Lagniappe

tropical update--we thought we were going to stay in the parish but sunday morning decided to leave and go up above baton rouge to a small town called slaughter(bad name) we lost electricity about 2 p.m. monday afternoon. the night wasn't too bad but the weather never seemed to stop. his grandmother's house lost some limbs from some back trees and a huge birch fell that was right out the back door. thank goodness it fell away from the house. about 9 a.m. tuesday morning E and i decided to go ride and find a cell connection. the weather was pretty bad and when we got back the water was rising on the road to the house really fast. we decided to pack up and go further up north to monroe because the weather reports stated that the band of rain was not going to let up for hours and the waters would continue to rise. we didn't want to get stranded with the baby. by the time we left the house the water on the road was up to the doors on my big ford van and my daughters suv had the exhaust under water. the first route we took we were forced to turn around and head the other way. we passed back in front of j's grandmothers house and the water was now about two feet deep. all the way up to monroe we saw twisted, broken trees and damaged houses. it seems the whole state of LA is torn up by this storm. almost every parish was hit and the power is out just about everywhere except the most northern part of the state. i'm so glad we came further up here with the kids. E  and my younger daughter and her bf are on their way home to start up the generators and assess the damage. reports are that Lafourche parish will be out of power from two to four weeks. for katrina we only lost power there for about 3 or 4 days. this will be worse because the damage starts so far up north. please pray for all those who had some damage and will suffer. i feel fortunate that we're all still able to go home to our house. see ya'll when i can. suesue