Creole Navy and What's Coming Next

The rain bike has been getting a lot of miles lately.

Hurricane Harvey missed New Orleans but as everyone knows, it caused catastrophic flooding in south Texas and southwest Louisiana. Here in town we've had a lot of unpredictable scattered rain but nothing serious at all. I skipped riding on Monday because of the rain, but managed to get in a couple of rides on Tuesday and Wednesday, thanks to the Rain Bike, Weather.com, and some lucky lulls in the rain. Yesterday I went out on the old Pennine and was way out in Kenner when I noticed the front tire going soft. I really didn't want to have to change a flat since everything was pretty wet and nasty, so I nursed it all the way back home, which was over ten miles at that point. Somehow I made it back before the rim started hitting the ground. This morning there were just three of us who showed up for the Thursday levee ride, and one turned off for home as soon as a few raindrops fell. It was fairly windy, but we never did get any significant rain, although ten minutes after I got home it poured for a few minutes. That made three days of lucky timing.

What's coming next - Hurricane Irma.

Meanwhile, I've been getting regular reports and videos on Facebook from Kenny Bellau who went over to southeast Texas around Nederland, I think, along with a number of others, including Chris Harvey and Eddie Exposito, to help with the rescue efforts and bring as many stranded people and animals to dry land as possible.

Kenny and one of the smaller rescues

The have been called the Creole Navy, and someone has now set up a fundraising page to help cover some of their expenses, so drop them a few bucks to help out. It looks like the flooding was still pretty severe as of yesterday, despite the fact that the hurricane has finally moved on to the northeast. The photos from inside homes look a lot like those from Katrina, but fortunately the fatalities seem to have been much lower.

With Harvey pretty much out of the picture for us now, we are focusing our attention on What's Coming Next, which is Hurricane Irma.  This one is already a major hurricane even though it's still about ten days out from us. I'm a little worried about this one, but of course a lot could change between now and when it gets close to Florida.

Lots of wet dogs and people
happy to get a lift to dry land

This one could possibly affect the Pensacola Stage Race scheduled for Sept. 16-17 if it gets into the Gulf, but it's way too early to tell right now. The last LAMBRA road race isn't until the end of September and is up in Shreveport, so that shouldn't be a problem. In-between, though, are a few events like the Tour of Jefferson ride on Sept. 10 and the Tour of Tangipahoa the following weekend. There's also the Six Gap Century up in Georgia on Sept. 24. Anyway, we're all just hoping for the best at this point. I'll breathe a lot easier if we can get through the next three weeks without a major storm to deal with.