Hi - this is Lisa P. from Pass Christian, writing from my Camille-Katrina-Gustav-tested home complete with electricity, restored by our fantastic power company last night. (MS Power rocks!) Mike - so sorry to hear about the 20 hour trip. What a nightmare. But I hope your home is okay. Let me know when you get back home. We had only 60 mph gusts here, but they went on for about 6-8 hours. Small trees and large limbs are down and some minor issues, but overall we are fine. I have family that lives in Slidell and St. Bernard - all evacuated so are safe, and I'm hoping that none flooded, but we don't know yet for sure. We may have a house full of people later today as they drive here and wait to get back home. General update from the local news: Some of the worst storm surge hit Hancock County in Miss, which unfortunately was also the worse surge area in Katrina, so there are a lot of folks who got hit again. The emotional toll is going to be heavy. The just rebuilt harbor area here is a wreck. I don't know about the city services (which are still in trailers) yet but we are going to drive to town in a little while to check on a friend's place. Pass Christian, Waveland, Bay St. Louis, and Pearlington all got hit pretty bad. Pearlington had a report of a 19 ft. storm surge, but I think that may be exagerated. It was more likely 14-16 ft. but that is bad enough to wipe them out. A friend from the Bay reported a nearly 11 ft. surge at his place about 1/2 mile from the Bay. He is a scientist and probably has that pretty accurate. Power is coming back pretty quickly to places that didn't flood. I don't know what is going to happen here when so many people who have barely recovered have now flooded again. We are lucky - I joked with my husband that after only about a day of yard clean-up, we could get back to our normal Katrina repairs. But the truth is it isn't really a joke. We still aren't back to normal yet, but that isn't unusual if you flooded in Katrina. Slidell, New Orleans, and St. Bernard - reports are that there is still flooding in low lying areas of Slidell (Palm Harbor), but it is isolated. Several friends on the east side of Slidell - Cross Gates, Quail Ridge, have power and did not flood. The surge may have been as high as 9-10 ft. on the most southwestern part of Slidell, where one friend has a ft. of water in her yard. The storm moved fast enough that water didn't pile up in Lake Pontchartrain as it could have. They are saying the sewerage system in Slidell is out. Reports are the the levees in New Orleans and St. Bernard held although water was at the top of the Industrial Canal levee at the 9th ward. A couple of levee leaks in St. Bernard (one right near my sister's house) were plugged and prevented flooding. One report said that near Paris Road and St. Bernard highway did not have water. Terrebone Parish (Houma area, Brian lives there I think he might have flooded) flooded pretty bad, but I am hearing very little details about the damage. They had 10-12 ft. storm surge. Gustav was a high cat 4 storm with a bad surge predicted for LA and MS we were expecting a lot of damage. It went down to a 3 and even a 2 at landfall, but still had a solid 3 storm surge. It could have been much much worse that it is, but it is still bad enough, especially for the folks who got whacked by Katrina. This was nothing like Katrina, but it's harder than it would be if Katrina hadn't happened. Regarding the question of 'Why don't ya'll just move if you live in a flood-prone area?' I can say that personally, my husband and I moved from LA to MS where there is some high ground, and we did choose someplace that was never expected to flood at 23-25 ft. elevation. Well, it flooded in Katrina anyway, and nobody ever thought that could happen. Now if we want to move, we can't afford to. Insurance is so expensive here that nobody will buy your house. Some places can't get insurance. Also, our town isn't the most attractive place to live right now and probably won't be for decades. So unless we want to take a huge financial loss and sell our house for practically nothing, we are stuck. That is true for many people in the towns that got wiped out by Katrina. Who wants to move to a town with no grocery or pharmacy, trailers for city buildings, beat-up trees, perpetual road construction, and unaffordable insurance? Actually the people here are great and we have some beautiful areas so it has its good points, but outsiders won't necessarily know that and want to come here. I think more people who flooded are going to move away now, and that is going to make things even worse. The other reason, and perhaps the main reason people don't up and move away is that nearly all of New Orleans, St. Bernard, and Slidell are in flood-prone areas, at least for a bad hurricane, so unless you leave town, you can't get away. And people don't want to leave their hometowns where they work and have family and friends. I live within a hour of my 2 sisters, and I won't move away from them, so unless we all decide to move together, and we all get new jobs somewhere else, we can't leave without breaking up the family. It's unfortunate that cities got built in flood-prone areas, but way back when, people didn't have the knowledge they have now about oceanography and weather to help choose places to settle. Also, the terrible destruction of our wetlands and barrier islands due to decades of oil canals being dug, and the levees built along the Miss River stopping sediment flow have contributed to the flooding problem. As Mike said, New Orleans is sinking due to the Miss levees, but it is still an important city. Sorry to ramble, but I want to try to explain that it isn't as simple as it seems from the outside. New Orleans, St. Bernard, and St. Tammany are telling people not to come back home - that you will be prevented from going home even if you have electric and your home is fine. That is creating a lot of problems. Also, schools in all those areas are going to be closed until Monday, or at least that is the latest I've heard. Hope this is useful to somebody. Thank you all my friends for your concern for me and everyone down here. It means a great deal to me. I'm fine, my family is safe, and more importantly, my roses are mostly okay. Let's hope to hear from Brian, and Mike again soon. Lisa

