The Gulf Coast

We can't get any news at all other than the little we see on the national news. There is frightening lack of communication coming out of the Gulf Coast. Kenny's mom, stepfather and grandmother decided to ride out the storm about 10 miles north of Bay St. Louis. No one has heard from them since Sunday, before the storm hit, so we're worried. Hopefully, they're fine and just can't contact us, as Bay St. Louis appears to be cut off from the entire world right now.

Kenny is frantic and left this afternoon to drive down there--he's going to get as close to the area as he can and then, if need be, bike/walk the rest of the way in. Quite possibly a futile effort, but he couldn't stand just sitting and doing nothing, and I can't really blame him. I would probably do the same thing if my family was still down there. We loaded up his car with five-gallon containers of gas, several cases of bottled water and a gun, and then he took off.

We're pretty sure that my parents' house has been severely damaged, if not completely obliterated--the only news we've seen coming out of Mississippi is of houses reduced to shards.

News doesn't seem to be much better in New Orleans. We have no specific news about our neighborhood in general, but I've seen news reports of flooding in areas very close to our home. Very bizarre to watch a reporter cruising around in a boat on a street you drive down regularly. Things don’t look good. It's true when they say New Orleans is a big bowl--our house is at about two feet above sea level, and that's considered relatively high. Once the water gets into the city, it’s pretty difficult to get it out--the levees that were supposed to hold the water out are now holding it in, and the pumps that normally get the water out are submerged.

We're trying to take this all day by day--it's too overwhelming to do anything else.