Heat, Hurricanes, Evacuations And A Refinery Explosion

What's going on with the heat? It has been in the mid to upper 90's for so long now that there is almost no way to beat the heat. Last week the compressor on my a/c went bad .. it was patched. A proposal was handed to me with a $1750.00 price tag. Wouldn't you know that the coil I needed was obsolete? The guy left saying, "Sure hope you get through the summer with it." There was an article in last week's local paper stating that we will be paying high electric bills for the next 12 yrs. so they can make up their losses. My last two bills were $229 and $240. They suggest you turn the thermostat to 78 but that doesn't stop it from coming on and running after your house heats up to 90. I will let you know how much my next bill is.

I should be worried about Hurricane Dean and I am, but not in the way I should be. Come on folks, we have nowhere to go when we do evacuate. Shortly after Katrina we decided (Dave and Anita) that we would drive to Mobile with the little gas we had left and find a cool motel room to spend the night in. We couldn't at the time call ahead to make reservations as our phones were out of whack. Every motel or hotel that Dave stopped at had no vacancies and we were using the little gas we had left. All the gas stations on the outskirts of Mobile had no gas to sell so we had to go back home. Now there will be evacuation buses to take people to a safer unknown place should another hurricane threaten. Not me .. it is still too fresh in my mind that the people who evacuated during Katrina were not allowed to come back home. It reminds me of old war movies where people were put on evacuation buses, taken to some wooded area and shot. Perhaps I feel this way since Katrina because we were not recognized as taking the full brunt of the storm. Mississippi is a state!. Saying New Orleans and the Gulf Coast is not recognition. Also what about all the parishes and small cities in Louisiana that suffered severe damages? Have we turned into people that seek only what is sensational? When I watched the rescue of the people on roof-tops and all the helicopters that were flying , I thought, "Why can't they at least drop much needed "ice" to us"? In Pascagoula, there was only one designated area to get ice and no set time when any would be delivered. In my daughter's neighborhood all the cars were destroyed. When I found that my car and home survived the storm, I went to the area and attempted to get ice. I was told that the expected truckload was diverted elsewhere. I suppose the only way to sum up the entire situation that exists in our nation is that we apparently can't handle disasters.

I wrote the above earller this morning and at 1PM I went to my daughter's for a visit. At 2:15PM a tank at Pascagoula's Chevron Refinery exploded. The sky was filled with a billowy black cloud. Terror set in. I took the two boys and Anita had the two girls and it was so slow getting to my house because other people were trying to get as far away as possible too. As I drove I was thinking just a short time ago Pascagoula's complete portion of the money for our schools that Chevron agreed to back in the 60's was split with the other cities in Jackson County. The outcry was loudly proclaiming it wasn't fair. Well, in the evacuation we found ourselves in unexpectedly today, Pascagoula was in danger. It has been said if Chevron has a major explosion it will wipe out 1/3 of our city. The pic below is Anita's. We didn't get many as we were in a hurry to get out of the close proximity to the refinery.

Something my 9 yr. old grandson said as we hastily made our way to what we hoped was a safer place was poignant for one so young. He said, "Nana if it blows up and destroys our house again and all my things, I don't think I can take it this time." Children hurt too!