Five days of Gustav

Where to begin...I guess at the beginning.

Monday - My last blog was on the day of the hurricane. I had planned to write daily on what was going on in the area, but was so busy I never had a chance. I stayed at the hospital until around 6 p.m. when I decided to ride out the storm at home. I planned to just go back the next morning or be called out during the night, if needed. The wind and rain was impressive. When Gustav hit our area, it was a category 1 hurricane. We watched the hurricane action curiously until dark. The trees bent with the wind and the rain poured with a bullet force. My in-laws, sister-in-law and five dogs moved into our home during the hurricane. And then...our lights went out. I had started cooking chicken and sausage gumbo and Rick brought it quickly outside to finish cooking on the pit (there's more to that story I will tell later). Then, the trees began to fall. I don't know if tornadoes were making the trees fall or if it was the wind. But they fell, everywhere in our neighborhood.

The kids and my in-laws began playing a card game to pass the time and ease nerves. It worked. I paced and paced. I hated not begin able to see what may or may not happen. We finally decided to go to bed. We opened the windows for air, but all there really was was humidity beyond breathable. House alarms went off all night and the wind blew and rain poured constantly. We slept on top of the beds since it was so hot. Around this time, I wished I had stayed at the hospital.

Tuesday - The day after the hurricane Rick and I got up early to evaluate the damage. The yard was a mess. We lost some trees, but none I was too upset about. All of my magnolias were fine - thank goodness. The house was fine. We were fine. But - no electricity. I then went into work and got dressed in my office. I had a full day with media, command center, staff issues, etc. I think I worked until late in the evening. Rick and the kids decided to move up to the hospital with me since we had cable, food, A/C, etc. The news informed us it was going to be a while before we had electricity again. We had a hard time sleeping at the hospital, but at least we were not sweating bullets. It rained a lot during the night.

Wednesday - I was awaken at 6 a.m. when my cell phone rang and it was the hospital letting me know they had activated Plan D (disaster plan). The hospital was flooding. We had received almost 5 - 7 inches of rain through the night and many areas of our city, specifically downtown, was flooding. Another long, long day. I had a lot of media, employee communications, hand-on work to do on this day. I don't even remember when I stopped working. We had to move an entire floor of the hospital into our main hospital - not an easy feat, but was accomplished. The ER was nuts. People were getting really hot, shelter people were brought in constantly and the staff was exhausted and worrying about their homes. At this point, I had not bathed in several days and looked/felt disgusting. One of my employees who had the luxury of electricity invited us to come over and bath. It was wonderful. Boy, the simple things in life are the best. While washing Madeline's hair, she mentioned to me that the skin on her feet are sluffing off again. She did this with both her hands and feet before the face rash began on her around this time last year. I told her we needed to watch this. I panicked inside a little.

Thursday - We slept better, probably from pure exhaustion. The kids were being so good during this entire event. And Rick was so wonderful taking care of them since I was working constantly. Rick even helped out at the hospital delivering food trays to our 276 patients. We were low on all of our staff due to the hurricane and flooding so we were doing a little bit of everything. We still had no electricity so planned to stay again at the hospital. No one else in my family had electricity either. That evening, we decided to go to Sam's to buy a generator. We had already lost all of our food in the two refrigerators at home and decided we would not do that again. When we got to Sam's I asked Trey to call his friend to see if we had electricity. We DID! Praise the Lord! We hauled butt to the hospital to pick up our items and went quickly home. When I walked into the house, I SMELLED SMOKE. Looking around briskly I saw the source - the stove. I had washed some dishes and laid a beach towel over the area with all of the dishes thinking once the electricity was back I would put them in the dishwasher. All of the items were burnt and black. When we lost our electricity I was cooking gumbo. Rick took the gumbo and in all the commotion I forgot to turn off the stove. When we gained electricity, it heated up and began to burn. Thank God we came home when we did. 30 minutes later the house surely would of been on fire. I then tried to get my parents to come over. They are in their 70's, but refused to come home with us. Hardheaded. We went home took baths and went to bed - life is good. OH - it was our 15th wedding anniversary, how romantic, huh? :)

Friday - I woke up exhausted, but slowly got up and went to work - another full day. We went to the grocery store to buy milk, eggs, etc., but there is none to be found. They are handing out ice, dry ice and MREs, but we don't feel righting getting any since we are fortunate to have electricity, so many don't still.

Saturday - I think we are getting back to normal. Most of my family now have electricity. Grocery stores are getting produce, milk in...yea, we have eggs. I am still so exhausted. I plan to rest as much as I can...for now. We watched the weather channel and see another hurricane coming our way...it's name is Ike.

I hate 2008...it's not been a good year. I can't wait for it to be OVER!