Gustav

• Fill your car's gas tank
• Go grocery shopping for non-perishables
  
• Gather up any thing that is outside and not bolted down
• Fill bathtubs with water
• Buy lots of ice
  
• Sit and wait

This list is just to give you an idea of the things that my family is doing about now (or has done over the last few days).

Many of you have asked and so I will post some info here about the status of our families. Gustav is headed directly for our hometown even with the change in trajectory over night. Our home parish of Lafayette is under voluntary evacuation which really just means that schools and some county buildings will be set up as shelters for people who need a place to go. I have family that live south of Hwy 14 and they all received heavy damage to their homes from Hurricane Rita's storm surge. They have all been evacuated and we hope that Gustav's storm surge will not be as bad (the changed trajectory has seemed to help that prospect out).

Philip's parents, brother, and grandmother are driving to AK today to get out of the way of the storm. Please pray for safety during their travel. They obviously will not be the only ones headed north today. My parents who live in south Lafayette Parish are going to ride the storm out. They are probably one of the highest houses in their neighborhood and the water has never come close, so that is good. My sister lives in Baton Rouge and I believe she will be driving to Lafayette today to stay with my Mawmaw and Pawpaw who are also riding out the storm in Northern Lafayette. They have a generator and are well stocked with food items and such. Her boyfriend Paulo is going to be going through his first storm and I can imagine that must be nerve racking.

I'm glad to hear that Gustav has weakened to a Cat.3 and may stay there before making land fall. Just yesterday we had heard reports that it could make landfall as a four or five.

Mostly during this time I just hate not being there. It is hard to be 700 miles away and have nothing to do to help.