Salon Wanderlust | Waiting for Hurricane Georges

[Salon Wanderlust: Travel with a passion]

T A B L E_T A L K
Is New Orleans the place to be for Halloween? Discuss the people, the costumes, the insanity in Table Talk's Wanderlust area

R E C E N T L Y
Under the moon at Angkor Thom
By Karin Muller
An idyllic picnic is interrupted by soldiers
(10/11/98)
Seduced by Kenya
By Don George
An interview with author Francesca Marciano about Africa's attractions and contradictions
(10/09/98)
This week in travel Wanderlust's selective guide to travel-related news
(10/09/98)
Rules of the Wild
By Francesca Marciano
The seductive subculture of whites in Kenya -- and the addicting allure of Africa's vastness
(10/08/98)
Maiden voyage
By Susanna Stromberg
A 19-year-old finds lust and illusion on a Love Boat cruise to Alaska
(10/07/98)

Browse the
Wanderlust Postmark archives

S A L O N
E M P O R I U M
FREE! 12-ounce bag of Salon Blend with a purchase of $30 or more. While supplies last.

Waiting for Hurricane Georges
____________________A FAMILY FACES A NATURAL
___________DISASTER IN BATON ROUGE.
BY JENNIFER MOSES | Three weekends ago, as we braced for Hurricane Georges, my husband and I didn't know what to expect. Since our move from Washington, D.C., to Baton Rouge, La., three years ago, the only hurricane we'd experienced was in a melodramatic play -- a combination of bad Faulkner and bad Tennessee Williams, with a little Oprah thrown in. The actors stomped around onstage in wet clothing, uttering things like, "When the Lord in His Terrible Glory speaks you don't got no choice but to listen, baby." But now it was real life, and the storm was heading straight for the Big Easy, and after that, to us, here in the state capital. It looked like it was going to be a whopper.
My husband had been an Eagle scout, and he doesn't like to be caught unprepared. During the one year that we lived in Los Angeles, we kept a row of jugs filled with water along the wall of our kitchen, in case we had an earthquake. By the time we moved out of our apartment, all our earthquake water had turned a sickly shade of green and smelled. But now it was 10 years later, and my husband, in something approaching a full-scale panic, called me from work on Thursday and asked me if we were stocked up on batteries, canned goods, water, paper supplies, Band-Aids, sterile gauze and flashlights.
"No," I said.
"Oh my God," he said.
"Band-Aids?" I said.
"What if a tree branch fell on one of the kids?" he said. "Or worse?"
That night, he went to the store. When he got back home -- his grocery bags laden with Chicken of the Sea -- he said, "I forgot bread." In the morning, he went back to the store -- this time for candles, fruit juice, canned soup and bread, only he couldn't get bread because there was none left. Friday night, my aunt called from Maine to ask me to call her children in New Orleans and urge them to take refuge at our house, some 80 miles inland and on relatively high ground. I didn't have to. They called me. We went to sleep wondering how long we'd have electricity.
At 6 o'clock on Saturday morning -- a time that I prefer to be extremely unconscious -- the phone rang. It was our friends Collette and Steve, calling from New Orleans. Collette and Steve have three children under the age of 3. "We're kind of thinking about getting out of here before the storm hits," they said. "Do you have room?"
"We'll make room," we said.
"We'll call you back," they said.
By now our own three children were up, and -- it being our only day to sleep late -- in bed with us. Our eldest son, age 9, had begun to worry about what we'd do if our water supply was cut off and we could no longer use our toilets. "I mean, do we go in the bushes or what?" he said. "And how can we go outside if there's like a hurricane blowing around?" I was worried about the same thing. But the truth of the matter is -- not that I wanted to give the Lord in His Terrible Glory the wrong idea -- I was kind of looking forward to the hurricane. For one thing, we'd been in a drought all summer: Our local lakes had receded to reveal a skin of muck, pond scum and litter, my flowers had barely bloomed and our trees were so thirsty that they'd started drinking beer. Plus I'd never seen a hurricane before, and I wanted to see what it looked like.
N E X T+P A G E | Just so long as the roof doesn't blow off


