Anatomy of an Evacuation – The Lake House
Our safe house . . . on a beautiful lake . . .
near a country town . ..
with yearlings nearby . . .
and these beautiful berry bushes on the roadside . . .
What are they? Someone please tell me.
PHASE 4 Sunday: Spent looking for ice up here where there are no corner quick stops. The local church was so nice to let us put all our frozen fish and shrimp we brought from home into their deep freezer. BigSis and all her crew plus my Danno arrived in the afternoon. I fried fish for everyone for supper, trying to keep busy so my mind would not consider the worst. I watched the Weather Channel intermittently, and finally at 9 p.m. we four girls decided to make a trip to torture mart 30 miles away for air mattresses. That store looked like it had been pillaged before we got there! That is why you will see nothing but white bread on the table.
There were 12 of us here — all related, and we did make a big mess!
PHASE 5 Monday Day of Landfall: Stayed up all night watching a New Orleans station on Direct TV. Since we don’t live in New Orleans, we switched back to Weather Channel where we saw a live report from the town just north of my bayou. Both our bayou town and that city were in the path of the eye of the hurricane.
8:30 a.m. BAYOU FABIO called from his cell phone on his boat saying the wind and rain were blowing sideways. He said the power company turned off the electricity last night.
10 a.m. he called again from a land line where he had to take shelter after the door of his boat flew off. The wind then took off half the house roof right before he called. While he was relaying this information he said it was all of a sudden calm. You must realize that he does not see the radar images on TV that we see. He is just “in it”, so I told him the eye was passing over and that it was going to get rough again after the calm.
He said there was no flooding so far, but the bayou was very rough.
Thank you all for your prayers. If my homes don’t flood, it will be a prayer miracle for sure!!!
BW
Your plant photos are of American Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana), a native shrub. I’m so glad your place didn’t flood! I read your blog to get my Louisiana fix and said a prayer for y’all before the storm. I get emotional just looking at the photos you took driving through Grosse Tete and those other country places! The Baton Rouge area got hammered pretty hard, too – my family there hasn’t been doing so well. They keep saying it’s worse than Betsy. Hopefully, the electric won’t take 8 WEEKS to restore and things will get back to normal soon for most everybody down in South LA. I do hope your bananas are still on the plant!
I love meeting new readers, especially the plant-smart ones!!! Thanks for the information–is it edible? I have friends in the BR area, and they are having a hard time of it. I feel guilty up here in the AC at my sister’s house. You know, when I had that thought about the bananas, it seemed such a trivial thought when I stood lose everything! And now I’m so relieved and thankful, the bananas would be a huge slice of lagniappe!
Yep, they are American Beautyberry. When I was a kid growing up in Alexandria, we called them Indian Berries. Don’t think they are edible for humans, but the birds love them. Mama would get so angry at the birds, though — after gorging themselves on those purple berries they would sit on or fly over the clothesline and poop purple all over Mama’s clean sheets.
Take care and hope you are home soon.
I’ve always heard the berries are poisonous.
I might go see you Sunday if I don’t go home.
Raccoons and Deer are supposed to like Beautyberry, which also comes in a variety with white berries. I tried to plant one that came from the Georgia Native plant society. It never got berries. I kill more plants….
I now dub you Emilie the Plant Killer!!!