It was another day off the bike for me as we decided to re-enter New Orleans in the morning to see how bad the damage was. After getting through the checkpoint, manned by National Guardsmen and City Police, we arrived around 10 a.m. There was a pretty strong odor of natural gas (all the pilot lights were out), so the first thing I did was go down in the basement and shut off the gas. Down in the ground-level basement, the water must have reached a maximum of six or eight inches deep, so everything that was on the floor was soggy. Camping equipment, stuff stored in boxes, some books, an old carpet, mattresses, etc. Nothing really of any great value, and a lot of stuff that I should have thrown out long ago anyway. Just before we evacuated I had put the washing machine up on top of four paint cans. It was just enough to escape any obvious damage. The dryer, which I forgot about because The Wife was doing a last-minute load at the time, wasn't so lucky. There was a little pool of nasty water in the bottom of the drum, so I guess that machine is toast. When I checked out the roof, I found maybe 16 square feet of roofing missing on the Northwest corner where the wind had gotten underneath the shingles at the edge and ripped a bunch of them off. There was one spot that was down to the bare wood. Inside, we had some water damage to the ceiling in the hallway and kitchen, but nothing quite bad enough for the ceiling to have fallen down.
All-in-all we left feeling pretty lucky. The flooding in our immediate area wasn't very bad. Our neighbor who had just bought the house and moved in the day before the hurricane had much more extensive roof damage and from what I could see through the windows a lot of resulting water damage inside. Anyway, it was a long day and now I have to write up a summary of Tulane's needs for continuing NSF research to submit to the Board of Regents tomorrow. I put a bunch of photos of the house on my Kodak Gallery site. I am planningon going back next Friday to start the cleanup. In the meantime, I'll try again to contact the insurance guy. The number they gave me for him is coming up not as having been disconnected, so somebody at Allstate has screwed something up there. I'll be working on that tomorrow for sure.
It will be a long night.
3 comments:
Lordy, you've got a lot of crap in the cellar!
Indeed! There are boxes down there that have been there since we moved in about 15 years ago. I am rather looking forward to throwing all that crap out!
Some people will have a near death experience or other significant emotional event which causes them to change the way they look at life. Did Katrina change your core values or beliefs in any way?
I would think you have many stories of people who weren't so resilient who are still struggling. I imagine it would be very difficult for the elderly to bounce back.
I would be hesitant to stay for fear that it could happen all over again and would I want to live with that hanging over my head.
From reading your blog it appears you've made a nice recovery. No doubt your bike played a part in that.
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