Dan Luke wrote:

Hope you're ok over there, Darrel.

Winds topped out at 30, no measurable rainfall... 4R7 - 126.7 nautical
miles west of New Orleans Lakefront. Picked up a few branches and
skimmed the leaves out of the pool a couple of times...

Just got my DSL service back at 13:30 local. Power is still off and
generators are humming all over the place.

Mine was running as soon as the power failed after Lili. Couple of days
later you could here several. After 4 days you could hear lots of them.
I replaced my 5.5kw gasoline, with a 30kw NG/LPG one. It got me and 2
neighbors through Lili though (burned nearly 100 gallons of gas). I
swore I'd have air conditioning through the next one though...

Cable was out for a week, DSL was only out for a few hours through the
whole thing...

My neighborhood is a much worse mess than it was after Ivan last year.
Many large trees are down and some houses are heavily damaged. Utility
lines and poles are down everywhere; stores are closed; gas is
scarce--and this is 90 miles from the path of the storm.

Lots of refugees here in Eunice. The ones from Thibodeaux returned home
yesterday...

Pictures of the damage are trickling in from Mississippi and Louisiana.
This might be the worst Gulf storm all time in terms of property damage.

Just got the ones of the Pemex rig bumping the Cochrane-Africatown USA
bridge there in Alabama...

I hate hurricanes.

As do most of us...