Well, We Did It Again - We Evacuated

Against our better judgment we evacuated but never again. It was the most dangerous thing I have ever done in my life. A wild ride with 2 adults and 5 children in one car. I drove my car and had as my companion, Judge, their dog. We were on our way to Atlanta, Ga and certainly were not lonely for companionship. We must have had the two million people that evacuated from New Orleans alongside us. My car idles 5mph without my foot on the gas pedal and we did lots of idling, stopping, starting, fast braking that took us close to the rear end of cars. We went through a heavy rainfall that became as dark as night so we pulled off to the side of the interstate and waited as the two million people passed. How could they see anything, we couldn't? We arrived in Atlanta at night and all we had lighting our way was the red tail lights of the cars. Anita was driving and I was right behind her and every signal she gave me to go right or left became actually perfectly synchronized as we weaved our way to the west side of Georgia to find the hotel where we had reserved rooms. Dave had drawn a map and so finding it was no problem.

We went inside to pay for our rooms and were told we had two rooms on the 16th floor. 16th floor? I looked to see if they had elevators We asked for a cart to bring our belongings from the car and were told they only had 3 carts and they were in use. We had to carry all our things up and it took several trips. We were at a "first class" hotel that, in my opinion, certainly was not. We settled down finally and looked for news of the coast hurricane. CNN was following the storm closely and just like it was when Katrina devastated the Mississippi Coast, only New Orleans was mentioned. Of course, we could tell from the pictures shown that nothing devastating happened as in 2005. A neighbor called to tell me that my house was fine. Whew!! Dave and Anita's home did okay too but I will let her tell you about it. We arrived in Pascagoula at 2PM this afternoon and everything was as it was when we left. My neighborhood had some tree limbs down and I had a half of a limb down in backyard. No devastation here. There is no way that we can continue to just pack up and evacuate elsewhere and risk our lives on the interstate. Monday was Labor Day and it passed without our giving a thought to it. We should have stayed home and grilled hamburgers and enjoyed ourselves.

So now there is Hannah, Ike and Josephine and maybe we will get all three of them or none of them. Either way I am staying home. I can't take the panic anymore, it is not living the life you have been given when you run away from it. If I am to die in a hurricane, I will go out praying not running.