We decided to avoid the monday rush and go into Metarie on Sunday which is why I did not have time to post anything yesterday. I'm pleased to say that we made it in but more on that later.
The summary - Kenner, Harahan and all of Metarie that you can get into have no water! As a general rule, most places between I-10 and the river did not flood and most places between I-10 and the Lake had some amount of water. There are exceptions to this so please do not assume you are OK or not. Harahan and River Ridge appeared to have no flooding.
Jefferson Parish was officially closed, but as I mentioned earlier people have been getting in and out. We chose Hwy 61 based on our reports but found traffic to be backed up into the middle of Laplace. When we saw the traffic we headed over to River Road. It too was jammed up. We spent about an hour getting through Laplace and found out why there was a backup. At the St. Charles Parish line there was a road block checking IDs. We explained where we were going and that we needed to make a U-turn. I won't admit that we disregarded anyone in law enforcments "suggestions" to turn around but we made a few zigs and zags and were quickly into Jefferson Parish. Once in Haraha, we were stopped and checked for IDs. Once you are in the parish, moving around is easy as long as you have proof that you live there.
First impressions were that things really didn't look that bad all things considered. There are buildings with damage and telephone polls that are down but it is far from completely devistated. We were also suprised by the number of people who were still there and had never left. The locals either have enough provisions or have figured out how to get in and out for food and gas. There is an open gas station on the St. Charles/Jefferson Parish border on River Road. There is also a gas station selling gas, cokes and ice on Transcontinental. Power for the most part is completely off. There are a couple lights on but not many.
The most damage is massive amount of trees and power lines. I'm actaully suprised they are letting people in on Monday. There are trees blocking roads as well as telephone poles with transformers and power lines covering streets. What is amazing is that most of the buildings were missed by the trees and poles. There isn't one area that fared better than the other. The damage seems randomly distributed. Houses have a little roof and siding damages, some have windows broken some do not. There are some that have a tree branch in the roof but in might only be one or two in an entire neighborhood. Commercial buildings are hit and miss as well. Some look fine, others have their fronts ripped off. When you come into Kenner on I-10, there are many storage buildings. Many of those have the entire side ripped off and they look like giant doll houses.
We went to 4 houses to empty the fridge and rip carpet out. I feel for people who can't get into their house for a month. A closed fridge without power has an amazing amount of stench. For those who need to know - do not open the fridge in the house! Duct tape the freezer and fridge doors, bring the fridge outside, empty all food into a trash can, wash the fridge out with water, spray the inside down with bleach, rinse and keep outside with the doors open. I didn't hurl, but myself and one other came close several times. Fortunately, 3 of the houses had zero water. Cousin Marc, Jimmy and Lisa, and Monica and Brad. Rochelle's Aunt Linda and Uncle Jimmy had about 6" of water. We ripped all of the carpet out of their house. The amount of humidty was impressive even for Louisiana.
We were near East Jefferson Hospital an noticed the water lines of the houses 1 block away on Hastings St. were about waist high, but only 1 block away were 6-8". Basically, you have no idea how much or little flooding you have without checking it out personally. We saw one of the FEMA stations on Airline Hwy and Metarie Road at the Sam's Club. Lots of people working and giving supplies out. I can't tell you how many hellicopters we saw. Hundreds of all types for sure. There is no looting going on in Metarie and Kenner. Odds are that if your house survived, all of your possesions are fine. There is a big helpful police presence.
When we were getting ready to leave, we all stopped and listened. The activity of the day had subsided and it was earily quiet. We couldn't help but think that while we were sweating pulling carpet and cleaning fridges that there were other areas still under flood water with rescues going on and bodies floating. We heard no gun shots or explosions and did not see any grusome sites.
I-10 is open out bound and we hopped on I-10 and got home in record time. We did see about 100 military vehicles with generators coming in as well as about 50 Asplundi tree trucks. I think that Kenner/Metarie will be cleaned up and opened much quicker than we have been lead to believe.
Cell Phones - Verizon and Nextel worked well with 100% coverage and full strength bars. Sprint did work but was some outages. We didn't have a Cingular phone. If you do go in, bring plenty of food water and gas as there is nothing. We didn't want to buy anything from the 2 gas stations operating as the locals need it more than we do.
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