Gustav

(written Tuesday, Sept. 3)



Wow! This has been a crazy Labor Day weekend! Friday, Aug. 29, was officially the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting the Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans. Being in McComb, MS, we were on the east side of the storm…by about 60 miles! The winds were so wild – first from the north, then from the south. We got a total of 4 inches over 24 hours! Not too bad. We were very luck though. We had one small limb hit our house. Only damage we sustained on our house was a bent gutter. We lost 4 trees in our yard.

Yesterday was Monday. Katrina hit on a Monday morning around 6:00 AM. Marty and I got up around 5:00 AM to see what was going to happen. The wind was already wild!!!!

Yesterday was another Monday and another hurricane. Luckily (or not depending on how you look at it), we were on the west side of Hurricane Gustav. It was first predicted to hit New Orleans again. This time people from the Mississippi Gulf Coast and Louisiana didn't HESITATE to evacuate. It didn't take them two hurricanes to learn their lesson. The first one was extremely hard on them….. We got up at 5:00 AM again because Marty thought he had to go to work. The wind was starting to blow, but it never got as hard as last time. We got 6 inches of rain. Big difference from last time. Because Gustav went almost straight west, I assumed (dumb, I know) that the weather would start clearing up. Little did I know that was not to be the case.

Our lights went out several times yesterday. They went out for the last time around 7:00 PM. We played games by candlelight until we decided we'd go to bed early. The weather got very bad last night. There were 2 tornado warnings – one around 1:30 AM and one around 3:15 AM. We had slept with our windows open for air, so we had no problem hearing the sirens since we live only a mile or so from the source! The electricity came on around 8:00 AM today. We were so glad because we could finally take a warm shower. (Cold water even in summer is too cold to bath in!)

I thought the weather would be so much better today, again, because Gustav was moving away from us. Again, I was wrong. We had several tornado warnings throughout the day. We got another 6 inches of rain. This is dangerous for us because we have so many trees throughout our city that are hardwoods. What does that mean for us? Shallow roots! One or two good gusts could knock down some of these hundred year old (and older) trees. Very scary if one is standing over your house!

I'm sending out a prayer for everyone of us affected by Gustav – whether by property or by job. I'm also sending out a big THANK YOU for all the electric company men who put their lives on the line to get the electricity back on as quickly as they can and for all the civil servants who worked to keep things in order.

Love to all of you!
Georgia Ryle