Rich: Yes, poorer. I'm traveling on my own nickel right now, and getting either disaster insurance reimbursement or FEMA disaster travel assistance is a Byzantine maze. I have to go back to work, but my wife will be able to check with our insurance and with FEMA to see if any assistance is available. Otherwise, the motel fees are out-of-pocket. Still, I'll trade dollars for keeping my family safe anytime.
We were overjoyed this morning. We have heard from my stepson, who cannot go to his own home quite yet. (No power, so his 22-month-old can't stay there.) They tell us that our house looks intact, the only problem being no cable. No cable, no ISP, so I'm going to rely on other computers for a while. No surprises, I guess. Cable is usually the first thing to go in our area. Oh, one other thing they warned us about - my little grandson finally "christened" our carpet for us. We were sort of waiting for that anyway, so we can breathe easier. The inevitable has happened. That's the ONLY water that has hit the carpet, so I guess we can live with that.
Speaking of "flooded carpets" - Despite some nervous moments, it appears that New Orleans itself and the area covered by the levee system remained mostly unflooded. The recently retired commandant of the Army Corp of Engineers in New Orleans was interviewed on CNN. He said that in his district, the city was ringed by over 300 linear miles of levees, and that none of them failed, though a few had minor (and very fixable) leaks. We had a little spot flooding in areas that flood when more than two toilets flush at once. (Just joking - we have a better sewer system than that.) So MAYBE I'll cut some slack for the Army Corp of Engineers for having done something positive after all after Katrina.
I have heard that anyone trying to go towards Baton Rouge from New Orleans will be re-routed off of the interstate highway. Some big power transmission towers have failed and their main feeder lines are all over the northbound roadway in places. Yecchh, that will be a mess to clean up.
Gotta scoot, the motel hellions want to play games again.