gustav / appalacian state

Gustav—downgraded to a tropical storm but predicted to grow into a category three hurricane as it crosses the Gulf of Mexico—is certainly a topic of conversation here in Baton Rouge at the moment, but apparently little else. "It's too early to tell," and "It'll probably hit somewhere else" seem to be the most common attitudes. And if it does hit? The talk is of hurricane parties. When the city shuts down, apparently there's little else to do than get together and drink beer. Sounds good to me.

I've heard stories of a gasoline shortage, of a run on bottled water and batteries, of rationing of ice cube trays (!), but my observations are all directly to the contrary. There was no one else at the gas station when I refuelled this evening; Albertson's was calm as could be. If anything, there's a run on football supplies. Saturday's game, first of the season, against Appalacian State, has a far greater grip on the city. The Winn-Dixie supermarket's parking lot is already full of R V's, LSU fans camping out for the game.

New Orleans is 80 miles southeast of here, but in many ways is worlds apart: that city faces possible mandatory evacuation, and state police are preparing to implement 'contraflow' (fascinating!), in which traffic flows in the same direction in all lanes of the Interstates on both sides of the divider, that direction being 'away from New Orleans.'

In Baton Rouge they might do well to implement contraflow to deal with game-day gridlock!

Tomorrow or Saturday we'll hear whether our lab is to be shutdown, in which case we'll be forbidden from going to work!

On another note, Banksy has apparently been decorating New Orleans!

Meanwhile, the Atlantic has given birth to Tropical Storm Hanna--so there are two storms spinning out there. It's amazing how quickly the ocean spawns these things!

It looks like the storm is currently predicted to make landfall late Monday. At the moment everything is completely normal in BTR.

H - 72 hours

Hurricane Gustav over Cuba

Baton Rouge remains very, very calm. This evening I went to Albertson's to stock up on beans, bottled water, and beer. The store was not at all crowded. They did have a couple extra pallets of water, batteries, and flashlights up front for easy access.

Went on the Critical Mass bike ride today. 175 riders: a rather huge crowd! We ended up at Capitol Grocery and then pretty much dispersed.

Went to the hurricane preparedness meeting at the LSU physics department today. Sounds like the physics building there will be a good place to hang out during the hurricane. It allegedly has ample backup power, so there should be power, air conditioning, and perhaps even internet access there for the duration. Also, I now have claim to some office space which includes a refrigerator and microwave.

Classes are cancelled at LSU on Tuesday.

Unfortunately I seem to have come down with a cold this afternoon. *sneeze*

I updated my couchsurfing profile ("Couch available: Yes!") in case anyone from NOLA needs a place to stay.