'm enormously impressed by the scale of the organization that's gone into this recovery effort. I spoke with a utility crew from Minnesota, who'd left on Thursday night. They told me that every arriving crew and convoy was met at the borders of Louisiana by State police, waiting at the various welcome centers. They were in satellite communication with a central command post, and could instantly tell each new arrival, "OK, you're going there, to do that; you'll be billeted here; these are your contact numbers; here's a detailed map of how to get there, including flooded roads to avoid; and you'll be joining a convoy escorted by some of our guys to make sure you get through." Very efficient and well co-ordinated. The utility crew were most impressed. They said they'd worked through their fair share of natural disasters like this, and Gustav was being handled better than anything they'd ever seen before.

Gustav's hit Louisiana very hard indeed. The damage in this area is much worse than after Katrina and Rita, but it's being handled so well that one hardly notices. Still, there's free-flowing water blocking many minor roads. Driving to the post office yesterday to pick up mail (which is still being delivered to P. O. boxes, if not to homes), I had to drive through hubcap-deep water at least six times in two miles. Those in smaller cars were stuck. I drive a pickup, so that much water doesn't bother me. Still, it'll be days before some roads are clear, and then they've got to be inspected, have loose power lines cleared up, trees removed, and so on. There's a lot of work ahead.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm part of a relief group involving several different churches and denominations. The group is active, but the temporary headquarters is operating out of Shreveport at the moment, as it was spared most of the damage that the rest of the State took. I'm out of the loop at present, and I must admit, I'm not sorry! I've got more than enough to cope with as it is. My prayers and good wishes go out to those taking up the load for the rest of us. I'll get more involved next week.

I walked around my property this morning, taking pictures for insurance purposes. My garden shed had corrugated iron siding on three sides before Gustav arrived. It now has it on only one side - the other two have been neatly stripped bare!






The screws and nails that held the iron sheets to the wood backing are still there, although the picture doesn't show them clearly. Where the sheets of corrugated iron went is anyone's guess. I can't see them in or near my garden, that's for sure! On the other hand, I do have part of someone's roof lying near my house. If anyone reading this recognizes it, feel free to come and get it!




I've now lodged a second insurance claim (somewhat to the dismay of the nice lady at Louisiana Farm Bureau, who was rather taken aback that two weeks after a fire, I'd had a tree hit the house! She was very nice about it.) The big problem is, my checks for the earlier damage are going to be delayed, thanks to power being out at Farm Bureau's head offices down in Baton Rouge. I need to get workers moving ASAP, but without money, that's not going to happen. Of course, they have plenty to do anyway - there's enough storm damage out there to keep every contractor in the region busy for the next six months without stopping for breath!

I'm going to have a quick fire-sale of some guns and other things, to raise enough to get the most urgent work done, and I'll go on with the rest once the checks arrive.

Speaking of guns, there have been lots of them in evidence after Gustav's departure. Most of us remembered the trouble we'd experienced with ill-mannered visitors from New Orleans after Katrina, and we were (and are) determined that any recurrence will be nipped in the bud before it has a chance to grow. So far there hasn't been much of a problem, I'm pleased to say. The sight of so many armed and clearly determined residents, keeping a friendly eye on each others' homes and neighborhoods, appears to have had a dramatic effect on the lowlifes among us. They're laying very low at present. The few con artists who always pop up after something like Gustav, offering "cheap" repairs and trying to loot what they can while doing them, are being met by welcoming committees of residents, backed up by local and State police, who are not very polite and even less patient with them. They're vanishing even faster than they emerge!

I'm very tired at present. I haven't slept properly since Monday, catching a few Z's whenever time allowed, so I hope I'll be able to get a good night's sleep tonight. Hopefully blogging will be back to normal tomorrow.

Thanks very much to everyone who sent kind words, thoughts and prayers. They're all greatly appreciated. I think the good Lord was looking out for us during Gustav. It could have been a whole lot worse! Governor Jindal and his team did a fine, fine job getting people out in good time, and they're performing minor miracles every day in getting the recovery under way. It's good to see - particularly in comparison to the shambles that we saw post-Katrina and post-Rita under our previous administration.

Sleep well, friends. I'm off to do just that myself!

Peter

OK, here it comes.

The wind's howling nicely in my trees, which are blowing all over the place, and the rain's slanting in at about 45 degrees. A bit more wind and it'll be nearly horizontal. This is the first of the strong storm bands, and there's more coming. Here's the radar picture - my parish (county) is circled in red - with the details. Clickit to biggit.




Our power might go out at any point, once this wind starts blowing branches off trees and into powerlines. I've got my laptop fully charged, and my DSL modem running off a UPS, so if the phone line stays up I should still be able to post once or twice, even with no power: but if the phone lines go too, then I'll be offline until things get fixed. I'll try to get an update to Lawdog, Phlegm, JPG or Holly in that case, and ask them to post it on their blogs.

Spare a thought for Ambulance Driver. He's further South than I am, right in the path of Gustav's eye, and he's on duty. I've no doubt he'll have an interesting time, in the sense of the ancient Chinese curse!

Yep - power just flickered, and my UPS is beeping at me. Won't be long now.

Peter