Your Thursday "Jarrod" Update

Well, it looks like Jarrod's crew is going to be there for at least another week. Starting tomorrow they will be working on a substation on the ocean (kinda cool!) that was damaged by flooding. There is a lot of damage and Jarrod's crew is going to fix part of it and then they are sending another crew to repair the rest. Hopefully, the damage isn't as extensive as they think and they will be able to come home sooner.

Here is a map of where they will be staying (Metairie) and where they will be working everyday (Leeville). . . .yeah it's a good ways away!

They are still going to stay in Metairie because there is no where in between there and Leeville to stay besides tents, and they'd rather drive 2-3 hours to get there, and 2-3 hours to get back to the hotel at night to stay in a place with hot water and AC and no mosquitos. Which means they will be on the road A LOT. Nothing new for them I know, but still!!  They only have the hotel rooms booked until the 10th, so hopefully they will be done by then, if not they may be in tents anyway!

Here are some pics Jarrod sent me of a substation in the area that was flooded, this is not one they will be working on. But you can see how it is hard for them to repair the damage when they can't even get to it because of flooding.

That's all I know for now! Hopefully they will have a better idea of how long it will take to repair things and how long that will take tomorrow when they get to actually get to Leeville and see what's going on there.

Wednesday Morning update

I did get to talk to Jarrod for a while last night around 8:30-9:00pm. He called from the Entergy office in Metairie which is right outside of New Orleans. He sounded really tired and said he was just ready for food and sleep! He took lots of snacks with him, but he said he couldn't eat while driving between the bad weather and traffic. Oh, and did I mention that his van doesn't have cruise control?!?! I can't even imagine!! I talked to him for about 15 mins and he said he'd try to call back if and when they got a place to stay. At that time he said it would be fine with him to sleep at the office in a sleeping bag, so he must have been tired!

We have been texting a lot because he isn't getting good cell reception so he had sent me a text message last night around 11pm that said they were going a hotel with at least running water, but probably no electricity.

He just called me at work a few mins ago and they did get to sleep in a hotel last night with hot water and electricity. They are staying in a hotel in Metairie (a Four Seasons! Nice! Esp. for a utility worker on the job, huh?!).  They will be staying there for at least one more night. He wasn't exactly sure about what they were going to be doing or where they were going today. If they do have to go to Baton Rouge, they will still stay the nights in Metarie because Baton Rouge doesn't have electricity.

That is all I know right now! I want them to come home soon, but I know how frustrating it will be for them if they have to turn around and come home tomorrow without getting to do their job.  Maybe they will be able to so some good while they are there and get to come home in a few days.

By the way, I made it just fine last night, even though we were under a tornado watch and a few warnings in other areas. I was of course sick to my stomach, but that's nothing new! Around 10 pm I took a benedryl so I would sleep and it seemed to do the trick, I don't know if it stormed any last night after I went to sleep or not! But I did not want to get out of bed this morning!! The rain was hitting my bedroom window and it sounded so gooood. . . . so, yeah I was a little late for work this morning!

Update. . .

Jarrod called about an hour ago and said they were right outside of New Orleans. They are pretty much stuck in traffic from all the other utility companies and people who evacuated trying to get back in. Even though we have been hearing officials on the news telling evacuees to stay where they are because there is no electricity and utilities, people are still trying to get back in! Jarrod said there are no active road blocks so even though they are telling people to stay out, they don't have a way to enforce that right now. He said one of their guys in their convoy was run off the road by another utility company truck and they had to call a truck to come pull him out. He said it's pretty much chaos. At one point during their drive today they all had to pull over because of a tornado in the area. And at lunch they stopped for a quick bite at a Wendy's outside of Jackson, only to go in and find the electricity off! So, they drove on to Vicksburg before getting to stop for lunch. After all that and they have been told that they may be coming home tomorrow?? They will either be coming home or going to Baton Rouge, I guess they have enough people working in the New Orleans area already. . . information they could have used yesterday?!?! Anyway he said he'd call when they got there, and that was over an hour ago. I know they are tired of driving in the stormy weather all day and frustrated, so please send a prayer up that at least they'll get a decent place to sleep tonight!! More later. . . .

Jarrod's headed to LA . . .

Jarrod left about 4:30 this morning on this way to New Orleans. Please keep him in your prayers this next week!

He didn't find out for sure he was going to have to go until about 7pm last night! So we were in a mad dash to get everything together! They told him to pack for a week, but hopefully he will be back before then!

Here is a new news release from Entergy. . .

