Threat Response

hurricane Dennis continues to have a bead on the Gulf Coast, and the city is well within the "cone of probability," which is a nice way of saying it might hit here and it might not. In a city this size with only two ways out, that means decisions have to be made well before there is much certainty. So far, New Orleans hasn't issued a voluntary evacuation order but the University officially closed down about half an hour ago. Most of the locals I've talked to have not decided if they will evacuate yet, although a few have made hotel reservations in Texas just in case. The hurricane will certainly be at least a Category 4. Category 2 and 3 are pretty severe hurricanes. The ones that are Category 4 are best experienced by television from a hotel room a couple of hundred miles away. Dennis is a serious one and I'm a little worried that the most recent changes in its forecast path have shifted it farther to the West. It will be a long weekend, to be sure! Yesterday evening I climbed up on the extension ladder and rigged up the partially broken cable TV line so that I can get a signal again. The streets in my neighborhood are still piled high with debris from last weekend's tropical storm, and I'm hoping, but not expecting, that the city will be able to get all of that stuff picked up before Dennis arrives. Locally, the panic level has ratcheted up a couple of notches in the last 12 hours. The TV news stations have been running pieces explaining the city's newest evacuation plans, aka "Contraflow," in which they will completely shut off all inbound interstate traffic and instead use both sides of the interstate for outbound traffic. I really hope it doesn't come down to that. There is a certain intentional effort to create a mild level of panic at the earliest possible time in order to get people to make earlier decisions about evacuation. It works pretty well.

I rode early this morning because we're interviewing job candidates today and I needed to be ready to go earlier than usual. Once again, I was reminded that I need to be riding solo a bit more often. I mean, there's no need to go all anti-social or anything, but a couple of solo rides a week are good because you tend to focus more on how you are feeling, your efficiency, your limits. It is difficult to think much about cycling when your city is being threatened with annihilation, though.

The folks in our Data Systems department are a little worried about this hurricane since they just moved into a new building. Hopefully I'll have good internet access, at least until the power goes down. We shall see.