Overheard at an uptown New Orleans coffee shop...

new orleans before a hurricane. it's an eerie, funny feeling. like watching the most relaxed guy you've ever met slowly strap on a possibly faulty parachute and climb aboard a skydive plane. what will happen? who knows.
i'm at a coffee shop right now, and there are no less than 2 other separate conversations going on right now about "evacuate, don't evacuate... i remember camille back in '69 and boy it was bad when the whole state of mississippi ran out of gas and i was allergic to my mom's cat...."
so evacs are now scheduled to start friday for the swampy parishes south of here - people that live 2hrs south of I-10 on the bayou. My flight to Kansas (next stop on what may be a very memorable Labor Day weekend) is Friday at 2:10pm, so I think I'll be ok. I just checked the wind rating of my windows to see if I need to put up plywood boards, and they are rated to 150mph (category 5) so I think it should be fine. meg is making plans to take pepper and drive up to slidell to her parents on Friday, and then to her sister's house in Pensacola this weekend. I just hope the state has prepared enough over the last three years.

Slight update:
The link under "enough" in the sentence above points to the fact that many levee improvement projects are currently underway in the West Bank of New Orleans the last few weeks and months - an area largely spared in Katrina. This story gives a good overview of levee projects since Katrina across the entire metro area, for those interested.