One year post Isaac. Part 2 of 3. It just won't stop coming!

View from the back yard.

We get up Wednesday morning.  The power has been out.  It's rained all night.  The two horse pastures that are next to my property are full of water already. We check the weather on our phones.  We are horrified to learn that Isaac is stalled in Barataria Bay. The rains will not let up and the winds will continue to pack Lake Pontchartrain.  Worse case scenario.  I get a call from my Dad.  His travel trailer is in a low spot so we have to move it.  We hook up his truck and the rear tires sink up to the axle.  We fight for three hours to get his truck out.  We use boards, blocks, and bricks.  Then make a train with my tractor and my brother in law's Jeep.  When it's finally out, I turn and fall into the hole the tires made.  I go underwater, then when I surface my family is screaming at me.  A small water moccasin his on my back.  After all that excitement, I look across my land and see something I've never seen before.  Water is everywhere.  This has never happened before.  Not in Katrina, or Gustav.  What is going on?


We head back to the house to change into dry clothes.  I keep going outside every few minutes.  I'm just in a daze.  Surely the water will stop coming soon.  But the water creeps up on the porch and I know it won't stop. It's time to start picking up things.  We get all the computers and such up on top of things and I instruct the boys to put all the guns in the attic.  We hear the thumping of large helicopters.  The subdivisions nearest the Lake are underwater and the National Guard is performing rescues.  Then my wife gets a text from one of her co-workers.  She lives in the nearest subdivision.  She waded down her street to safety with nothing but clothes on her back and a phone in her hand.  It's coming this way.   Night falls and I know the waters won't stop. We try to settle the boys but the wife is upset so I tell her, I'm not opposed to leaving.  I tell her to pack the valuables and the boys to stack furniture on top of each other. The house won't stay above water for another hour.  I wade to my parents house to tell them we are leaving.  By the time I get back the water is seeping in the corners of the house.  I tell the boys to grab their school clothes, a sleeping bag, and the dog and get in my truck.  The wife has already loaded the valuables but she's still fretting about every little thing in the house.  By the time I force her out the door we are ankle deep in our own house.


I ease the truck down our lane.  Going just fast enough to create a wake that keeps the engine out of the water.  It takes us half and hour to get to Airline Highway (the main highway).  We had to try three different streets to get there.  Once we get on Airline we come to the National Guard command center.  They are still rescuing people.  There is a line of coach buses on the four lane highway blocking everything for at least a mile.  At this point we think the entire town of Laplace is underwater.  I roll down the window and ask a state troop how do I get past.  He says, "drive on the shoulder with some respect or get in one of these buses bound for Houston".  I say my thanks and move on.  I ain't going to Houston.  We make our way about twenty miles down the road.  Our pastor and his family welcome us into their house.  It's late, the boys have been drugged with Benedryl, they bed down on sleeping bags while we tell our pastor and his wife about our long day.


Penny and I go lay in a bed shortly after midnight.  There will be no sleep tonight.  We lay there holding hands with tears in our eyes.  Our house is filling with water and there's not a thing we can do about it. I think to myself, "this is the worst feeling in the world".  Tomorrow will prove me very, very wrong.