Lucky Baton Rouge!

Wow! We are very lucky. Other than many trees down and power outages for many, we did pretty well. Check out the pictures I took this morning.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=75vyacyh.67lhlppx&Uy=jpfzbi&Ux=0

The news coming out of New Orleans is dreadful. All the patients from the Charity Hospital in New Orleans were evacuated to the Superdome and the arena because gas lines were leaking. Many gas lines are broken and fires burning across the city. The 30000 people in the Superdome are basicly now on an island with several feet of water at street level. Over night a canal was breached near Bucktown which is at the edge of Lake Pontchartrain and now water is flooding Lakeview area all the way down to City Park. I just heard that the water is rising in the CBD now at the rate of a foot in one half hour. I don't know where that water is coming from. My cell phone is not working. Apparently the circuits that are still working are completely overloaded. There have been about 700 rescued from their roof or attic by calling a radio station using their cell phone and giving their location as the 911 system was out. I dread the stories that we will hear and see in the coming days. There are so many people from New Orleans here in BR watching the news video in disbelief desperately trying to see the fate of their nieghborhoods. They will not be able to return for some time.

You will see in the pictures that Rob and I were in Ocean Springs last weekend. The house we stayed in is probably gone. We drove home on Rt. 90 and I am hearing that 90 is essentially gone or impassible. It was so beautiful and reminded me of the time we stayed in a statley home right there across from the beach in Gulfport I think. I was twelve years old.
Goodbye loves for now, Sara

Katrini meanie!

Pretty much all businesses are closed. Most of the gas stations are out of gas or only have premium gas left. It was just announced that LSU will be closed on Monday and Tuesday.
I just heard that Grand Isle is experiencing 80 mph wind gusts already. I hope they fair OK. GI is the only wooded barrier island left on the Louisiana coast. The storm surge may be the worst thing for coastal areas and New Orleans. They predict it to flow into the city and Lake Pontchartrain and then the retreating waters will wash out to the gulf back over the city.
Bye for now, I'll be in touch soon.
A note from Gab and Seb below...
Kia Ora- That's how one is greeted in fair New Zealand,Seb and I have arrived after a night of broken sleep on the plane and now ajumbled day of information and decision making. There's so much to do hereand obviously so many beautiful places to see, so I'ts hard to know what todo first. I keep having to remind myself that we'll be here for a year.We've decided to delay any major decisions and go to the beach, on thenorthern tip of the north island, called Bay of Islands. It's a prime spot to swim with dolphins.We did take care of some business today, so we have a cell phone now thatrecieves calls free of charge for us, but we still have to load it withminutes, our number is ... you must dial 64 and drop the firstzero to call from the US.I don't have much to say as of yet, because we've been inside all day, but Ihope this finds all of you well and enjoying the last days of summer. We'llbe in touch.Cheers,Gabi & Seb

Auckland Bound...

...they should have arrived by now and it's Friday there! I hacked into Gabi's ofoto site and swiped these two albums to tide me over until I get some NZ photojournals. Check it out. Spoke to Gabi last evening before they went to LAX. They were quite relaxed and getting very excited anticipating their rather southern sojourn. From the pictures, it looks like they had an awesome time after leaving BR. I do believe they even had a photo of the aurora that has been the result of the solar electromagnetic storms. Enjoy and check out the site often for more stuff!
http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?Uc=75vyacyh.4anuf4p9&Uy=j4vgw0&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&mode=fromshare&conn_speed=1

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?Uc=75vyacyh.5jv5dr7x&Uy=-u84xf3&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&mode=fromshare&conn_speed=1

Aussie Ad for entertainment

It's big...it's very very big!!

http://www.bigad.com.au/

Hot off the press...Gabrielle graduates Summa Cum Laude. Even though she doesn't put any importance on these sort of tags, her Mom is very proud. Also she is representing her city and state of birth. Nice touch Gabi! read for yourself at this link http://www.lsu.edu/commencement/honorgrads.html

Welcome to the Zerbey global check-in. As we spread out around the world, let's keep in touch. This may be the only way to do that.

Feel free to share your latest adventures, accomplishments, disappointments especially if you are not a Zerbey and even if you are. Make pleas for help or prayers. Creative endeavors are also welcome. There will be no guilt trips if you don't blog but hopefully you will enjoy the news posted to this site. I hope you like pictures of dogs and progress on my renovation!