oh dear... Hurricane Gustav headed for the Gulf - good vibes please!!

Glad you're doing well -- you've been on my heart all day!

My BIL and his family live in a little town near Baton Rouge. Our oldest neice works in Baton Rouge and the younger neice goes to college there. LSU Baton Rouge has cancelled classes for tomorrow and Wednesday. The dirty side of the storm (northeast quadrant) is probably going to whipsaw Baton Rouge but BIL expects they will be okay. Baton Rouge is about an hour or so north of New Orleans. FIL talked to them and they aren't especially worried, other than taking normally hurricane precautions such as water, food supply, full tanks of gas in the vehicles. BIL is a power plant maintenance supervisor and his wife is a teacher, so they have jobs that are flexible. During the aftermath of Katrina, BIL housed church members from Utah who were doctors helping with the medical needs. There would be a special shuttle from Baton Rouge to New Orleans in those days to help with the triage, emergency care, etc.

Here's some current radar of Gustav.

http://www.weather.com/weather/map/interactive/?zoom=6&lat=29.6&long=-90.71&interactiveMapLayer=radar&plot=true&name=Houma,%20Louisiana

Even though Gustav is making landfall as a Cat 2, it will still be a significant rainfall event for many of us, including my area in far north Texas (about 2 towns away from Oklahoma). I am glad to see, however, that the govt and the cities have pulled together to make a pre-emptive evacuation, even if it turns out to be not as bad a hit as Katrina is. Why? Because the other Gulf states have needed to learn from floridians how to handle a hurricane. You do that by boarding up, packing up, and getting out of the way. As such, I think it's more important to set aside funds for hurricane evacuations than studying whether cow flatulence is messing with the ozone layer. And while we're at it, make sure the levees around places like Lake Pontchartrain are suitable for cat 5. I-10, the major highway across the southern U.S. runs right across Lake Pontchartrain and should be sturdy enough to handle to the weather.

Another thing about hurricanes. They are Earth's air-conditioning. They move energy from hotter locations to cooler locations. And in so doing, affect other weather patterns. The clean side of the storm (northwest quadrant) can drag cooler air down to us. They are a negative feedback (electronics term) that balance temp and weather. If we didn't have hurricanes, we would be much hotter. But I know that's not much consolation if you are flooded out.

So, in the words of R.E.O. Speedwagon, we'll have to ride the storm out.

My nephew lives in Baton Rouge. Last night I heard them mention that Baton Rouge, among others, would get a lot more bad weather than they did with Katrina. I emailed him last night to wish him safe. His Mom, Dad, sister and Grandmother finally made it to Huntsville, Mississippi, after a full day of traveling from Houma. They left around 4:30 in the morning and didn't arrive in Huntsville until some time in the evening. I wish your brother in law and family safe Ron, as well as all others that are in the path of the storm.