Railroad tracts from Bay St. Louis to Henderson Point

I ran across this image the other day by complete chance and just had to share it. It is of the railroad tracts from Bay St. Louis to Henderson Point. You can see the Gulfshore Baptist Assembly across the bay.

I got the image from here.

Henderson Point across the bay

Katrina post yet again

I got to thinking a month or so ago about the first house I lived in over in East New Orleans and was curious as to whether it flooded during Katrina. I tried to track down the exact address of that house on several different occasions but never could. Luckily I remembered to ask my mom when she was in for thanksgiving this past week. The address was 6248 Kuebel Dr, New Orleans, LA. To be quite honest I think it is either the wrong address or google maps are wrong. I can remember running in the front yard and can remember what the houses down the street looked like, and I don't think we lived that close to the square building down the street. I think the house was five houses down from the one google shows. Well, if anybody has a different address then please let me know.

Below is the after picture of that house. It looks to be well flooded. Here is a link if you want to get a better view.

For some reason the google before picture is fuzzy. Once they refresh their satellite photo I will attach a picture to this post.

picture of our old house on Kuebel Dr.

katrina damage: lakeway towers

lakeway towers

It is hard to convey just how much damage the hurricane did to southern Louisiana. I guess somehow I was under the impression that when we got there that everything would be back to normal. I was surprised by just how much damage was done on my parent's street and that my parent's house as well as a lot of other homes still had tarps on the roof to keep the water out. I forgot to bring my JumpDrive, so I could not backup my pictures when my camera was full. That being the case I only got a fraction of the pictures that I wanted to. I am hoping Heather will send me the other CD of Rodger's.

The attached picture is of one of the lakeway towers. You pass right by the tower as you exit the Causeway which crosses lake pontchartrain. My mother-in-law worked in one of the lakeway towers before the hurricane. She is now making the daily commute to Baton Rouge. The towers don't look too messed up but you can see where they had to put up a lot of plywood to cover where windows were broken out.

Here is a link to a google map of Lakeway towers.

Funeral

(left to right) lindsey, john david, chelsea, grandma losch

I have not blogged for the last several days due to the fact that we were down in New Orleans for the funeral of Leslie's uncle Gordon. He passed away at the Touro Infirmary during hurricane Katrina. I never mentioned it on my blog because all we knew was that he had died. The circumstances surrounding his death are still largely unknown at this point, but what is known is sad. From what I understand, his body is being released shortly by St. Gabriel. The funeral was held at the St. Charles Avenue Presbyterian church. In spite of the damage to the main sanctuary, it was a beautiful old church and a fitting place for the funeral. Afterwards we headed over to Leslie's cousin Paul's house, which is close to the corner of Lowerline and Freret just across from café Freret. It was a good time to catch up with family. The picture Attached to this post was taken on the front porch of Paul's house.

Hurricane refugees II

Not exactly refugees, but pretty close. My parents are on the way up to stay for two nights before heading up to just outside of Ashville where my brother's lives. They are planning to stay there for a month. My parents sell legal insurance and that kind of work has dried up for the time being, so they are headed this way to work with part of their organization in Ashville.

They wanted to head up this way two weeks ago but due to the repairs needed they had to stick around. They finally got electricity two days ago and were able to get all the repairs to their house and rental house complete. I don't expect them until really late tonight because they did not get off until after five. They spent the better part of the day trying to wrap up loose ends. I think on of the things they had to do was hang two new mail boxes. My sister Jeannie and her family will be moving into my parent's house while they are gone because she still does not have electricity, and from what I hear it could still be quite some time till she does.

another one from Ben Stein

Last Gulfshore Baptist Assembly post: (maybe)

Gulf Shore Baptist Assembly -- Click image for better view

I have been getting an awful lot of hits regarding the Gulfshore Baptist Assembly conference center. When I was a kid my parents taught the children at a CBMC conferences that was held there every year. I have a lot of fond memories of the place and am saddened to see the place in ruins.

At first I had not realize how badly damaged the place was until I saw this image. I got the image from here. I can hardly believe how badly damaged the place is. From the satellite images it just looked like the windows and curtains were blown out all over the lawn. It is hard to believe but the cinderblocks between the rooms on the first and second floors where completely blown out.

If you end up here looking for news on the Gulfshore Baptist Assembly center then please leave a comment and let me know you came.

Gulf Shore Baptist Assembly

Gulf Shore Baptist Assembly After hurricane Katrina

Gulf Shore Baptist Assembly Before hurricane Katrina

I was able to track down some satellite maps of the before and after damage done on the Gulf Shore Baptist Assembly. Here is a link to a before shot if you want to snoop around.

Also, if you want to check out the entire Gulf Coast then here is the link to Naoo's satellite maps.
Entire Gulf Coast
Gulf Shore Baptist Assembly at Henderson Point
Gulf Shore Baptist Assembly web page... well kind of

Gulf Shore Baptist Assembly

Gulf Shore Baptist Assembly After hurricane Katrina

Gulf Shore Baptist Assembly Before hurricane Katrina

I was able to track down some satellite maps of the before and after damage done on the Gulf Shore Baptist Assembly. Here is a link to a before shot if you want to snoop around.

