For those who are worried

Shane and I are being inundated with calls and email from friends. We appreciate your kind thoughts and your caring. In case I've caused additional worry from my blog posts here is something information that I hope will calm you.

We've stocked up on water, flashlights, non-perishable foods, etc. -- everything we need to ride out the storm. The parish we live in (Lafayette) is about 2 hours northwest of New Orleans. While the authorities aren't taking any chances and have put a mandatory evacuation in place for New Orleans, we're further inland and our parish is under a voluntary evacuation. Remember, New Orleans survived the hurricane, it was the levies failing and the resulting flooding that was the problem. We live nowhere near that amount of water!

I have to trust the local authorities and believe that they know what they are doing. In Lafayette we can expect downed trees and power lines as well as localized flooding, but area residents who have survived many hurricanes in Lafayette tell us that as long as we have enough supplies to live without power for a few days that we will be fine. We have friends living nearby who have a generator so if we're without power for more than a few hours we'll likely go to their house so we can enjoy air conditioning and a refrigerator!