Highlights from the Biloxi trip

In an effort to beat Hurricane Gustav to the gulf coast, we left Thursday afternoon headed to Biloxi, MS for the Gulf Coast Poker Championship. We made it to Saraland, AL, a suburb of Mobile with not much in it other than a Wal-mart and a few restaurants. Sadly, I was unable to aquire a Saraland T-shirt before we departed.

Friday morning we realized the need to gas up before hitting the road for the last hour's drive to Biloxi. Unfortunately, everyone else in the gulf coast realized about the same time that getting gas was a really good idea in advance of a hurricane. The pumps were all full of people not only filling their cars but filling extra gas cans and generators. A bad sign. But still, we made it to the Beau Rivage with about half an hour to spare before the tournament started.

We both felt a little off our game from being so rushed to get there, and it didn't help when the person I went with ended up seated randomly next to me at our first table! In these events, the computer is supposed to assign each player to a random seat, so it was very surprising that out of 469 players we ended up next to each other. It threw me off a little, and unfortunately I was largely card dead while at that table. When we got moved to our next table, I was a little under my starting stack size about 3 levels in. I picked up pocket aces about halfway through the next round while at my new table, and managed to get my chips all in with them only to lose to K-Q when the other guy picked up two pair. Normally I would have been frustrated as hell, but I was actually very zen about it all. At least I got my money in with the best starting hand in poker, and after that there was nothing I could do.

Friday night after we were both out of the tournament, we tried a famous Biloxi restaurant that I'd read about and really wanted to go to: Mary Mahoney's. Right on the strip of Beach Blvd, the restaurant is in an old New Orleans style building with a beautiful courtyard and various signs marking the high water point from Katrina...on the second floor. The food did not disappoint, as the gumbo was probably the best I've ever had. My entree was very strange, but I think that was just because I chose poorly. I tasted the crawfish etoufee and a stuffed red snapper, and both were fantastic.

We had a strange little bar downstairs from our hotel, and it proved entertaining. We were across from the Beau Rivage, and all of the tournament dealers were apparently staying at our same hotel. There was much discussion of whether play would resume on Saturday or if the casino would close so that everyone could evacuate. We talked about leaving the next day, but decided we would see if the tournament would take place and would stay and play one more day if it did.

Saturday the casino was a ghost town, but the tournament did occur. After some discussion, we decided to play. They ended up getting 300 players, and I made it about halfway through that. I had a table made up largely of very good players and a few assholes, but I just couldn't get anything going against them. I did find a slot machine that was very good to me, and EXTREMELY good to the person I traveled with...to the tune of about $500.

Overall, the Beau Rivage is a beautiful hotel and I would love to go play in the casino again when it's not hurricane season. Their slots leave something to be desired, but that's probably for the best so that I don't waste money. Biloxi itself is not the shithole I'd heard it was, and the beach that we saw on our drives down both ends of US 90 looked like a lovely place to spend an afternoon.

We considered leaving Saturday night but unfortunately had a bit to drink and didn't end up making it out of town. Instead, we awoke very early Sunday to try and get the hell out of dodge ahead of the storm. Unfortunately, everyone had the same idea. We pulled onto the bridge out of Biloxi and came to a dead stop, with people getting out of their cars and wandering around. For a minute or two, I became terrified that this was the evacuation traffic and that we would take hours just to get away from the coast. It turned out that the bridge was a drawbridge and it was up to allow all the shrimp boats to come in from the coast and hunker down for the storm. After a 30 minute parade of shrimp boats and watching the craziest amalgamation of redneckdom ever assembled walking around the bridge, we started finally moving again.

We figured that once we made it to Mobile, traffic would lessen and it would be a smooth drive back to Atlanta. Sadly, this was completely wrong. It took us nearly 2.5 hours to make it to Mobile, but even after that point we were only averaging about 20 miles an hour except for a few brief spurts of faster movement. In the first 4 hours on the road, we traveled less than 150 miles. About 20 miles outside Mobile, after having eaten no breakfast and seeing the gas tank nearly on empty, we decided we would stop at the next exit. Both restaurants there were closed, one because according to the sign on the door they were out of food. The gas stations were packed, but it wasn't clear if they had any gas. We got back on the highway and crawled the 24 miles to the next exit. We were told that this exit had both gas and food by some large emergency signs in the median. Apparently the wave of evacuees was overtaking every exit along I-65 and cleaning them out of food and gasoline.

We realized we would have this problem all the way up I-65 to Montgomery, and decided that we would prefer to risk it on backroads. We took the next exit and headed into a small town with a name like Greenview or Evergreen. We were able to gas up and get something to eat, and then we plotted our course around Montgomery. We traveled through beautiful back country, and saw both Troy and Luverne, the latter of which is home of the world's largest peanut boil. Some 3 hours after we exited the highway, we emerged onto I-85 to find that the traffic was still heavy but moving fast, and we drove the rest of the way back to Atlanta. The entire trip took 10.5 hours, to go 370 miles. It was utterly exhausting, and I understand why hurricane evacuees are so reluctant to leave and go through such an ordeal.

