Hurricanes

1) Hurricanes - Pat O'Brians
2) Gustav, over land

So, another whirly beast heading for Louisiana. Still too soon to say exactly where it'll go ashore, but it does look like a big storm and likely to get stronger as it crosses the Gulf.

Talked to my sister, who lives just outside Baton Rouge a few minutes ago, and I'll call my mother in a little while, to see if they've battened down. B.R. is more than a hundred miles inland and usually doesn't get the same wind-level as New Orleans. We went through a couple bad ones in the mid-sixties, Hilda and Betsy. The latter was a Category-4, and only a knot shy of being a C-5. Went through the eye of that one. Eerie sensation, that. Wind coming from one direction at more than a hundred miles an hour, then dead calm, ear-popping drop in pressure, followed by sudden fierce wind from the opposite direction.

We lost a couple of trees and some shingles in that one.

I am here to tell you that throwing a beer bottle into the teeth of a wind blowing at a hundred and ten miles per hour is not the smartest thing to do. Good way to brain yourself if you don't duck fast.

Driving times from of New Orleans are horrendous at the moment, even with all the roads one-wayed out of the city, and it is a mandatory evacuation. Say it could take up to eight hours to get to Baton Rouge, which is only seventy miles up the interstate.

Board it up, tie it down, and good luck, Louisiana.

Storm tracking link here.

Animated satellite view here.