re: Hurricane Milton - The Cleanup Begins...

You got lucky! We left Sunday morning when told to leave for Katrina and it took 6 hours down Airline Hwy to get to BR from Metairie. Stayed for Ida. Not sure I’ll do that again.

Left for Katrina, not sure when we left but it took 3 to 4 hours to go from Mandeville to Franklinton.

Rita I was in Houston due to relocation for my job and had to evacuate. I left around midnight and did not have any issues with Traffic heading back to mandeville from Houston. I was strange evacuating from the place I evacuated to go back the original place.

Ida we stayed. Got a tree on the house. Not sure if I would stay again.

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What happens if B can’t get there? I do consulting in a nursing home now so I never have to go in but I used to work hospitals .. we had to stay. My brother is a pharmacist and had to stay for Rita and Ida .. shite hit the fan for both. For Rita (happened right after Katrina) the hospital had them write their ssn on their arms. My mom completely freaked out at that.

Anyway, was just curious as to how it works for yall. Prayers and best wishes for you all.

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It's part of our contract that we have to be available, now obviously if someone is completely flooded out, or something they will work with you, but it's the expectation that you come in as soon as the roads are clear.

What type of badge do I get for Morgan City for Francine?

Cat 1 badge? Or do I get the Cat 2 belt?

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Cat 1 winds will take down pine trees. Pine trees suck

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I went to Moss Bluff post Laura to help out friends and family. There were some pine trees on property we worked on that would’ve needed two trail boss saws to get thru. Oaks leaned over and pines snapped like tooth picks. Had a big arse one split a trailer in two, another fell on the roof of a home and the branches were touching the floor of the living room. I think Lake Chuck got 115ish sustained with gusts in the 130-140 range IIRC.

One thing for perspective that has always stayed with me. We found a pine tree snapped about 20’ up in the air. This would’ve been on the side of the property the wind was coming from, so theoretically the top of the tree should’ve been somewhere in the open space of the property. We never found the top of that tree. It wasn’t in the woods, it wasn’t across the windward side of the property. It had just disappeared. It was hard to comprehend wind so strong it snapped 20ish’ of the top of a pine tree and carried it away.

It was one of the reasons we decided to leave in Ida and go to my parents house. Ponchatoula caught the eastern eye for a still Cat 2 storm at the point and my subdivision has a ton of trees. I didn’t want to be in a situation where I had my kids in the middle of the house hearing the world exploding outside.

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Tons of trees down and a huge one crushed my house

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I seent it.

I saw it, too.

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Ida we stayed. Got a tree on the house. Not sure if I would stay again

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Trees are such a massive factor to your actual storm risk, and no one talks about it. Even if you don't take the direct hit, riding out a storm and hearing a ton of trees snapping off is a massive psychological difference if there's a chance of one splitting your roof vs. just snapping off in the woods by your house.

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very very few have experienced an actual direct hit by a Cat 3+.

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for sure - and I don’t want to

Too many other factors play into a hurricane - tornadoes, trees, people not securing their furniture - and the one factor that affected my property and way of life most - levee failure. However more recently I have experienced lengthy power outages in Baton Rouge - which does not take a direct hit.

3 or 4 days without power is fine - anything longer than that is something I’d like to avoid. Even though I am pretty tough and rugged.

Here’s the time-lapse. Absolutely crazy to think that we can see 4K video of a hurricane from space in near realtime. Yay for technological advancement.

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