Gustav II

He's winding down, praises be. I just got off the phone with my mom in Baton Rouge about an hour ago. Dad was asleep already. They had a horrible day. The power failed about 11 this morning, so no AC, no refrigeration, no lights beyond the gas lamp that makes everything hot. Damage to their roof forced them into the attic to do emergency leak repairs with a shower curtain inside the decking. Not the best way to stop a leak, but with hurricane force winds outside, just about the only way. Dad had to make the trip up there several times today to empty the pots and buckets they had catching the drips from their patch. He's 79 years old. Tough man. CNN reports that the maximum sustained winds in Baton Rouge reached 91 MPH. That's not gusts. Sustained winds at 91 miles an hour with gusts above that force. After the wind calmed to a manageable howl, a neighbor climbed up outside and secured a tarp over the damaged area.

This evening a band of clouds passed over my house. After checking NOAA and Weather Underground, I concluded it was an outer band from Gustav. I'm about 430 miles from Baton Rouge. Big storm. Tomorrow we will get rain from it, they say, but it looks to be tracking farther east than the forecast predicts -- at least to me.

The NOLA Times-Picayune has a good blog here.