Leave it to me to be in a place three and a half weeks, and without a vehicle for the first time in ten years, and have a hurricane hit. Ivan was the talk of campus all day Monday, 13 September, but no one really thought he was much of a threat -- not even when UNO announced it was shutting down at 4:30. I spent the afternoon educating myself on the bad and good locations to be in relation to a hurricane, but I was never really that worried. Then the Privateer staff came around and announced that there was a mandatory evacuation in place -- we were to be off the UNO campus by 2 p.m. Tuesday. Sure, and how do you suggest I do THAT? The campus and city police and the Red Cross disaster preparedness folks were less than helpful, to be VERY nice about it (the RC wasn't very prepared, in my opinion -- the guy ACTUALLY asked if someone could just put my power chair in an attic to save it from the water). My advisor Barney Rees had offered for Reba and I to come to his place within walking distance of campus, but how to get out of the city? Ivan was veering more and more Westward, and there was a very real possibility that he could slam NO. Great. Fabulous.
Option -- rent a wheelchair-accessible van from a company used by my pal Gina in the past. I called, and they actually had vans available. Hoorah. They delivered to Barney's house Tuesday afternoon, and he and his wife Jackie came to pick me up. We went back to their house and finished getting things ready to go to Lafayette, then we heard about the traffic. To say it was crowded is an understatement. We opted to leave early Wednesday morning in hopes that the traffic would thin out. Anna, Barney and Jackie's ten-year-old daughter, watched a little "Pirates of the Caribbean" while Patrick, the six-year-old, played in his room and Reba and Honey the Golden retriever played in the backyard.
Almost time for bed. To be continued . . . .
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