Update

We are currently on day 5 without power, but last night the capitol building and the streetlights downtown came on. We were told that the latest our area will get power will be september 11th. then we were told that if it doesn't happen by then, the latest will be the 14th. That didn't make too much sense to me, but we're hopeful. Last night we went to one of our professors houses for dinner and today we are here getting work done. A couple of friends received word from FEMA today that they would be given a voucher to stay in a hotel for up to 30 days until their places become liveable again. That would be great except for the fact that all the hotels that are on FEMA's list (and there are a substantial number of them) are all totally booked up, indefinately. We were told to fill out the FEMA forms on line if we were without power for more than five days, so this morning I filled mine out. Not sure what is going to come of it, but we'll see.

In other news, LSU opened up with full power yesterday and classes are to resume Monday morning. I am both looking forward to this and dreading it as well. We have no food in our house, still no power, and frankly, the place is pretty disorganized. We haven't been able to do laundry and we had as many as 8 people staying with us and 5 cats. We've picked up as much as we can and Sarah was out sweeping the porches and doing other clean up the other day as well. I'm excited to get back to work, but with no power and my life kind of a mess, I'd also like some time to get it back in order before.

The last thing I will say before I go try to find some food (free food at the LSU dining hall!), is that everyone seems to be doing alright. there is a general air of exhaustion, but spirits still seem to be up. We're all slightly worried about Ike, especially as he seems to be following the same path as Andrew, but we're trying to avoid thinking about that until thinking about that becomes necessary. Thanks to everyone for their thoughts over the last week. My wonderful landlord also seems to be managing to make some headway on the van situation, so with fingers crossed, things are looking up!