Hurricane Gustav

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On August 30th, I got the call I was dreading and eagerly waiting for. I got the go to head to Louisiana for Hurricane Gustav. I was originally expected in Alabama on Sunday, they called me on Friday morning. I was in San Jose, CA. I got a reprieve to arrive on Monday. When I finally got to Dallas it became apparent that I would have to drive through the Hurricane to get to Alabama. At that point I was told to hang out in Dallas until things settled out. Then when the storm hit, I was told to head directly to Louisiana. Now this was all familar territory since I had been here only 2 and a half years before for Katrina. I was excited to see what changes had been made since I left.

First order of business was to find housing. Oh how I love Crossfit, not only is it a gym, but it is a community. I contacted the owner and trainer for CF New Orleans, and literally the next day he had found a place for me on Bourbon St and St. Ann! Somedays my life sucks...this is not one of those days! Most of my claims were in Baton Rouge, including a building which had the entire back brick wall collapse. I had several buildings with the roofs torn completely off so they got massive amounts of water into their stores. It was a devastating hurricane even though the news made litte of it. Especially when you stop to look at how far inland Baton Rouge is...they aren't supposed to get hammered by hurricanes. Living in the gay section of Bourbon St was an eye opening experience and I finally got to spend some quality time around gay men. It was a fun time all around, and I made some wonderful friends out of the entire experience.

I am still so close to it that I don't know where to begin or end. It was life changing and life expanding! Something I hope never to forget and with all honesty in my heart, feel that I have finally found home! It wasn't all peaches and cream, but life has bad and good. That is just life! It can't all be good otherwise there would be no contrast!

Hurricane Gustav

Hurricane Gustav (pronounced /ˈgʊstɑːv/) was the seventh tropical cyclone, third hurricane and second major hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season. Gustav caused serious damage and casualties in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, Cuba and the United States. Gustav caused at least $8.3 billion (2008 USD) in damages. Gustav triggered the largest evacuation in United States history. Over 3 million people fled the oncoming hurricane.

It formed on the morning of August 25, 2008, about 260 miles (420 km) southeast of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and rapidly strengthened into a tropical storm that afternoon and into a hurricane early on August 26. Later that day it made landfall near the Haitian town of Jacmel. It inundated Jamaica and ravaged Western Cuba and then steadily moved across the Gulf of Mexico.

On August 31, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) predicted with 81%!p(MISSING)robability that Gustav would remain at Category 3 or above on September 1, but on September 1 at 9:30 a.m. CDT (1430 UTC) the center of Gustav made landfall in the United States along the Louisiana coast near Cocodrie as a strong Category 2 hurricane—1 mph below Category 3—and dropped to Category 1 four hours later, and to a tropical depression the following day. Gustav continued moving northwest through Louisiana, before slowing down significantly as it moved through Arkansas on September 3.

As of September 15, 138 deaths had been attributed to Gustav in the U.S. and Caribbean. Damage in Louisiana totaled to $4.3 billion (2008 USD) with additional damage of up to $4 billion in Cuba.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Gustav

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