As I sit to write this, we are keeping a close eye on Gustav. This one-time hurricane, then tropical storm, is again a hurricane and expected to make landfall somewhere in Louisiana, where I happen to live. I remember Hurricane Andrew in August of 1992. The eye of it passed about 15 miles west of town and by the time it reached Baton Rouge, the winds had declined to about 75 mph. The worst damage we had was a few fallen trees and a power outage that lasted for just under a week. Oh, did I mention it was hot and without air conditioning? Things got a bit sticky. The price of water also rose as opportunists came out of the woodwork.
In 2005, we saw another, more devastating hurricane named Katrina. We in BR escaped the worst as we were situated far enough to the west to avoid any serious problems. Shortly thereafter, Rita made landfall to the west of us, but again we were far enough away.
So here we are with Gustav looming out there and most computer models indicate we will be visited by this potentially menacing event sometime Tuesday morning.
