Saturday, 6:30 AM
No power. I was up around 4 and we turned on generator at 5:30 to get frig back down & make coffee. We need to go get gas.
There were some big lights over on the other side of the river on last night--still on actually. This must be for the port. Or heck, as crazy as things are here for all I know it's a riverboat casino. Through the treeline I can also see Placid Refinery up and running, our neighbors. Tempted to go ask to borrow some petrol there. Thjey are making a lot of noise this morning too.
Found this map on Entergy's website that you can zoom in on and look at outages, where, how many, roughly how long--and because you can do this you feel better, you feel in control. But poking on any one of all the little triangles produces basically the same info, so some of this map is theatre. When I zoom way in where we live there are no triangles. Does this mean they think we are on, or that they don't know we exist, or what?
Gary's mother's neighborhood is clocking in on this map as 14-21 days. Our parish does not exist on that map, nor do parts all surrounding EBR, many of them pretty populated. The ones north would be orange, and I don't know about the rest, I got weary of figuring.
Joules, amps, volts, watts, AC/DC
This morning sitting in the dark with Hattie on the bench in the front room, the oldest part of the house circa 1870 I tried willing the power on, reciting all the words having to do with electricity I could think of, wondering at how the folks who occupied the room in which I was sitting 130-some years ago dealt with the heat, the bugs, without any of those magic words. I want to know how many hurricanes Grey Gardens has lived through. Resolved to research any bad ones that might have been in the early history, look back and see what poor old BR and its poorer cousin across the river has been through, what people did, how they got along.
Plan for day: go back to bed and try to get a little more sleep. Then out for gas, and if successful and if bridge is open I will go out into the world across the river by myself for the first time since Gustav and get to campus. Find an open store first and buy a few needed items for movie screening--popcorn, soft drinks, ice. Try to figure out movie showing. Sit in my office for an hour or two if it is cool and start preparing for classes to restart. Time permitting walk over to the medical evac center to see about volunteering for an hour or two. Back to studio to show movie, assuming I get it arranged. Home by 8 PM to beat the curfew.
There are a lot of classes at LSU that go until 9 PM. Will curfew be extended?
9:15 AM Yes, curfew extended until 10 PM. No power; Gary out for gas. On a major bummer here over the power and the fact that Ike is headed for the gulf. The spaghetti models on LSU Hurricane Center site stop at Thursday afternoon where it is almost central gulf. Gary's son called; they are coming back from Jackson MI today, asked if they could bring us anything. Yes, a room AC, and I tapped around and found an OK one from sears. Later son called back and they won't have enough room in the car for it since others are with them. So I ordered a Frigidaire from Amazon and took them up on trial period of 3.99 for one day shipping. Of course this is a weekend so shipping estimate is 9/9. Estimate. But that's pre-Ike so I'll take it. Gary being very fussy about some reviews saying it was noisy until I pointed out that it's highly rated every other way, it has superior dehumidification, it is Energy Star rated, and every other dadblasted room AC unit I could find is reviewed as noisy, or if it isn't noisy, it doesn't work well.
Room AC or not I can't go through another big one. Feel like smashing things at the moment. Instead I will go out and rake. When/if gas comes, I'm getting out of here for the rest of the day, as planned.
