Count Your Blessings

Hurricane Gustav passed right over Houma, Louisiana where we use to live. I am incredibly grateful that we never had to deal with a major hurricane. I am also grateful that the reports coming in from my friends are good: minimal damage and everyone is safe and sound. Here are some pictures that they sent, or I pulled off the newspaper website.

The sign outside our apartment complex is down, but the buildings appear to be okay.

Across the street from our complex is a golf course, which looks a little flatened.

My good friend Emily Voisin is going to need a new trampoline. Good thing they boarded up the windows to their bedroom (to the right) or they'd have an indoor playground!

Can you figure out what this is? Took me awhile...it's a pipe from the trampoline embedded in their roof! Emily calls it her new roof decoration. I said it was eclectic.

This is the route we took to church each Sunday along Highway 311.

This is a common scene around Houma, many of the trees uprooted or snapped in half.

Another common image is tarps stretched across roofs, and fences blown away.

All things considered, Houma seems to have fared pretty well. Many areas are still without power and may continue to be without power for a few weeks. While I'm glad that I wasn't there to experience nature's fury, a part of me is bummed that I'm not there to help my friends. After seeing images of the evacuees at the Civic Center, a block up from my place, I'm grateful to be safe with my child in my new home. The Civic Center became a central location for food and water distribution, rows and rows of port-a-potties, and a dump station for buses full of people who had nowhere else to go. The Spirit whispered to me that I was where I needed to be, and that it would not have been safe for me to be there now. I'm grateful that Heavenly Father looks out for me and that He protected my friends and their homes.