9/4/05 Re: Refugee Update Most of the "refugees" stayed at my sister's today. 4 of us went to see if we could get back to our houses to get more stuff to bring back to my sister's and we'll bring Stacey's car back, too. 4:00am - Up and at 'em! -- made sandwiches, packed soft drinks and water in the ice chest. 4:30am - Planned departure time. We left on the dot. Stopped in Donaldsonville, LA to gas up the truck, fill 2 gas cans (for our neighbor's generator), and get ice. At one point in the trip --it was still dark -- on I-10 somewhere -- we passed a line of school busses from (I think) Houston Independent School District... there were thirty one (31) busses in the convoy.. I counted them. There was a road block at Washington Parish and we were told that they weren't supposed to let anybody go through Washington Parish if they were going to Jefferson Parish. The sheriff let us thru, though, and told us to be prepared to be turned back when we got to the Jefferson Parish road block. Arrived at the Jefferson Parish road block about 6am and got in line. We saw MANY cars turned around and headed back the way they came. When it got to our turn, we told them that we had spoken to our neighbor the night before and that he had told us that they had plenty of food and water, but that they needed gas for their generator. The deputy surveyed the back of the truck, saw the two gas cans and said "Man, I hate to do this (then a LONG pause)... go on in!" So there we were... whipping along on the normally-pretty- slow westbank expressway... most other vehicles were emergency or utility vehicles. We passed through Terrytown and went to the house of my friend's sister and took 6 pictures of that house. Then we went to our houses. This was around 7:00am and as soon as we arrived, our neighbor (who has been staying there and needed the gas) came out to say hello. We went to work -- we took pictures, cleaned out both refrigerators & one freezer, picked up limbs, sheet metal and insulation from the trailer next to Stacey's house, burned trash, drained the water out of the boat, moved a lot of Stacey's bedroom furniture to my house, packed up my computer and more clothes... the tasks seemed to be endless and we had to be out of Jefferson Parish by "sundown", so some stuff just didn't get done. We felt VERY lucky to have gotten into Jefferson Parish the day before we were to be "officially" allowed to enter. We were leaving aroaund 6pm and as we passed the road block on our way out, there were many many cars already lined up on the highway -- no doubt waiting to be allowed into the parish officially at 6am the following morning. It was dark when we got back to my sister's and we had eaten all the sandwiches and drank all the soft drinks and water... and we were TIRED. Click here to see the pictures we took Go to 9/5/05