Well, Saj and I came out of the hurricane all right, as did most of Baton Rouge I think. All we got was some really strong wind and some rain…not even much in the way of flooding. The last minute easterly turn of Katrina helped, but even if that had not happened I don’t think we would have been hit too hard as Baton Rouge is about 60 miles northwest of New Orleans. We don’t have electricity or internet access at home. The damned power went out right when I was booting my computer up this morning at around 8:45 am!!! (I’m in my LSU office right now. LSU has its own generator.) All or nearly all of Baton Rouge is without power. We do have running water though. No telling when the power will be restored. Class resumes on Wednesday, but I’ll probably check in again tomorrow. My thoughts go out to those not as fortunate as we.
Update (8/30): Well, we’re still without power, although much of Baton Rouge seems to have power restored. It’s just rotten bad luck for us, because all of the houses, condos, and apartment complexes around us have already had their power restored for at least a day. Something about our feeder lines being messed up. With luck, our power will be restored before we go to bed tonight or before long tomorrow. Our apartment manager said that Entergy was supposed to be on it. We’ll see. I can’t help but wonder what would be the case right now if we had a fully free market in energy production and service. At any rate, we can’t complain much. Aside from some minor leaking during the hurricane, and a loss of electricity for a few days, we came out all right. On a related, academic note, LSU has thrice extended the number of days classes would be cancelled. At first, before the hurricane, classes were only to be cancelled on Monday, then it was pushed back to Tuesday. In the aftermath, LSU has extended class cancellation to this Wednesday and now classes will not resume until Tuesday, September 6th. So it looks like we’ll be getting a decidedly extended vacation of sorts. This will give me some more time to work on my Latin, my book review, and perhaps one of my working papers. On Friday, I head back to Lake Charles to visit the family and attend a friend’s wedding; I’m one of his groomsmen.
Update (8/31): Our electricity was restored sometime this afternoon. Things have largely returned to normal, at least for us. Gas prices are already starting to go up due to increased scarcity and demand. Fill up now.
Geoffrey is an Aristotelian-Libertarian political philosopher, writer, editor, and web designer. He is the founder of the