The home we stayed in had a pool table. We stayed up all night listening to the only two radio stations around that didn't go off the air. One was the campus station, which had the benefit of being hardwired underground and immune to most potential wind damage. The other station was a local country station that, around midnight stopped playing music and started taking damage calls.

We were waiting up to see if campus would be closed the following day, which wasn't announced until 3 or 4 a.m. if memory serves. With only two local broadcasters still on the air this phone became legendary instantly:

"Uh. Yeah. I live over in Gentilly and I was at a neighbors who were throwing a hurricane party and ... Uh ... a tornado touchdown and turned their trailer over. And I climbed out and ... Uh ... ran down the hill to the Gentilly Quick (a gas station) and stuff was flying around and hitting me on ... Uh ... Uh ... Not my shins, but the BACK of my shins ... And could you play some Hank Williams Jr.?"

Priorities man! Hurricane over Hank, get it? Also, that's called your calf muscle.

Gentilly was where we lived. And, despite the guy being out of his mind, we were sure we'd be homeless. Six weeks into my college life I was filled with the dread that it was all coming to an end.

The guy cleaning up the hurricane damage in this photograph -- as far as I know he is not the same guy that made that ridiculous phone call to the radio station -- was a neighbor in Gentilly. He's a veterinarian and is working in Kentucky now.

There was a great deal of damage in our neighborhood. Our next-door neighbors had two pine trees on their home. We had a pine tree fall beside the front, back and one side, but emerged unscathed.

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