Road to Cincinnati ...

In explaining why me moved to Cincinnati we review the Katrina experience:

We like to tell Cincinnatians that we chose the city after a nationwide search for a place to retire. In addition to Cincinnati that search took us to Columbus Ohio and Chapel Hill North Carolina. These are not the typical places to retire and you may ask why there are no sites in Florida or Arizona. Well, here is how that list evolved, and it is a long story.

For New Orleans residents all topics are divided into pre-Katrina and post-Katrina. Post-Katrina discussions are frequently about where you stayed during the evacuation and where you are living now. The evacuation period generally began two days before the hurricane hit New Orleans (on Monday, August 29, 2005) with a wide variance on when people returned “home,” such as it was.

Road Trip

There are evacuations, and there are post-Katrina “odyssies.” Generally we leave town for a motel that is 50 to 100 miles away, stay a couple of days, then return when the hurricane has blown over. This was our expectation for the Katrina evacuation, so we threw a few things into the car and we left (Saturday, two days before the storm hit) to stay with friends in Slidell Louisiana.

Susan is very nervous about hurricanes and on Saturday watched the 5 a.m. position and projected path of the storm, and decided that it was time to go. She gave me an hour to back up my computer files and to pack the car. We had a hurricane “kit” that included our important papers, flashlights, and cans of food.

On Sunday morning we and our hosts decided that we needed to be further away than Slidell. We watched the hurricane and its early aftermath on CNN from Tuscaloosa Alabama, while staying at the home of friends of Susan’s from way back.

We then drove to the Birmingham airport and flew to Washington DC for Susan to attend a professional meeting. On our return we drove to Memphis for my niece’s wedding, which was moved there from New Orleans on very short notice.

Attendance at Loni’s wedding at the Peabody Hotel was almost as good as it would have been in NO. People flew and drove in from a variety of locations that would look like an airline route map. Conversation was largely about what happened to our houses, and where we were staying.

From Memphis we stayed a couple of days with Susan’s cousins in Huntsville.

More to come.

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