Are You From Bogalusa? Did You Leave After Hurricane Katrina?

If so, and you left, it's time to come home. :-)

I get at least a couple of messages a week from people who have found my blog or site and want to know if it's okay to come home yet, if things are still as bad as they were when they left, ect....

If you are one of those who left here before or after Hurricane Katrina, like I said above, it's time to come home to Bogalusa, Louisiana. It's safe to come home. It's been months since Katrina, and since then, lots of people have been hard at work.

I’ve posted updates here on my blog, but I think many people aren’t used to reading blogs and get here from a search that takes them to an older post and that’s the only one they read, so they miss the updates. I made sure to put both Bogalusa and Katrina in the title of this post, so search engines would pick up on it and maybe direct people here instead of to an older post.

I want people from here who left to be assured that it is okay to come back now. Has been okay to come back for a while. The roads are clear…mostly. They are still trimming trees and taking damaged ones down, but it’s no big deal and they are only working in a section or two at a time. So you might find one or two roads blocked for part of the day, but you just go a street over and go on your way. The newspaper comes three days a week -- I don’t know if or when it will go back to six. The mail runs six days a week…and yes it seems to take two weeks or longer for mail to get through sometimes, just a few things, and some of my magazines don’t show up every month like they should, but most mail, at least 97%, is coming right on time. It seems all bills are, so that’s not a problem. (You knew those bills were going to get through.) (Smile)

The grocery stores, dollar stores, and even Wal-Mart, are all back open and now seem well stocked. The same for gas stations and drug stores, and all of the odds and ends. Some do close a little earlier or open a little later than they used to, but not by much. Some few things aren’t open and probably won’t be. But like I said, it’s few things. Even the fast food places are open. They close a little earlier too, and sometimes they don’t have enough workers to run both the drive through and lobby, so they close one or the other, but even that problem is getting less often. You can go to your doctor, your vet, and the hospital. The phone, lights, cable, and even the cell phones work fine. (Okay, the cell phones still break up or drop calls more than normal, but not much more.)

So, again, it really is fine to come home to Bogalusa. And hurry! We are even going to have our normal Mardi Gras parade -- it’s this Saturday, the 25th in the evening. You don’t want to miss that, do you? (Smile.) We are also having the 5K run a few hours before the parade. My husband’s gonna be runnin' in it. So wish him luck.