Astonish, Bewilder and Stupefy

My wife and son and I arrived in New Orleans on Friday afternoon, laden with suitcases full of our daughter Bobbie�s stuff. Our daughter was already there, taking part in a weeklong Tulane pre-orientation program called the NOLA Experience. She had spent the week camping near Baton Rouge, learning the basics of Cajun cooking, touring the city by bike, and taking part in numerous other Big Easy experiences. On the last night of the orientation, a Friday, she attended a Ravens football game at the Super Dome, where she told us air conditioning was so cold she had to wear a jacket.

Friday night the storm seemed to be somebody else�s problem. People knew it was there, but expected it to land off in Florida someplace, and prove only a minor inconvenience at the most. The next morning, things had changed dramatically. The forecasts were dire and the newscasts talked of a possible evacuation. We arrived at Tulane around 10 AM, amid thousand of other students and parents trying to move in. Bedlam. We had no sooner unpacked all of Bobbie�s belongings in her third floor dorm room when word came that Tulane was going to shut down because of the incoming storm. All the students would have to evacuate by 5 PM, and it was recommended that everyone leave town.

Imagine the situation from Bobbie�s point of view. This is the only college she really wanted to attend, and the only college she applied to. She has a developed a deep love of Louisiana Culture and New Orleans. Finally, after point toward this moment for two years, she�s finally there. And now, before the college experience that she�s been dreaming of can even start, she has to leave. I was and remain amazed at the resiliency she has shown through this whole experience

What to do? We checked the airport�the flights out were all packed. We came to a quick decision that we should hit the road in our rental car, and listening to the news reports, it became clear that the wisest course would be to leave immediately. We talked about where we had friends that could put us up, and eventually decided on Houston as a destination. We called friends there. �Houston, we have a problem,� I said. (Actually I didn�t think of that line until later, but I wish I had said it.) They generously offered us shelter in their home.

We grabbed an early lunch and sent Bobbie back to her room to pack a bag. (At this point Tulane was planning to reopen in three days, so she only brought a few things, leaving everything else she owns�even her journal going back to 6th grade�in her 3rd floor room, where we hope it still sits.) Then we all headed to the French Quarter where we checked out of the Place D�Armes hotel. (The sign on the lobby desk noted that any car left in the elevator garage would be inaccessible once the electricity went out�I�ll bet many are there still) and grabbed some Caf� Dumond caf� au lait for the road. We headed west on I-10 at about 2 PM.

The drive from New Orleans to Houston usually takes 5-6 hours. It took us more than 13 hours. Traffic on I-10 was bumper to bumper, with everyone trying to flee the city, and we crawled along at 5 MPH for the first three hours. Then we got diverted off of I-10 West (the road we wanted to stay on) and onto I-55 North toward Jackson Mississippi. We were directed into the �Contra Flow� lanes�headed north on what is usually the southbound side. We couldn�t get off�the Louisiana Highway Patrol was preventing us (and thousands of other cars) from going anywhere but north. The staties wouldn�t even talk when we tried to ask how to get back on the road to Houston; they just kept waving us north. People were cutting across the median in order to break free of the highway. Eventually, about 20 miles south of the Mississippi line, we were able to get off and make our way on smaller roads back to Baton Rouge, and eventually back onto I-10 West. But it took us 7 hours to get from New Orleans to Baton Rouge�usually a 90-minute drive.

Things eased a bit after that, but traffic continued to be extremely heavy, and sometimes slowed down to a crawl. It was an odyssey that I will long remember. Hour after hour of driving through the night, across Louisiana to Lake Charles (with oil refineries lit up like Christmas trees) through Beaumont, and finally into Houston. The kids were stoic. We discovered that the van had a Sirius Satellite radio, and we discovered the joys of having 184 stations of music and talk�we listened to all of them. One news report was particularly memorable. The Governor of Louisiana was exhorting people to pray in order to reduce the size of the hurricane. �Pray it down� she told Louisianans, and that became the mantra for our trip.

I remember at one point, probably about 2:30 AM, with everyone else dozing as we approached Houston, I suddenly began wondering if this sudden drive to Houston was horrible overreaction that I would seem silly in the morning.

We pulled into our friends� street at about 3:30 AM. Somehow they managed to be gracious even at that hour, welcoming us into their home, leading us to our rooms, fixing food for My daughter, and staying up to chat with the exhausted, wired family that had dropped in out of the sky.

We arrived home late Monday night, safe and sound. As events unfolded, we thanked our stars that we got out while the getting was good. Everything we�ve gone through pales to what has happened to those people in New Orleans who have lost everything, or have had to cope with the terrible conditions there, and our hearts go out to them. But it has still been a n emotional rollercoaster for our daughter.

On Thursday Tulane made the inevitable announcement: the first semester would be cancelled. We know it was coming, but still Bobbie was in tears. We hugged, and I told her that I believed she would be back there soon. �I believe it too� she said. She spends a lot of time every day Instant Messaging other Tulane students, and monitoring Tulane-related blogs, and is doing some volunteer work for the Red Cross. She remains fiercely committed to the college and the city, and while she will probably attend classes locally this fall, Tulane is her school, and she can�t wait to get back there.