So, we left New Orleans...

Here is my journal entry from 8/29/2005:

When I bought this writing book at the Borders on the corner of Veterans and Causeway, I intended to use it to log my experiences working at Lucy's restaurant on Tchoupitoulas. Now both of these places my not exist.

We're sitting in our "refugee shelter" in Baton Rouge: a fully-furnished, two-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor of a building overlooking the governor's mansion. We have been here since 3:00 am on Sunday. We can probably boast the least interesting evacuation story in New Orleans: We decided to evacuate on Saturday night. We took all of Saturday morning and afternoon to pack every possible thing that we could into our truck and our car. Victoria, our neighbour, grew up in New Orleans and was convinced that this storm was "the big one". It was only on her advice that we took everything. It kills me to think of how many people did not have or did not heed the same advice from their friends. Victoria's boyfriend, Mike, works in the film industry as a location scout and was being housed in Baton Rouge by Warner Bros. until the first of November. He invited us to stay with him. Mike and Victoria said that we could ride out the storm in Baton Rouge and, if we could not return, we would at least have a place to stay until November. If it weren't for them, I have no idea where I would be right now.

On Sunday we drove to Sam's Club and fought the crowds for non-perishable food and for water. Even if Baton Rouge was not expecting more than a hurricane 2, there was still a good chance that we would lose power. We wanted to be prepared. We took everything that we packed into our vehicles and brought it upstairs into our "new house". It was the most depressing chore , because it meant that we were preparing to live here for more than a couple of days.

On Monday the storm took a sharp turn to the east, which meant that we in Baton Rouge were not going to feel it's effects too severely. We lost exactly five seconds of electricity. New Orleans was not as fortunate. We will not be going home soon.

We have been watching the storm updates all day on CNN and on the local news channels. Unfortunately, there is still no indication of the status of Uptown NOLA. We have no idea if our house is still standing...