Kat On A Hot Tin Roof

My Top 3

Greetings to you all,

I am well and at this moment am at the house of a friend of a friend in Baton Rouge. I got here last night with four others from my apartment complex, our things (what few they were), and four cats. We evacuated with another car load, but were separated in the Baton Rouge traffic. The plan was to get a hotel room for a day and collect ourselves. That was the point where we lost the other car. We soon discovered that the only hotel vacancies were in Northeastern Mississippi!!!

Two of those in Barbie Blazer, Torch and his wife Zoe with their kitten, Thumper, had come up from their first floor apartment to stay with me. The other two, Scott and Harry, were from the seond floor across from me. No cats. I’ll tell the story of the fourth cat later.

Torch’s father was driving down from Memphis to pick up the pair. Though leaving, Zoe called a friend in Baton Rouge and we three (Scott, Harry & Me) spent last night here with them. Now there is one. Me. I just took Scott and Harry to meet his brother who’d come from Lafayette to get them.

I’d said that we evacuated yesterday so, yes, that means that we endured the storm first hand. We survived Katrina. Circumstances simply wouldn’t allow us to get out before so we had to hold up and ride it out.

It began Sunday evening with the Hurricane Party. There were three college boys and a fifteen year old brother also an Egyptian girl named Aphrodite from Bldg B. I was in C and Scott and then Pat were in D. Five second loor apartments hosting parties; well, really only four since I didn’t have much furniture (lots of floor space though). It was a great time. Spirits were high. We pooled our resources and we discovered there was more liquor than food. We were also impressed with how long it took before the power finally went out. It was 4:00 am…ish. We had flashlights and a radio, all with batteries. We learned that is was going to Gulfport and were a little relieved since we’d been watching all the trees come down around us.

The sun came up and I finally slept. A few hours later (this is still Monday) I woke up and looked out the window at the parking lot. Trees on every car and water two feet deep. Bright. Sunny. Still. I went down and walked around…excuse me, waded around. Other people from the neighborhood were coming out. There were two men in a flat boat several blocks down and another on a bike. My area was Lake Ave. at Veterans in Metairie right next to the 17th St. Canal which separates Jefferson Parish from Orleans Parish. There were already a few people from New Orleans who’d been picked up by boaters and dropped off on the bridge. A man and two sons came to stay in my place. I had lots of floor space, remember. They brought with them a Rat Terrier and three birds in two cages. We discovered a man and his elderly mother and aunt at the Winn Dixie. They were told to stay there and someone would take them away. They never came and as it got dark we tried to get them to come with us and wouldn’t for fear of the water. They stayed there all Monday night, but we gave them food and a blanket. By morning the pumps had reduced the water in Metairie so I was then able to get Barbie Blazer to the Winn Dixie and got those folks. They also had a cat (Claudette).

Aphrodite took in two German students and the woman who was their guardian. Pat and his roommate, Charlene took in a friend of his who’d come from across the bridge and also another elderly couple, the Weavers, who’d been brought in by helicopter. Finally medical personnel came to take my senior refugees (we had a case of diabetes and mother had Alzheimers). They were not allowed to bring their cat, Claudette. Three more refugees came in. Teenagers. Two girls and a boy. One of the girls was pregnant. The boy, Max, was the father. They had four cats.

I walked to the bridge and surveyed the scene. That site was being used as a launch for anyone with a boat. Every once in a while a vehicle would come to picked up those waiting hours in the sun. What I saw was terrible. All you could see was water, treetops, and rooftops.

I took Scott and Harry to get a boat. I pushed the two of them into the water and went with Pat and Pete to loot the Circle K after the officer at the bridge told us to. I knew that it’d already been looted the night before by Harry (a badboy), Torch (ex-military), and the college boys and little brother (they really needed something to do). Pat and I discovered the ice machine in the back still half full of ice! We loaded garbage bags and went back to give nearly twenty people their first cool drink in thiry-six hours. Scott and Harry rescued some people and Harry (also an aspiring photographer) made pictures. I can’t wait to see them.

I cannot finish telling this story right now. There is so much more. Keep your eyes peeled for the next chapter. I need a nap.

Love to you,
Alan XXX