However, seeing the pictures of the hurricane damage to Biloxi makes me mighty happy we got the hell out, too.

Just call me Jim Cantore

Even though there's really no way of knowing where Gustav will be headed and when it will arrive, I'm feeling a little crazy. I'm going to Biloxi to play poker.

Depending on how nuts it gets, I may have interesting tales from the bullseye. See you next week.

Like a hurricane

I have dumb luck sometimes. I began thinking almost a month ago of going to Biloxi over Labor Day weekend in order to play poker. Everything was booked before it all sold out, vacation days were reserved at the office, money set aside, and it looked like everything was going to line up perfectly.

Including, apparently, a big ol' hurricane Gustav churning its way through the Carribean and headed straight for the gulf coast, if the computer forecast models are to be believed. Some of those models have Gustav hitting Category 5 strength once it gets into the warm waters of the Gulf.

What are the odds, right? I still want to go on the trip, presuming that usually the models are unreliable and change often, so the storm will ultimately end up hitting Texas or Florida. But if not, if that sucker heads straight for the Mississippi gulf coast like a Katrina part 2, I'm going to be mighty pissed.

Scary storm

Hurricane Dean is really starting to scare me. The models have moved just northward enough that some of them now take the storm past the Yucatan and at least one takes it directly into Louisiana as a Category 5 hurricane. That model track looks an awful lot like Hurricane Camille, which was one of the few storms to hit the US as a Category 5. The last thing that the Louisiana gulf coast needs right now is a direct hit from a major hurricane. But I'm starting to really worry.

Hurricanes and Hand Grenades

I have only barely paid attention to tropical weather this year, but normally I'm an avid stormwatcher. Yesterday Griftdrift alerted me to the development and organization of Tropical Storm Dean, which he hoped would turn north and avoid entering the Gulf of Mexico. No dice, according to today's track projections. It looks like Dean is very likely going to make it to the warm Gulf waters and intensify rapidly in the process. If we are lucky, he will cross over just enough land (Cuba or the Yucatan) to keep him from becoming a bomb storm. But the important question is where the storm will finally come ashore.

If I lived on the Gulf Coast I would be very nervous right now.

You can follow the latest developments on T.S. Dean at the excellent Crown Weather site.

Hurricane Warning

Along with the ice storm (which has now cancelled my expected trip to the mountains tomorrow for a meeting and lunch with the parents), there is presently an 85% chance of Atlanta taking a direct hit from Samantha. My Christmas present to my best friend Sam was a train ticket down here (she don't fly) and we booked it for this weekend, but I hadn't been able to get in touch with her in about a week so I thought it was questionable whether she'd reschedule. Well, I just heard from her and apparently she gives it an 85% chance she will be coming this weekend. If not, it will probably have to be late February or March because my life and hers are about to get even busier (if that is possible).

Prepare for some serious crazycakes, Atlanta! 85% chance of drunken debauchery and random inappropriate nudity!

Closing the Loop

I had an argument recently with a friend over Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth," and particularly its scientific underpinnings. He didn't disagree with the ultimate conclusion that global warming was real, was happening, and was likely due to the massive amounst of fossil fuels being burned on our planet. The problem he had, as I understood it at least, was with the ways that science was used in the movie to extrapolate to all form of bad things that may or may not actually be related to global warming, such as the loss of the snows of Kilimanjaro, the sudden rash of more intense hurricanes, mosquito-borne illnesses on the rise, etc. Many who attacked the film when it came out went after the hurricane claim, saying that even scientists hadn't show that the more intense hurricanes such as Katrina had anything to do with global warming as opposed to cyclical weather patterns.

Until now.

A study funded by the Department of Energy has closed the loop between global warming, ocean surface temperatures in the Atlantic and Pacific, and hurricane intensity.

Most climate scientists agree that hurricanes have become more active since 1995, especially in the North Atlantic. Some researchers say that the increased activity is part of a natural cycle, similar to one that peaked in the 1950s, and like that one, will last about 30 to 40 years.

But during the last year, a number of scientists have published research suggesting that hurricanes, especially in the North Atlantic, have gained unprecedented intensity since the 1970s. They said the magnitude of this increase in hurricane strength does not fit with the pattern of natural fluctuations, and thus attribute it to the release of heat-trapping gases, chiefly carbon dioxide, from power plants and cars, which warms the atmosphere and in turn the oceans.

So far the only disagreement or question raised in reaction to the study is not whether there is scientific evidence that rising ocean temperatures can fuel stronger hurricanes. Instead, some scientists have questioned whether we have accurate data on previous older hurricanes whose intensity is often estimated based on damage assessments and outdated equipment, and can never be truly known. It's a valid point, but doesn't change the significance of the study's finding that global warming has probably caused the rise of ocean temperatures by 1 degree, and such a rise in ocean temperatures would very likely cause an intensification of hurricanes crossing those waters.

