I popped my head up over the cube wall and yelled "Hey! Donald! Lili's up to a Level 4!"
Donald has six children. The logistics of packing for and moving six children out of the way of Mother Nature must be staggering. He left early that day.
Immediately the subcurrent of anticipation and dread that a hurricane brings jumped up a few volts. A few people shot me e-mails asking what website I was watching (the NOAA's National Hurricane Center, matched with a grad student's custom mapping software for tracking) and what I thought would happen. I parroted the NOAA's predictions and told them that Lafayette was the likely target.
Other people were listening to WWL. They reminded the listening audience that, due to subsidence of the soil, New Orleans was dangerously below sea level; a breach in the levee system would put most parts of the city under 50 feet of water. They advised selling your possessions for cheap on eBay and starting over in Wyoming as a cattle rancher.
Every media outlet, frightened with the prospect of being blamed for thousands of deaths by flooding, all advised evacuation post-haste to Missouri, where doubtless the New Madrid fault would get 'em. There was an edge of frenzy present in the broadcast voices.
The weathermen showed us pictures of Hurricane Lili and she winked at us with her terrifyingly well-defined eye.
Of course, nothing happened to New Orleans. Lili suddenly lost power - wind shear, maybe, no one knew why at the time - and blew ashore a few miles east of Lafayette as a Category 2. Enough for a Declaration of Emergency by the Gov but a far cry from the Camille-style disaster that everyone foresaw.
On that day, around three o'clock, the city ran a test of their siren system. It was an extremely tardy and ill-advised test. Everyone sat as if their chairs were made of tacks and adding to that tension can be seen as just cruel.
The siren went off - a long, keening sound, fading in and out with Doppler, far off but far too close - and in keeping with the superb Oklahoma schooling I recieved, I nearly dropped into the Tornado Preparedness Crouch - Duck and Cover - that you learn from kindergarten on. Jay shot up and said something, I can't remember what, his quaver more important than his words. Everyone else got up on suddenly shaky legs. Some walked to the window, watching for falling V-2 rockets. Many more found an excuse to visit the bathroom or the stairwell. Brian and a few others adopted an exaggerated slouch as to enforce some relaxation on their tense bodies. The anticipation transmuted into fear.
The siren continued, and then slowly winded down with a death rattle. Our bodies expended the supply of adrenaline our limbic system had so thoughtfully provided and we slowly calmed down, heart rates mellowing, irises contracting. Some people returned to their desks, if only to start planning a rapid evacuation. Others just left.
I'd been through tornadoes before, hell, I was out stormchasing the famed Moore, Oklahoma tornado of May 1999 - 316 m.p.h. on the radar at peak, strongest wind ever recorded - but there's a certain redneck cavalierness to a tornado in Oklahoma. You know it, you welcome it with open arms and all camcorders recording. But I've never felt any shock like that siren on that gray October afternoon.
The hurricane was coming. In eight hours. Moving in with the plodding certainty of a fleet of B-52s. Run. Quickly.
Donald has six children. The logistics of packing for and moving six children out of the way of Mother Nature must be staggering. He left early that day.
Immediately the subcurrent of anticipation and dread that a hurricane brings jumped up a few volts. A few people shot me e-mails asking what website I was watching (the NOAA's National Hurricane Center, matched with a grad student's custom mapping software for tracking) and what I thought would happen. I parroted the NOAA's predictions and told them that Lafayette was the likely target.
Other people were listening to WWL. They reminded the listening audience that, due to subsidence of the soil, New Orleans was dangerously below sea level; a breach in the levee system would put most parts of the city under 50 feet of water. They advised selling your possessions for cheap on eBay and starting over in Wyoming as a cattle rancher.
Every media outlet, frightened with the prospect of being blamed for thousands of deaths by flooding, all advised evacuation post-haste to Missouri, where doubtless the New Madrid fault would get 'em. There was an edge of frenzy present in the broadcast voices.
The weathermen showed us pictures of Hurricane Lili and she winked at us with her terrifyingly well-defined eye.
Of course, nothing happened to New Orleans. Lili suddenly lost power - wind shear, maybe, no one knew why at the time - and blew ashore a few miles east of Lafayette as a Category 2. Enough for a Declaration of Emergency by the Gov but a far cry from the Camille-style disaster that everyone foresaw.
On that day, around three o'clock, the city ran a test of their siren system. It was an extremely tardy and ill-advised test. Everyone sat as if their chairs were made of tacks and adding to that tension can be seen as just cruel.
The siren went off - a long, keening sound, fading in and out with Doppler, far off but far too close - and in keeping with the superb Oklahoma schooling I recieved, I nearly dropped into the Tornado Preparedness Crouch - Duck and Cover - that you learn from kindergarten on. Jay shot up and said something, I can't remember what, his quaver more important than his words. Everyone else got up on suddenly shaky legs. Some walked to the window, watching for falling V-2 rockets. Many more found an excuse to visit the bathroom or the stairwell. Brian and a few others adopted an exaggerated slouch as to enforce some relaxation on their tense bodies. The anticipation transmuted into fear.
The siren continued, and then slowly winded down with a death rattle. Our bodies expended the supply of adrenaline our limbic system had so thoughtfully provided and we slowly calmed down, heart rates mellowing, irises contracting. Some people returned to their desks, if only to start planning a rapid evacuation. Others just left.
I'd been through tornadoes before, hell, I was out stormchasing the famed Moore, Oklahoma tornado of May 1999 - 316 m.p.h. on the radar at peak, strongest wind ever recorded - but there's a certain redneck cavalierness to a tornado in Oklahoma. You know it, you welcome it with open arms and all camcorders recording. But I've never felt any shock like that siren on that gray October afternoon.
The hurricane was coming. In eight hours. Moving in with the plodding certainty of a fleet of B-52s. Run. Quickly.
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
thee_blacklisted:
helooo!!!! anybody there???
debrajean:
i'm going to be in NO this week. doing any djing?