Seriously: Gustav

My family is staying in nola for the storm, which doesn't surprise me in the least. They told me yesterday I was welcome to leave with cousins or fly back to nyc. I know that it's incredibly smart to leave and that staying and gambling with the weather is quite possibly the stupidest thing one could ever do. If this were just me, I would have left on Friday. My mom, though, is the person who wouldn't let me have a slap-bracelet in first grade because she thought I'd accidentally slice my wrist open. So sometimes, we don't seem to have a good grip on reality around here.

However, it's my family and despite how headstrong and frustrating they are, I'm going to stay. If I hadn't been in town for Katrina, we wouldn't have had enough drivers to get my family and my grandparents out of the city. I feel that it's important to stay and be sensible in the midst of this.

The good news is that five of our neighbors are staying. Even if I do think they're not taking the best course by staying, it's slightly more comforting to know there's a group of us. There's also a lot of people uptown staying and there's a contact list going around. At least there's something like this in place.

Our house was "okay" from Katrina, but as everyone's been stressing, this is a completely different storm so anything could happen. I worry the most about tornados. On top of keeping everything here intact, I'm going to really have to do my best to be really patient with my family.

Tropical storm winds start tonight. Curfew from dusk to dawn. The storm hits tomorrow around noon and looks like it will be gone by midnight.

We have 50 gallons of water, food, cases of MRE's (ugh), full tanks of gas, ice, radios, cake, champagne, finger sandwiches, meatballs, shrimp (we were supposed to have a party today)--so I guess we're set.

Hopefully this will all blow (pun!) over with minimum damage. Although, this is new orleans so anything can happen or break. I've heard that texting is probably going to be the best way to try and stay in touch. So please do so!

I need to go clean out some catch basins. Stay safe, y'all!