Hope you are doing okay, barobehere. I know the MS coast got hit pretty good with this one. I live in the Baton Rouge area, which got a lot of wind and rain, but nothing nearly as bad as we saw with Hurricane Gustav.
The storm's slow movement was the icing for most people, as the steady downpour of rain is becoming too much for the waterways to handle. I was surprised by the complete lack of bad weather as late as 8:00 on Tuesday night. It was windy and very overcast, but virtually no rain at that point. Of course, that all changed later that night. In fact, it is still raining now as I write this.
And, yeah, Riddler, the waiting can be the worst part of the whole deal. You never know exactly what the storms will do or how bad it is gonna be until it's here. By then, you are stuck with it. When I first heard about this hurricane, it was supposed to head up the east coast. We were nowhere in the vicinity of its path. Obviously, that changed along the way. In the few days leading up to landfall, it was predicted to hit the mid panhandle of Florida, but then the target kept moving west. Even when it "hit," it sill lingered along the Louisiana coast for a few hours heading further west, just for fun. We were lucky, as our power was only out for about 15 minutes during the whole thing. Some people around here may be out for another 3-5 days, due to the flooding, downed trees, and repair work that is needed.
And, just for good measure, I put on 3 pounds on Wednesday, with nothing to do but sit around the house, watching the rain and wind, and eating....