¡No me Gustav!

So I'm assuming anyone who follows this thing has probably already been informed through facebook or phone trees that we took some damage. The house will endure, but unfortunately some of the paneling was damaged beyond repair. One huge tree (outside of my property line) came down taking out two of my trees on the way to land in one big group on the house. For the record, it was one enormous elm (in the words of the tree guy) and two hackberry trees (yeah, I'd never heard of them either).

The roof, overhang, and one exterior wall took some pretty extensive damage. The den window is broken and the lentil is destroyed. The roof took some pretty severe damage. There are some holes in the roof over the dining room as well and a pretty significant amount of water came through the ceiling above the french doors. The house did not flood and all was not lost. The tree was removed late yesterday evening and hopefully this weekend I will have contractors look at it to begin repairs.

It appears that we won't have power for a while. Entergy released a schedule of when different neighborhoods can expect power back. Mine wasn't on it. None of the neighborhoods around me were on it. Yay. Jenny and I may travel to Lafayette to purchase supplies today and to experience a bit of normalcy: to get gas without a line, to grocery shop in the air conditioning, eat a hot meal in a nice, cool restaurant, etc.

I want to mention a few people here who have been great through this whole ordeal. Michael and Sarah top the list. They sheltered us through the storm, fed us dinner, gave us a place to stay and have been caring for Izzy ever since. Chris has come a number of times to help us clean up/work on the damage. He gave us a nice air conditioned office to sleep in for a night and fed us dinner. David and Terry Hebert (my bosses) have allowed us and some friends the use of the office to eat sleep, etc. while we are without power and until I can get the house livable. Carmen has let us shower in her condo and let us do some much needed laundry. I also want to thank Brooke and Nathan for coming to help clean up my mess after spending hours at Nathan's parents' house cleaning up their mess. It's cliche, but it's true. You really how many friends you have when something bad happens.

I'll try to keep this thing updated as best I can. Cell phones are working a little bit better every day, so if anyone needs to get in touch, you probably can. Take care.