Sept. 2, 2008 @ 11:30 a.m.                                                                               Hurricane Gustav made landfall Sept. 1, at 10 a.m., near Cocodrie, Louisiana. At the peak, 850,000 Entergy customers, primarily in Louisiana and Mississippi, had lost electrical service due to the storm. Hurricane Gustav caused the second largest number of outages in company history, behind only Hurricane Katrina. Gustav restoration rivals the scale and difficulty of Hurricane Katrina restoration.  As of 11 a.m., more than 826,000 customers were still without power throughout the Entergy service territory.  Nearly 24,000 Entergy customers have been restored whose electrical service was disrupted by Hurricane Gustav. Bad weather from the storm continues in the Entergy system, impeding progress to restore service and assess damage. Early assessments indicate extensive damage to Entergy’s system in Louisiana.  The number of outages already known to have been caused by Gustav is the second highest in Entergy’s 95-year history. The only larger number was 1.1 million during Hurricane Katrina, which has been described as one of the worst natural disasters in American history.

I guess he picked a good week to be gone, since I am so busy! There is something planned every night until Saturday, so maybe I won't worry about him as much?!? Maybe, but doubtful!

I will be posting updates as I hear from him!

Birthdays & Anniversaries

 Saturday I had a lot do do. . . make chicken and dressing and chicken enchilada cheese dip (I know it's an odd combo, I'll explain later. . .) go buy Nanny's gift, wrap all gifts, go pick up the cake & flowers, decorate the cake, get ready for the party, make it to Hickory Ridge for the party at 5:30! Whew! I got it all done and was there on time!

Saturday was my Nanny's birthday, so we had a party for her at Nanny & Papa's house Saturday night. She had asked my mom if she thought I would make her some chicken and dressing (I am the "dressing maker" on the Gibson side, as I learned the art from my Grandma on the Wilson side a couple of years ago. . .) for the party. So how could I disappoint her? I made several individual servings that she could freeze and just pull out and reheat when she needed a fix! Dressing isn't hard to make it's just time consuming. So that took up a few hours on Saturday. The rest of us were having BBQ so I made the cheese dip to go along with that.

I decided that I would get a mini wedding cake made for my mom and dad and take it to the birthday party, too since Sunday was there 30th wedding anniversary. I had Kroger make me a plain white 8" cake with a 4" on top. I decorated it with fresh flowers and a heart pick. I thought it turned out pretty cute, considering I did it! ha! I would have liked to have some sort of party for them, but things have been crazy lately with my mom's job and just other stuff, so it just didn't work out. I think they appreciated the cake! They had a few gifts and cards to open as well.

Alexandra wanted in the picture, too!! Look at her face, so funny!

Happy Birthday Nanny!

Happy 30th Anniversary Mom & Dad!!

Cupcakes and marriage class

My friend Carla found out that she passed her state PA (Physician Assistant) boards on Thursday!   So,  I made cupcakes and took them to our weekly "marriage seminar"  class at church.  I think she was sort of embarrassed! Oh, well at least she will have a memory of the day she found out she passed her boards!

We are really enjoying this marriage class. So far it has been really interesting. It cracks me up that the "older people" (the teacher and guests) in the class must think us younger people must be complete idiots by some of the advice we are getting. . . .but then I always think I already know everything! ha!  Really, it's been fun and I am sure down the road it will be helpful! It's nice to know that we aren't the only ones with problems! However, we still haven't embarked on the important subject of  "how to get your man to put the seat down" I hope that comes up in the next few weeks!

Here comes trouble. . . .

Jarrod has just been informed, by Entergy, that he has been chosen as one of 8 guys from this area that could have to go to Louisiana if  the hurricane continues to track in that direction.

Here is a news release from Entergy:                                               Entergy Utility Companies Monitor Hurricane Gustav                     New Orleans, La. – Entergy New Orleans, Inc. and Entergy Louisiana, LLC are closely monitoring Hurricane Gustav as the storm moves toward the Gulf of Mexico.  Although the path and landfall of the storm remains uncertain, Entergy’s utility companies in southeast Louisiana are preparing for the possibility that the storm could affect parts of the companies’ service territories in the New Orleans metro and southeast Louisiana areas.  Should the storm impact southeast Louisiana, it could cause widespread and extended power outages. The Entergy companies’ crews and contractors will be staged near the predicted landfall area and are prepared to work as soon as it is safe to do after the storm passes, restoring service to customers as quickly and as safely as possible.

We are watching this storm very closely!  I'll keep you posted.