Also, if you want to check out the entire Gulf Coast then here is the link to Naoo's satellite maps.
Entire Gulf Coast
Gulf Shore Baptist Assembly at Henderson Point
Gulf Shore Baptist Assembly web page... well kind of

Grandma Mac is fine

hurricane update and a few pictures

I have not blogged in a several days due to busyness. The last of our hurricane Katrina refugees are heading back to Louisiana today. We had a really good visit. I have some pictures of some of the damage to the North Shore posted here. Heather and Colt headed back on Friday or Saturday to be honest I can't remember. The days have all run together. Konrad and Roger headed back with them on a reconnaissance mission, so I had them bring my camera down to snap some pictures. They were trying to find out when the power would be turned back on and also to check on Karen's house. Her house seemed to fair better than my parents.

On to other news, Heather is headed today to Jefferson Parish with Leslie's godmother to check on Grandma Mac. We look forward to some good news.

Hurricane update and a little site seeing

Cravens House Lookout Mountain

Well we have heard from most everyone now. There is still no word from Leslie's grandmother. We would expect that she would be being evacuated. It looks like late at night is the best time to get phone calls through.

We all decided to do a few hours of site seeing last night so we headed up to Lookout Mountain. We headed up to the Cravens House and sunset rock. The view from both was nice. I total forgot to take a picture of Sunset Rock because I was holding on to John David. I did take a few pictures at the Cravens House. The picture that was to the right is of Aunt Heather and John David at one of the Civil war monuments. It has since been removed. :-)

hurricane update:

Well I just heard from my mom. They are all safe. In her words:
"It is unreal here. Just trying to keep body and soul together is a daily chore."

It looks like it could be up to 2 months until all electrical service is restored on the North Shore. Cleco (the electric company) is going to have more hard and fast timelines publish tomorrow morning. It looks like my parents will be heading up to North Carolina if they can get enough gas to get out of there. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place because they have to do a bit of repair on their home and rental home before they can leave, but while there they have to use their gas to run a small generator to be able to pump water and keep food cool. I don't see them getting out of there anytime soon.

More later...

hurricane update....

Well, the only family we have heard from is Leslie's brother Max. He lives in Baton Rouge, which weathered the storm quite well. Besides him we have no clue as to the well being of everyone else.

We feel pretty certain that everyone in St. Tammany parish is okay. Though, we have not been able to get any word to know for certain. Since St. Tammany was one of the hardest hit areas they are not allowing any one to return. The official word is from the state is:
IF YOU HAVE EVACUATED ST. TAMMANY PARISH, DO NOT RETURN UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. THE PARISH IS CLOSED.

That being the case, it looks like we will have family visiting for at least several more days. It's nice to have Heather up here as well. She and colt are trying to get some site seeing in while they are her in Chattanooga. Now that it is not raining they should be able to see some of the outside places they have not been able to go and see.

Last night was great. Karen brought a gallon of oysters up with her so I fried up a few dozen and we made a huge gumbo with smoke turkey and about 50 oysters. It was a great meal. John David and Elliot have been enjoying having Nicholas to play with. I have not gotten any pictures yet but probably will tonight.

The national coverage of the hurricane has been crap, but if you have a good internet connection you can get really good coverage through here. It is from one of the news stations in New Orleans. They have a live video news feed. They are doing a great job of flying over the city so all the refuges can get some idea as to the condition of their homes.

We still have not heard from Leslie's grandmother. I would expect that we would hear something from her in the next several days. It looks like they are evacuating the city, so I would expect Leslie's mom would get a phone call at some point.

One way or the other if you are so inclined to pray then do it.

Hurricane refugees...

Just a quick update, if you don't know already about 90% of our families live in and around New Orleans. In total that is about 30 family members. Well, five of them woke us up this morning by throwing sticks at our windows. We had invited them to come up earlier in the day but after boarding up their windows they thought they would ride out the storm. At around 4:30 yesterday afternoon they realized it was a good opportunity for them to get out of harms way and to pay us a visit, so they headed our way.

The thing was Leslie's ringer was off and we never got the message. So, this morning early I started hearing what I thought was rocks hitting the window. Being that we have no family or anyone hear that would feel comfortable throwing rocks at our windows, it kind of freaked me out for a minute. We are glad to have them here and safe. It took them 12 hours to do the normal 7 hour trip. The traffic was so bad that they were going 10 mph for about 5 hours, and that was with both sides of interstate traffic headed north all the way from Slidell to about 60 north of Hattiesburg MS.

We have not heard anything for family members that are down there. We have been trying to get in touch but all land lines and cell towers are down. It could be quite some time until they could get through. I am sure they are okay. We are most worried about Leslie's grandmother because she refused to leave New Orleans. She is a very strong and hard headed woman that is in her 80's, but we are sure she is fine. I hope I don't step on any toes with that last sentence.

Well, I need to get going we have a full house.