From Yusuke

Yesterday, we went back to our appartment. First of all, I need to tell you that the traffic to Jefferson was HORRIBLE. Severe congestion, irritated people, very hot weather...oh, god, I don't think I will hit the road again.

After 8 hours of horrific driving from Lake Charles, I finally reached our apartment. Thanks goodness, our apartment room is intact, though some other part of our apartment property has severe damage. We had no flooding water yesterday, but according to one of my neighbor, who stayed there until Katrina had gone and evacuated ritht afterthat, we have had flooding water of 1-2 feet depth. Well, that is not so bad. We are living in a room on 2nd floor. We saw damages due to the strong wind, like roof damages, fallen tree damaging apartment building and cars, and so on. But nothing on my room! Our only problem is "bad smell" filling out that area. Dumpsters on the streets have a lot of trash which is already bad. Perhaps sewer system is not functional. And in our room, our fridge has a lot of foods which are totally rotten. From all of them, quite bad smell is spreading out. And one more problem is safety. I saw a lot of soldiers with huge machine-guns. This is a good (?) indication of 'safety is the matter'. I am afraid my apartment area is not good for living, so far.
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If you plan to go back, please notice that the officials really don't want you to do so.
Please refer this site for specific information about your area.

http://www.ohsep.louisiana.gov/evacinfo/rdclosureindex.htm

This site provide you specific information about road conditions, specific plan for residents to be allowed in that area. Click on links appeared on that site.

Sergiy told me there is some idea to have a temporary lab of ours at somewhere. I have never been notified anything about this issue, yet. Is there really such a kind of plan? Is it possible we have temporal room at somewhere in Texas? Is that plan on going? I am asking this, because I need to determine where to stay next week (I have hotel accomodation until coming Tuesday, but thereafter, I have no plan). Please, somebody, give me information about this issue.


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Note from Jane: I have no additional info on temporary lab space, liquid nitrogen tanks, or mice rescue. I will post any additional info I get. Also check tulane.edu for the latest updates, links are at the top of the right column of this blog.