Our Preparation Now let me start at the beginning. Saturday A.M. we knew from the Weather Channel that we were in for it. Diamondhead is at 89.6 degree longitude and that was the projected center of the eye. It did not miss by much. Masumi and I have been through many Hurricanes in the 14 years we have live in Mississippi, but we always came through pretty well intact as we are well above sea level and the right rear corner of our house is set on a 90 degree angle to the SE thus presenting more of a knife edge to the wind rather than a flat wall. That’s the way the house was located when I bought it, so someone up there was watching out for us, fools that we may be. So on Saturday, I closed up the storm shutters on all the downstairs windows and instead of just bolting them shut I decided to nail them shut, so I put 2 pieces of 1x4x18 on each shutter with 6 nails in each piece. Then I taped all the windows with Xs made of duct tape, put everything that was not anchored into the ground inside either the garage or greenhouse. Meanwhile Masumi was preparing inside by filling about 20 one gallon jugs with water, gathering up anything that did not need cooking or can opening, put a mattress in the master bathroom which is located downstairs in the center of the house. You have to get through 4 walls in any direction to get to this room plus two ceilings and one strong floor to get to it from the top. We also put in one bag of flashlights, important papers, like insurance documents, wills, check books, stock & fund account data, additional underwear, and an FM radio tuned to the Weather Channel. To continue reading AK's Katrina account, click The Storm here, or in the frame on the left. |