Update

Progress here is remarkable. Most in Lake Charles now have power and cable is coming up fast. We've had home garbage pickup for a while now which we now appreciate more than ever. I'll never forget the smell of the Barbe parking lot when we brought garbage to the temporary dropoff stations. More and more businesses are opening and they are staying open longer.

Traffic is bad, probably the worse I've ever seen. Long lines are now a fact of life. My wife, who is 8 months pregnant waited in line for an hour to have our Sprint cell phone repaired, only to be turned away at the door because they close "sharply" at 3:30. While on this topic, someone pointed out an error on an earlier post. While almost everyone lost cell phone service the night of the storm, those with Cingular did not. The guys who had Cingular phones were very popular in Oberlin.

Those of us who were here still marvel at how far we've come. Our city, parish, state, and federal officials did a remarkable job and set the standard by which others should be judged. We were lucky to have all those who came here to help; the National Guard, the power companies, fireman and police, relief organizations, and everyday volunteers.

A friend showed us how to put a counter on here that shows us how many "hits" this site has had and where visitors are from. In the last week people have viewed this site from nearly every state and from Japan, Canada and Puerto Rico. Many who have emailed have asked for more pictures. Now that cable is back we'll post more in the next few days.

If the weather permits, sometime this weekend we'll try to get out into the Gulf of Mexico for pictures of the coast and of some of the offshore platforms. I heard that over 100 platforms were damaged or destroyed and that domestic production is the lowest since World War II.