Still standing, mostly

We worried a lot about what Hurricane Gustav might do to our house during the "evacuation vacation" in Florida – especially since we had put up only a couple of the hurricane shutters before we left (long story short: we'd left on what was meant to be a short vacation before the storm turned nasty and the evacuation was ordered).


So when we came home to find that our side fence had decided to have a bit of a lie-down, we felt very lucky indeed.

The Gulfport and Biloxi beachfronts didn't fare so well, but that's not our mess to clean up.


We dodged distressing losses this time, through sheer luck. Next time something's brewing in the Gulf, no matter how many miles or how many days away it's projected to be, we're putting up every last hurricane shutter before we leave.

It probably won't stop us fretting from afar, but at least we'll know we've done all we can.

.

Waiting for the storm

We're here in Florida, a couple of states away from home, waiting to see what Hurricane Gustav will do.


We're so worried for our New Orleans, and pretty uneasy about our house in Mississippi (high winds, flying debris, falling trees – all have crossed our minds). We've become Weather Channel junkies, like everyone in Gustav's potential path.


But we've interspersed the storm-obsessing with some great adventures on the beach for Berry and Kickbaby. After all, there's no reason for them to feel the strain. It takes our minds to better places too.


This is Kickbaby's first hurricane – and I suppose Berry's too, if you don't count living through Hurricane Katrina when I was eight months pregnant with her.

I will count it, if you don't mind. I'll never forget a minute of that.