	T A B L E_T A L K Is New Orleans the place to be for Halloween? Discuss the people, the costumes, the insanity in Table Talk's Wanderlust area R E C E N T L Y Under the moon at Angkor Thom By Karin Muller An idyllic picnic is interrupted by soldiers (10/11/98) Seduced by Kenya By Don George An interview with author Francesca Marciano about Africa's attractions and contradictions (10/09/98) This week in travel Wanderlust's selective guide to travel-related news (10/09/98) Rules of the Wild By Francesca Marciano The seductive subculture of whites in Kenya -- and the addicting allure of Africa's vastness (10/08/98) Maiden voyage By Susanna Stromberg A 19-year-old finds lust and illusion on a Love Boat cruise to Alaska (10/07/98) Browse the Wanderlust Postmark archives S A L O N E M P O R I U M FREE! 12-ounce bag of Salon Blend with a purchase of $30 or more. While supplies last.		____________________A FAMILY FACES A NATURAL ___________DISASTER IN BATON ROUGE. BY JENNIFER MOSES \| Three weekends ago, as we braced for Hurricane Georges, my husband and I didn't know what to expect. Since our move from Washington, D.C., to Baton Rouge, La., three years ago, the only hurricane we'd experienced was in a melodramatic play -- a combination of bad Faulkner and bad Tennessee Williams, with a little Oprah thrown in. The actors stomped around onstage in wet clothing, uttering things like, "When the Lord in His Terrible Glory speaks you don't got no choice but to listen, baby." But now it was real life, and the storm was heading straight for the Big Easy, and after that, to us, here in the state capital. It looked like it was going to be a whopper. My husband had been an Eagle scout, and he doesn't like to be caught unprepared. During the one year that we lived in Los Angeles, we kept a row of jugs filled with water along the wall of our kitchen, in case we had an earthquake. By the time we moved out of our apartment, all our earthquake water had turned a sickly shade of green and smelled. But now it was 10 years later, and my husband, in something approaching a full-scale panic, called me from work on Thursday and asked me if we were stocked up on batteries, canned goods, water, paper supplies, Band-Aids, sterile gauze and flashlights. "No," I said. "Oh my God," he said. "Band-Aids?" I said. "What if a tree branch fell on one of the kids?" he said. "Or worse?" That night, he went to the store. When he got back home -- his grocery bags laden with Chicken of the Sea -- he said, "I forgot bread." In the morning, he went back to the store -- this time for candles, fruit juice, canned soup and bread, only he couldn't get bread because there was none left. Friday night, my aunt called from Maine to ask me to call her children in New Orleans and urge them to take refuge at our house, some 80 miles inland and on relatively high ground. I didn't have to. They called me. We went to sleep wondering how long we'd have electricity. At 6 o'clock on Saturday morning -- a time that I prefer to be extremely unconscious -- the phone rang. It was our friends Collette and Steve, calling from New Orleans. Collette and Steve have three children under the age of 3. "We're kind of thinking about getting out of here before the storm hits," they said. "Do you have room?" "We'll make room," we said. "We'll call you back," they said. By now our own three children were up, and -- it being our only day to sleep late -- in bed with us. Our eldest son, age 9, had begun to worry about what we'd do if our water supply was cut off and we could no longer use our toilets. "I mean, do we go in the bushes or what?" he said. "And how can we go outside if there's like a hurricane blowing around?" I was worried about the same thing. But the truth of the matter is -- not that I wanted to give the Lord in His Terrible Glory the wrong idea -- I was kind of looking forward to the hurricane. For one thing, we'd been in a drought all summer: Our local lakes had receded to reveal a skin of muck, pond scum and litter, my flowers had barely bloomed and our trees were so thirsty that they'd started drinking beer. Plus I'd never seen a hurricane before, and I wanted to see what it looked like. N E X T+P A G E \| Just so long as the roof doesn't blow off