Final Approach

At this point, I'm not even surprised. After packing up all my gear this morning, we were told that our trip to Alexandria would be delayed, and possibly canceled. I'm not positive about the precise bit of Americorps policy that spurred this decision, but I can imagine it has something to do with the directors not wanting us to drive through the leading edge of a Category 3 hurricane. (Wimps.) Thus, we will be here at the Summa Staff Shelter in Baton Rouge, riding out Ike as he makes landfall in about two hours. This storm, at 600 miles wide, is fucking massive. As of the last time I checked the Weather Channel website (weather.com - one of my new favorite sites), Ike is supposed to make landfall aimed directly at Houston, with its miles and miles of canals, refineries, shipping ports, and waterfront businesses. This does not bode well for all of the aforementioned. A wall of water will be pushed down those canals, destroying everything in their path. Galveston has been getting the crap beat out of it since this afternoon, and the storm has yet to officially arrive yet. The National Weather Service sent out a press release utilizing unprecedented language: those who do not evacuate in areas of coastal Texas will face "certain death" from the storm surge. They are not fucking around about this storm.

While we're on the topic of storm surges, I'd like to refer you to several posts I wrote around May and June, when I was working for Habitat for Humanity in Beaumont, Texas. The house my team was working on at the time was in the little town of Sabine Pass, located deep in the marshes of the Texas/Louisiana border. The area contains miles and miles of oil refineries and a massive Liquid Natural Gas terminal. It is also, as of this afternoon, expecting a 25-foot (!!!) storm surge to sweep in from Hurricane Ike. As much as I disliked Beaumont, my thoughts go out to the people of that tiny little marsh-front town. With any luck, the house that we helped to construct (which was build up on 10-foot pilings) will weather the crush of water and wind. Good luck, Sabine.

As of now...the lights are on, the phones still work, the internet still works. The wind has been steadily picking up since this afternoon, and we've had the occasional rain squall, but the outer bands of the storm have yet to really come down on us. There are crude signs posted on the wall of our shelter that read TORNADO SHELTER, which I feel is an extreme exaggeration. Short of that, though, I am prepared: I have a Mini-MagLite, my video camera, bags of pretzels and jalapeno chips, and a book or two. So we'll wait through the minor bits of the story that spin off and hit us, then hopefully get sent somewhere relevant to go do something important. For once.

Here we go...