Now why haven't we seen any category 5 hurricanes this season yet if we're all screwed thanks to global warming? Well, THAT is one area that is definitely cyclically controlled--the weather patterns have not been spawning as many storms and haven't been bringing the storms into the hot waters of the Gulf this year. But it would be a mistake to assume that means global warming or intense hurricanes have somehow magically disappeared. Both will almost certainly be back and evident again at some point.

I don't pretend to know enough to defend this science, or to defend the science of An Inconvenient Truth. But at least one area in which the argument was "there is no evidence of that" finally has some evidence. I have a hunch we'll see more study and publication in this area over the next few years as it is, to pardon the pun, a very hot topic.

Crash Boom Crash

You know the beginning of the Steven Spielberg War of the Worlds? With the crazy super loud, super strong lightning strikes that are happening all around Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning?

I swear to god that is my house right now. I am absolutely freaking out here. I keep having to look out the window to make sure no houses or trees are on fire.

Um, speaking of which, gonna turn off the computer now. Pray that one of the ginormous trees behind my house doesn't fall on me while I cower in my bed in the dark.

I think I hear hail...tornados must be close behind, and I'm terrified of them...

*cry*

Update: I survived, obviously. No damage that I can discern to the house or any nearby trees. I didn't sleep until after 1, though, because it was so loud. And also it's hard to sleep with a terrified cat clawing you every time it starts booming.

One Year Later

"I'm not doing too good right now," Chris Robinson said via cellphone from his home east of the city's downtown. "The water's rising pretty fast. I got a hammer and an ax and a crowbar, but I'm holding off on breaking through the roof until the last minute. Tell someone to come get me please. I want to live."

That quote is what got to me the most as Katrina hit last year. The worst thing in the world that I could imagine was to be trapped in an attic with rising floodwaters, wondering when I'd have to try and break through the roof to save my own life. And it was happening, to someone in New Orleans.

My own limited experience with Katrina was this: The night after it hit I had to fly to Houston for a deposition. I couldn't find a hotel room despite hours of searching, because it didn't register to me at the time that they were filled with Katrina refugees. Finally I found a room at the Woodlands Hotel and Conference Center, which is an upsacle resort complex. My flight was so late that we arrived at about 2am, and I got to my hotel about 3. As I pulled into the parking lot bleary-eyed, I noticed that almost every car had Louisiana plates. As I rolled my bag down the hall, even at 3am, I could hear dogs and birds and children and televisions tuned in to CNN or Fox News. These people had brought everything they could cram into their cars, and now had nothing to do but wait and pray their houses and their friends and loved ones would be OK.

The next morning I had a 7am breakfast meeting in the hotel, and there in the bar were a few dozen tired men and women huddled around a TV, watching storm coverage. It was horrible to see--and yet, they were safe. Even if they'd lost everything including the city they called home, they didn't have to cut their way out of their attic. They didn't feel a family member get swept out of their grasp. Small solace I'm sure, and I saw no relief in their faces. But I wish there was a way to make sure that every single person who lived in New Orleans had gotten out alive, and hadn't been forced to bear witness to horror or to die in one of the worst ways we can possibly imagine.

Other people will have much more inspired, eloquent, or interesting stories as we commemorate the anniversary. I'll be linking to them as I see them. This post will update, so even after a day or two be sure to scroll back to see what has been added.

Katrina Blogstorm at Shakespeare's Sister: lots of good stuff there.

Voices of Katrina at Drifting Through the Grift. One of them is mine. It was eerie to read what we were all saying a year ago as we waited for the storm to hit and then watched in horror as it was worse than anyone expected.

Living in Limbo One Year Later: the Boston Globe's story about New Orleans residents who are required by law (effective tomorrow) to gut their old historic but flood-damaged homes, but are unwilling or unable to do so.

The Copeland Institute for Lower Learning has a retrospective of the stories as the true depth of the ineptitude unfolded.

Yahoo has the stories of the rituals and remembrances throughout Louisiana and the gulf coast today. It's important to remember not only the horror and the outrage, but the grief and mourning that will be going on today as well for those who were lost. I was particularly moved by this quote:

The daughter of an 83-year-old man who drowned in his home last year clutched one of the roses after the service.

"I'm hoping this is a step forward. I've been crying for a year and I'm tired of crying," said Carolyn Bozzetti, 60.

Look familiar?

Almost 1 year to the day Katrina hit, a tropical storm is headed for Louisiana. OK so it's weak now, but once it gets over the warm Gulf waters it's bound to intensify. I can only hope it either fizzles or changes course--those people still have enough to deal with and don't need a chilling reminder of nature's fury.

(P.S. Yes, yes weather nuts, I know Katrina's path was different, it came across So. Fla. The track of this storm if it progresses as currently modeled is more like Rita. The point is still that a storm is headed for Louisiana right around the anniversary. Stop worrying about details.)

(P.P.S. The above picture will update with each National Hurricane Center advisory update and so, if it appears in 2 days like this storm is headed for Mexico or Belize or Florida or whatever, please just trust me that as of 10pm on 8/25 it was headed for Louisiana.)