What's it's name?

Dean. Hurricane Dean. Okay, just wanted to know the name of what might potentially cause us death and destruction.

One of my 5 sisters has booked a reservation in Monroe, 4 hours from here. Rooms are already going. I am sure the rest will be following suit.

After the hurricane, three of my sisters and their families, and pets, stayed with my sister in Atlanta. My mother was picked up from my brother's house in devastated Bush, La, 4 days later and joined the commune in Georgia. My sister had so many friends and co-workers dump resources to help alleviate the burden of that many people in one house. From what I hear, they were all harmonious for the three weeks they were there. It has to be because my surly butt wasn't there too. I was happy to be here in sweatsville with my people.

My thoughts today are of filling cars with gas, buying heat and serve foods and many other items a family needs for when there's no electricity - though we have a generator now. (We need to put gas in the drum for the generator.) We also have a window unit now and two chainsaws.

Should we stay again? Or, do we pack up the two dogs and cats, the two children and go? I'd rather stay. Despite mandatory evacuation for Hurricane Katrina, and my extended families pleas for us to be reasonable, and other frantic friends who thought we were crazy - we stayed put. By staying, we got to experience an 80 foot cypress tree hitting the roof, watched the tornadic activity in our woods, and was here when it was all over - to put a tarp over the roof hole to prevent further damage caused by rain. It was such a mess here. One had to be here to understand what we witnessed. It was an incredible experience.

Being campers from way back, we had supplies that came in handy. We made coffee on the camping stove each morning. My husband could have killed for a cold, soft drink. That was one of his biggest deprivations. Never mind that we couldn't communicate with the outside world, or that we were without any way of cooling off. Give the man a root beer.

We thought we'd leave if we were under threat again. Now, I'd have to have a compelling warning. Otherwise, my survivalist tendencies are kicking in.