Update on evacuation

New Orleans City Council Vice-President Arnie Fielkow and his family members.

City Council Vice-President Arnie Fielkow and I just met on the street and confirmed to him that I plan on leaving after all. I am now heading to the area where most of my fellow New Orleans Jews are hunkering down, to wit, Henry S. Jacobs Camp in Utica, Mississippi. It should be about a five or six hour journey that would normally not take more than three. Contraflow has been running so effectively that Louisiana State Police officials are now considering ending it within a 20-hour period. Since the contraflow was implemented at 4:00 a.m. this morning, that means that it could be over with by midnight. Of course, that's about the time that the storm is due to start slamming the city with tropical storm force winds. I will let you know what is going on as soon as I have news to pass on. In them meantime, keep those prayers up and keep us all in your thoughts.

Fay, Fay, Go Away

Well, I knew it was too good to be true. A whole hurricane season last year and no tropical depressions, tropical storms or hurricanes with which to deal. Hmmm...2008 seemed like it was doing okay until Hurricane Fay threatened Florida. I noticed that it was headed in an apparent northward trajectory. That seemed okay to me as far as Louisiana was concerned, although I did have a lot of empathy for the entire state of Florida that stood in the oncoming path of the storm. Then Fay did a curious thing. It hovered over Florida like a hungry pet that wants its food, unleashing a torrent of badly needed rain over Florida and Georgia. But, drought aside, sometimes too much of a good thing is not good. Fay kept sucking up just a bit more of the energy from the warm Gulf of Mexico waters to fuel it and to draw it ever slowly into a path away from Florida and more towards the coastline of Mississippi. It is amazing that the coastline of Mississippi is only 40 miles wide, but it has seen more than its share of hurricanes including, of course, Camille in 1969 and Katrina in 2005. Fay seemed drawn to Mississippi as if it were on a mission and the only good thing about its short sally in the gulf was that it had no time to strengthen into a full blown hurricane. So, here I am watching band after band of driving rain and the heavy winds that are emblematic of tropical storm activity. It seems that we in New Orleans will escape most of the brunt of the storm, but for those northeast of the city, like Baton Rouge, there will be a greater risk of flash flooding than we will have here. Superstitious fellow that I am, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. And, just in case, my toes too.