Wednesday - Done In by a Storm!

Hours on the road this morning. I watched the soft puffy white clouds over the Gulf slowly turn blue, then gray, then black. Thirty minutes from Grand Isle, it hit. Just like an Arizona monsoon. Rain came at me almost sideways, pouring so hard I had to pull off onto a side road and stop.

Unrelenting.

When the rain slowed a bit, I started south again. Water roared across the highway. Cars were stopped everywhere. I finally pulled into a little market, dashed inside, and asked about the storm. "Supposed to do this all day, lady. At least it's not raining oil. Yet."

I waited awhile longer. Cars headed to the island were turning back. The only vehicles going on were big trucks.

I'd just driven for three days to be hit by a monster storm. I almost went anyway but figured, what would I do in driving rain once I got there? Swim around on the beach? I finally turned around, heading toward New Orleans.

About twenty minutes south of the city, I pulled into an area of fish markets. Half were closed. I spoke to one woman about the situation. She wouldn't give me her name and asked that I not mention the name of the market. Her biggest fear right now is that fish will eat the toxic oil and chemical dispersant cocktail and become poisoned and ill. "What if fishermen catch those fish? What if we sell them? We won't even know. What will happen to the people who eat those fish?"

She acknowledged that the market, and most of the others, may not be around for very long. She's already looking around a bit for another job.

I spoke also to a man, Alan LeMoine, who moved to the area from northern Louisana shortly after the hurricane. He cleans up destroyed oil rigs for a living. Can you imagine? Making a living just picking up pieces of destroyed oil rigs? He said there was a lot of work after Katrina, but it had slowed down until the oil disaster. He's been working twelve hour days since then and says they've now gotten most of the trash out of the Gulf. He said the fishing industry would soon be gone.

"What will they do? It's all they know. It's all their parents knew, and all their grandparents knew. They'll never be able to fish here again."

I told him where I'm from and he asked if I saw a lot of Mexicans coming across the border. This good old boy said, "They just want to work. Mexico can't give 'em work, and we got plenty for 'em. They oughta be able to work."

So. Now I sit in my room at the Prytania Hotel. A tiny room in the "historic" part of the building (aka - the old part). Old brick walls and wide planked flooring. Second floor, no elevator, outside stairs. Made it in before it starts raining here.

I'm headed out soon for the Quarter. I have to think about trying to head back to Grand Isle tomorrow. It's about 2-1/2 hours of driving, each way. Perhaps, if it's a glorious clear day, but I'm not doing that whole drive again just to be turned back by a storm.

I look back to the south now, and the sky is no longer black. But it's dark, very dark. Likely still raining.