Thanks so much for the kind words. Just got back from a swim in the bay at my neighbour's beach. So hot here today - we broke some records and the same will happen tomorrow. It was nice to cool off with the neighbours, DD and our dog, the Canadian Loons (5 of them), and a school of Mackerel followed by a whale! Only in Nova Scotia!! We are getting ready for Friday and Saturday as Earl visits. After Hurricane Juan in 2003, we take no chances. It looks like it may hit my parents directly so at times like this I wish I was with them 3 hours away. I called this morning and they say they are prepared. We still have a few things to tie up and bring in. Oh, and I still have some seedlings to tuck away behind some boulders for transplanting after this passes. :O) We'll see what Earl brings. I will be watching and thinking of everyone as it goes through the Carolinas and Cape Cod and all other communities up the coast. Hopefully all it will bring to us all is beautiful photo opportunities like this one of Tropical Storm Noel a couple of years ago. This area is found just a couple of minutes drive up the road.

Came through ok here as well. Minor damage from winds, couple small trees down, some large limbs down are common. Winds only gusted up to around 50MPH here during heavy rain bands. Only knocked over my 5' windmill in its pot, but no damage. Bananas got a bit of shred, but not real bad. The water came up to the drain tops here, and moved up in the toilet some, but nothing like we saw before. We had sandbagged and prepared yesterday. IT figures we didnt flood. I would put money on it if we had not had the sand bags ready, we would have flooded massively. Just how things go it seems. LOL! Cute citty Jonnieb. I found my cat the night after Isabel went thru. I was helping my friend move into his new house in columbia heights, and i saw this tiny little dot in the yard. Just a couple ears sticking up. I approached but he ran away, but kept coming back, we put water in ice cube trays for him ( its all we had at the time) and he would come and drink, but was very skittish. I finally got him, no mother be found anywhere, no cat calling, nothing. We think his mother may have perished during the storm / flooding. He was flea ridden and terribly imaciated, just skin and bones really. I took him home that night, and took him to the vet the following week. At that point we did not know he was a boy, so I named him Isabel, after the storm. At the vet, the vet said to me.. well, Isable, IS A BOY! LOL! I had to bottle feed him with an eye dropper for a couple weeks. He weighed a whopping 6 ounces and completely fit in the palm of my hand, tail and all. The vet said he was likely the runt, and he was barely 4 weeks old. Hes now 5 years old as of the last week in august, and is a happy, healthy, but lean, and smaller house cat. Hes got the most beautiful ocean green eyes. Hes still got that "WILD" in him tho. He was after all a wild ferral city kitty. Heres a couple of pics of him.

Four fantastic shell-looking coasters arrived in the mail today. THANK YOU BEV! The batteries in my camera need to be replaced, so I'll have to describe them to you all. The tops are made of fabric with lots of shells in it, and the bottoms are sky blue with poofy clouds mixed in. They are all shaped like shells, and Bev quilted the shell lines into them. They are just too cool, and yes Bev, perfect! Now, how did you ever know I'm a beach addict? LOL! Either tomorrow or Saturday I'm going to have to go to the grocery store and pick up the ingredients so I can mix up some pineapple sunrises and use them! Thanks Again Bev!!!