waiting for a right hook

What I am doing is sitting here waiting to hear about the right hook. Like in boxing, in which a right hook is a surprise swing aimed at your opponent’s kidneys … but this is actually a weather-related phenomenon.
Since I was a little girl, I have heard about hurricanes threatening the New Orleans area. (I was born after Betsy, the last hurricane to hit New Orleans directly, in 1965, and I am too young to remember Camille in 1969.) I can remember sitting in front of the TV set and hearing local newscasters recommend evacuation, and wonder what it would be like to go to a shelter, while my dad shook his head and said, “No, it’s not coming anywhere near us. Don’t worry.”
He was correct. Hurricanes in the Gulf Coast somehow always manage to take a sharp turn (usually a right turn) right before they could hit New Orleans. New Orleanians expect this traditional right hook. I don’t know if it’s voodoo or some bizarre Gulf Stream effect or the refusal on the part of hurricanes to settle the issue of the Bowl Effect Theory, but New Orleans has evaded an awful lot of potential direct hits.

I never saw my parents board up the windows of a house—it’s only been in the past few years that I’ve known them to do it. Today they boarded up their own windows, then helped my brother do his, then drove to my grandparents’ house and did their windows.
After that, they gathered up the cats and drove over the Causeway to my sister’s house on the North Shore, which they feel is pretty safe from big hurricane problems. My mom drove the SUV and took the indoor cat and the two litterboxes. My dad drove his little car and took the outdoor cat, declining litterboxes because he was sure the cat wouldn’t need one. Both parents let the cats out of their carriers because it took about three hours for them to cross the Causeway (a 25-mile bridge across Lake Pontchartrain that it usually takes 30-40 minutes, tops, to cross). My dad was right: the outdoor cat did not need a litterbox. He simply climbed onto my dad’s lap and peed. Twice.
My sister jokingly answered her phone tonight with “Motel, no vacancies.” Everyone was in a good-humored mood. It was a big party, an excuse to get a little silly, because no one really thinks anything serious will happen. While I was on the phone, they started mock-arguing about where they should all go out for breakfast tomorrow, since no one had to work or go to school.
“There’s an IHOP nearby, we can all go there for breakfast,” my sister said. “I’m sure they’ll stay open.”
“What you need is a Waffle House,” I told her.
“Hey, we have one! It’s practically across the street. We could almost walk there if it isn’t raining. Didn’t you know we had one so close?”
“I had no idea. If I’d known, we would have stayed at your house last time, because you know how my boyfriend gets about the Waffle House.”
And so on. Their only real concern is that tree limbs, or actual trees, might get knocked down in the storm. You don’t need a hurricane for that. But my sister noted cheerfully that the only tree around her house that was likely to fall would hit the kitchen, so they could still hole up in the bedrooms if necessary.
“Dad, you better come eat these ice creams,” I heard her call to him. “Because what if the power goes out? We can’t have them going to waste.”
“Oh, I’m happy to help you,” he replied.
Meanwhile, my sister told me, my married brother and his family are leaving tonight, once the kids are asleep, to drive to Lafayette where my sister-in-law has lots of relatives. It’ll take an eternity, since apparently the roads are horribly clogged with traffic. There just aren’t that many ways in and out of the New Orleans area. (The mayor of New Orleans has been suggesting people figure out “creative ways to get out of town.” Note he doesn’t recommend any specific alternate routes. This is because there aren’t any, dumbass.)
My other brother is pretty safe in Baton Rouge, and in fact his roommate’s family is driving up there from New Orleans, to stay in their apartment during the storm.
My grandparents, however, refuse to leave their home. They don’t live very far from Lake Pontchartrain, either. But they say they’ve lived in that house for 49 years, and they lived through Betsy and Camille, and no little upstart hurricane named Ivan is going to kick them out. Besides, hurricanes always turn right at the last minute and hit Biloxi or something instead. They’re not worried. (I am.)
New Orleans has a lot of poor people without cars who are stranded in the city, not to mention people who don’t want to fight the immense traffic jams, tourists who can’t get out, and stubborn Betsy survivors like my grandparents. At the time I am writing this, the city has not made arrangements to create any emergency shelters for these people. I guess they’re waiting for that last-minute curve, too.
Which is probably why I got a bit snappish at the engineers from work who were amusing themselves today with a technical discussion about the Bowl Effect Theory and the path of the Mississippi River. The Bowl Effect Theory surmises that if a Class 4 or 5 hurricane hit New Orleans directly, Lake Pontchartrain would overflow so heavily and quickly that the city would be submerged in 20 or 30 feet of water for weeks, no matter how well the pump system works. Some people take this theory further and predict that New Orleans would just become an extension of Lake Pontchartrain. Some people predict that the Mississippi River bed would shift and eradicate New Orleans that way. I have been hearing variations on these theories since I was in grade school, and none of this has actually happened, although admittedly no big hurricanes have directly hit the area to prove the theories true or false.
At any rate, I didn’t (and don’t) really want to hear theories like that, considering the situation. Seriously, if you want to interest me in an article about the Bowl Effect Theory, send it to me next March or something. Not right now.
Right now I am waiting for that damned right hook. C’mon, Ivan, don’t you know anything about boxing? A right hook. A sharp curve. A U-turn. Any minute now.