Friendless Friday Ride

A deserted Lakeshore Drive on Friday morning

This morning I got up at the usual time that hasn't been the usual time since last week and rolled out in the dark toward City Park to see if by chance anyone would show up for the 6 a.m. Friendly Friday Ride. Since there is currently a curfew in the city that doesn't end until 6:00 I was technically breaking the law, or rule, or edict, or whatever. It was kind of eerie. Large sections of the city are still without power, which means no streetlights on roads still somewhat littered with branches and stuff blown down by the hurricane. On the other hand, the car travel lanes on the larger streets are surprisingly clear, and of course there were almost no cars anywhere when I left home around 5:30 a.m. I rode carefully, staying out of the shoulder, especially under the oak trees. On the deserted streets I could comfortably take the right lane of Carrollton, which was nice. There were patches where streetlights were on, and patches where everything was dark, but it was pretty smooth sailing regardless.

Not surprisingly, there was nobody - and I mean nobody - at the meeting place in front of the City Park Museum of Art. I was glad to see that the hurricane had blown away part of the monstrosity in front of the museum that they call art but that looks like multicolored bacon. I hate that thing. Anyway, I decided to go ahead and ride the regular route. All of the roads were surprisingly clear of debris, including Lakeshore Drive which looked as clean as ever.

Friday afternoon's outage map

When I got home I found that Entergy had released a schedule for restoring power. It looks like our area, among others, is supposed to be restored tomorrow, and pretty much everything by the 8th - five days from now. That's better than most were expecting, so we're hopeful. Tulane has some damage on campus but nothing severe and researchers are starting to return to their labs already.

Yesterday I helped change the oil in a whole-house Generac generator, and helped Damon get one of our backup window units into his upstairs window so they could hopefully get some sleep. He has that a/c hooked up to his generator, another smaller one connected to an extension cord from our house, and some other stuff connected to another extension cord from our house. Lots of people are still out of town and not quite sure when to return. Perhaps Entergy's schedule will help. Here's some of it for posterity:

Sept. 3 (Friday):

• B.W. Cooper
• Black Pearl
• Carrollton/Riverbend
• CBD along Poydras
• Gert Town
• Iberville
• Hollygrove
• Leonidas
• Maple Area
• Marlyville-Fountainbleau
• Upper Audubon
• Uptown Triangle

Sept. 4 (Saturday):

• Along Canal St.
• Bayou St. John
• City Park
• East Riverside
• Lafayette Square
• Lakeshore/Lake Vista
• Lakeview
• Lakewood
• Lower Garden District
• Mid-City
• Navarre
• Pontchartrain Point
• Small portion of New Orleans East along Paris Rd.
• St Thomas
• Treme-Lafitte
• Tulane-Gravier
• Warehouse District
• West End

Sept. 5 (Sunday):

• Audubon
• West Riverside
• Broadmoor
• Central City
• Dillard
• Fairgrounds
• Freret
• Holy Cross
• Irish Channel
• Little Woods
• Milan
• St Bernard
• Touro
• Uptown
• West Riverside