As you can imagine, we approached Slidell with much trepidation. As we got farther east on I-12, things didn't seem too bad. We saw the occasional downed tree, but nothing that we could label hurricane damage with certainty. Then we crossed into St. Tammany parish. Here's one example of what we saw along the freeway (click pictures to see larger versions):
Once we turned into Slidell, we saw the kind of damage you're seeing on the news -- lots of trees down (it's a wooded area), lots of power lines down, roofs damaged, etc. -- but we also lots of recovery and repair work going on. Slidell is coming back to life.
This was our first look at the boatyard (M.G. Mayer's Slidell Maritime boatyard, at the junction of Highway 11 and Highway 433) where the Zombie Princess lives:
The heap of debris in the right foreground is the contents -- including paneling and insulation -- of the little office building. It was totally submerged. The shredded jib sail you can see above the building belongs to the Radio Flyer, the otherwise undamaged sailboat that used to be in the slip next to the slip our boat used to be in. (Both boats are out in the middle of the bayou now.) The big hull near the building is about 20 feet closer to the building than she used to be, but still upright. She's a formerly sunken boat that a Baton Rouge couple has been out there every weekend refurbishing. I think she came through pretty well, although they will have to redo some of their bottom work. Behind her, you can see the mast of the Zombie Princess.
And here is the ZP (left of center with blue sailcovers), with very sad boat friends all around her. The trailer in the foreground is across the slip where the ZP used to be. ZP was still tied to the dock, but the dock, unfortunately, was at the bottom of the bayou.
Most of the boats that were out of the water to start with look like this:
And while several in-the-water boats came through fine, there were casualties:
As for our incredibly lucky little boat, she has only cosmetic damage. There are some scratches on the starboard side where she rubbed up against the powerboat beside her, our radar reflector (a multipanel shiny thing that makes skinny little sailboats register bigger on ship's radar) is gone, and we lost a dorade vent. It's possible there's damage underneath that we can't see, such as gouges in the bottom or damage to the rudder, but that kind of thing can be repaired.
Being prepared for the worst, we are still in shock at finding the best possible outcome. When we saw her floating there, whole and calm, Frank and I just stared at each other, speechless and with no idea what to do next. A very happy confusion!
After charging the batteries and adding some dock lines and bumpers, we got back in the car and headed out Highway 433 to Judy's house at Coin du Lestin. The woods along the highway look like they've been bombed. They are about half the height they used to be, and very much thinned out. Power lines -- and utility crews -- were all over the road.
The picture below of Judy's house shows the mud that's everywhere (check out the depth of the footprints at left), the red mark painted by search-and-rescue crews who checked the house, the smashed stairs, and -- if you can zoom in a bit and look closely at the leftmost column -- the high-water mark. The boat that's planted in the yard and a big tree that fell down across half their driveway are not shown.
This picture shows what we found when we opened the significantly warped front door. Note that these steps are actually a lovely blonde oak.
Thankfully, the damage stops about three feet shy of their living area, and it doesn't smell too bad in the house. Her neighbors across the way are back in residence, living without air conditioning, boiling water for safety, and bathing in trickles instead of showers.
We're back in Houston now, trying to figure out what comes next. More on that later.
Our thoughts and sympathies continue to be with the people who were hit so much harder than we were.
KQR
2 comments:
I am happy to see that ZP is ok — I stumbed onto your blog to read about liveaboards [pre-Katrina].
Googlemaps has Sat photos of boats in N.O. that aren't as lucky…
It's just so amazing that your boat survived all that! That's wonderful. I expect it will serve you well when you eventually get to cruise!
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