Just thought I\'d pass along a quick note to let everyone know that we\r\nsurvived yet another brush with a hurricane. We discovered two things\r\nabout our Baton Rouge house: it leaks like a sieve, and its located at\r\nthe bottom of a small bowl.\r\n\r\nThe night before the storm (Friday night), while Noel and I tried to\r\nwatch a movie on our travel tv with its enormous 5-inch screen, we\r\nlisted to the soothing pitter patter of the rain outside. Pretty\r\nquickly, though, I realized it wasn\'t outside - it was in the\r\nfireplace. Rain was running down the sides of the chimney, and\r\ndripping like crazy everywhere. We gathered up what few pots and pans\r\nwe still had and tried to start catching the rain. Of course, we have\r\nno extra towels to wipe up the mess, so whatever we didn\'t catch\r\nspilled onto the carpets. Normally, I\'d be worried about that but a)\r\nits a rental house, and b) water was seeping through the foundation\r\ninto the carpet anyway.\r\n\r\nOh, and two other windows in the house were leaking like crazy as\r\nwell. And several other windows continued to blow open until we just\r\nstarted nailing them shut. At one point, we tried to treat this house\r\ngently since we are just temporary tenants. But not anymore.....\r\n\r\nThe next morning brought another squall dropping several inches of\r\nrain in about an hour. We watched the street in front of our house\r\nstart filling up, as the entire neighborhood drains down to us. The\r\nday before, I had noticed our neighbors parking cars on the neutral\r\nground, so I moved my car a block away up a hill. But Mike\'s (Renee\'s\r\nfinance) car was up on the neutral ground. So as the water rose, we\r\nwatched it start lapping at his exhaust pipes. At the deepest point,\r\nwe had about 3 feet of water in the street. So I put my waders back\r\non - just because I had them - and went treking through another flood.\r\n At least this one didn\'t stink.\r\n\r\nThe flood water never made it into Mike\'s car, nor our house, and once\r\nit stopped raining, the block drained in less than 30 minutes. I\r\ntreked through the waters to see the storm drains and it was a fairly\r\nimpressive sight: a 2 foot whirlpool sucking water down the drain.\r\nPretty strong suction, too.\r\n\r\nAll told, Rita was a lot of wind and rain for us here. A big scare,\r\nas we watched and feared that it might turn closer to us. And we know\r\nseveral people who had evacuated to Houston and Beaumont, who repacked\r\ncars and headed out - seeking refuge back in the New Orleans area!\r\nMost of them are packing back up to return to Houston. Again. I\r\nthink car travel is getting a little old...\r\n\r\nSunday we went back to New Orleans with our work crew to try and\r\nfinish the job in our house. Alas - we could not get into the city.\r\nAll routes in were blocked by the police department, and they didn\'t\r\nlet anyone through. No sweet talking, no connections, no passes,\r\nnothing. We watched car after car wave their passes and all get\r\nturned away. I think the Mayor was seriously worried about additional\r\nflooding. As you undoubtebly saw, one of the breached levees gave way\r\nagain and re-flooded part of the city. This was not our neighborhood,\r\nand in fact - as sad as this is to say, that flood probably didn\'t do\r\nany additional harm to New Orleans. From what I\'ve heard, that whole\r\nneighborhood is going to have to be bulldozed anyway, and there were\r\nprobably no people left in the area. So its just additional water and\r\nextra work to pump it out again. But probably no additional damage -\r\nthere is probably no way you could do any more damage to that\r\nneighborhood.\r\n\r\nIn order to prevent flooding from storm surges, the Corps of Engineers\r\nplugged the 17th Street Canal at its exit into Lake Pontchatrain (this\r\nis the canal which is the one two blocks from our house that breached\r\nand flooded the Lakeview region of New Orleans, including our house).\r\nThat plug kept the storm surge out, but also prevented the draining of\r\nrain waters. Whatever rain came from Rita (and I don\'t know how much,\r\nbut I think it was less than 4 inches) can\'t be drained yet - so it\r\naccumulates in the low points. So, some areas of Lakeview had a\r\ncouple of feet of water. But again - those areas were already flooded\r\nwith much higher flood waters, so this probably didn\'t do any\r\nadditional damage either.\r\n\r\nBut - given the high tides, the additional rain water and the general\r\nstate of the levees, I don\'t think the authorities wanted anyone in\r\nNew Orleans - so they had *real* roadblocks this time. So, no return\r\nto New Orleans for us this weekend. Next weekend, though, we hope to\r\nget back and finsh the demolition. And then sit and wait for 2 or 3\r\nmonths while the house dries and we figure out what to do next. And I\r\nlook forward to that - just some time to try and enjoy our life\r\nwithout worrying about the house, the contents, the next steps.\r\nWe\'ve got sights to see in Baton Rouge, maybe an LSU game to take the\r\nkids to (we\'re only about 2 miles from campus). We need to take\r\nCarrie to see some of the Huey Long monuments to explain a little bit\r\nabout the history of \"All The King\'s Men\". And Noel\'s dad wants to\r\ntake us on a \"history tour\" to show us the parts of Baton Rouge where\r\nhe and his family grew up. Lots to do here, if we can get to a time\r\nwhere we stop worrying about New Orleans.\r\n\r\nSlowly but surely, the city and region are trying to recover.\r\nHopefully this week, some neighborhoods of New Orleans will be\r\nreopened for people to return and move in. Uptown, the Central\r\nBusiness District, the French Quarter and the Garden District will be\r\namong the first areas \"repopulated\". And - despite all of the\r\ndevastation throughout the city, these 4 areas remained mostly\r\nunscathed. Lots of hurricane damage that can be repaired, and tree\r\ndamage that can\'t. But the historic structures and areas that defined\r\nNew Orleans are mostly intact, waiting to (hopefully) draw tourists\r\nback to town.