baton rouge

[dragonlady7]

Katy's husband Adam's mom Mary Bryant (that's her first name) lives in Baton Rouge with her mother and daughter. We finally heard from them, via the communications-with-Iraq impromptu mailing list.



From: "Mary Bryant Smith"
To: adam.smith , kathleen.kelly, John and Chris Kelly
Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2005 14:22:41 +0000
Subject: hurricane

Hi Everyone, Well, things are pretty crazy down here. We didnt have any damage to our house, but there are lots of trees down all over town. The wind was about 50-75 mph here, but not a whole lot of rain, so no flooding. We were without power for 3 days. the lack of lights didnt bother us -it was the heat, which was really horrible. I would have written sooner but on top of everything else my computer is broken. Modern houses are not designed for cross ventilation. One day grandmother and I spent the day at school because it had power. Our school came back today but only a third of the kids are here. Public school and LSU are out till at least next Tues. Its really kind of nuts in Baton Rouge. About half of New Orleans is here. The traffic is terrible. All the shelters(there are numerous ) are full. The churches are sending their buses to evacuate people still down there, and are serving thousands of meals every day. People are calling th realtors and leasing and even buying houses sight-unseen. Alot of the gas stations are out of gas and when you find any its after a wait in line and only premium is left. The price is going up a dollar a gallon. The groceries are sold out of lots of things(not one loaf of bread at Calandros yesterday). Its really weird. Im on the computer at school and now we just heard that they discovered out local water is contaminated. Its just never-ending-one thing right after another....I heard Linda and Marsha's neighborhood in Slidell was under water. Beckys sister Pam and her husband stayed at home in New Orleans(idiots-there was a mandatory evacuation).They heard from her right after the storm came thru and they were OK but have not heard since.They had 25 gallons of water but you cant live with no sewage, plumbing ,power indefinitely. Plus , the city is being overrun with looters now-even breaking into homes as well as businesses. So, if they dont hear from her today they are going to call the Red Cross. ---- Well, I have to go now -Thursday is Kindergarten and First grade day for me-boy, do I not feel like it today or what?....Katy-thanks for the cute photos-send more . Adam-I'll write more later if I can-Im going to try to get my stupid computer fixed today after school (if the world doesnt end-it kinda feels like it might around her). Take care, Mary Bryant

So that's life on the edges of disaster. I think I'm going to donate to one of the local churches, because they're the ones that sound like they're overloaded. Well, everyone sounds like they're overloaded.