I survived Gustav! Well my house did, while I was in Indianapolis racing. It had to be one of the toughest races I’ve had to deal with in my entire career. My Rush Racing team and I had really bad luck with the motorcycle over the weekend. Two of the biggest races of the year in one weekend, three different mechanical failures and Hurricane Gustav threatening to take everything I’ve worked so hard for. Let me just say, I did A LOT of praying. We were expecting a Category 4 and a direct hit. We got the direct hit but Gustav had weakened to a Category 2 and spared most of us in my area. My parents evacuated with my animals to my Uncle Harold Sampey’s house. He lives about an hour north of us which was still affected by the storm but they were safe from the storm surge there. My dad was so sure that he would lose everything, so he packed up most of the house including the cordless phones to take with him. I was a nervous wreck while in Indy because I was so worried about my family and my home and also because I knew that my mom was having to deal with nine dogs, a cat, a turtle, and 10 people all in one house including my 94-and 85-year-old grandmothers. 

I must have called everyone I knew at home at least 200 hundreds times each, but due to the phone lines and cell towers being down, I wasn’t able to get through for a while. I finally got a call through to my neighbor who is a Louisiana State Trooper for the damage report. I was relieved to hear that all I suffered was some minor roof damage. Just the report I needed to hear which allowed me to be a little more focused for a sponsor appearance I had on Tuesday after the race. I spent the day with my team at Rush Racing in Merrillville Ind., where we put on an appreciation day for the workers at Rush. It was also open to the race fans in the area. We had the bike and rig on display for everyone to see and I got the grand tour of the factory to see first hand how the Rush Performance Exhausts are built. After being so stressed over the weekend I had a case of laryngitis which made it very difficult for me to speak to everyone all day. With the help of throat lozenges and some hot tea, I did manage to hold on to my voice throughout the day.

I got to my hotel in Chicago and started to try and reroute myself home. I had four canceled flights and was just about to rent a car and drive when I finally got a flight into Lafayette, La.. Due to the New Orleans airport closure and since I didn’t have transportation from Lafayette, my friends Ashley and Jeremy drove to get me. We stopped by Lowes and a grocery store before making the journey back to the darkness. I bought some extra extension cords, batteries, gas cans and fuel, and a few things like bread, sandwich meat and milk. It was a good thing that I did because we were out of power for eight days and all of the stores at home were closed for a while and even when they did reopen ... there was no fresh food or milk or anything like that. The power outage caused everything to go bad so the National Guard has been handing out MREs and water all week.

 Speaking of the National Guard,... My boyfriend Seth was activated for the storm. He is still on active duty and probably will be until around Sept. 15. He is a medic in the 756th ASMC Louisiana National Guard. Because my area was hit so hard, he is fortunately stationed only about 15 minutes from my house. He and a few of his soldier friends have visited me pretty often. I ran my two generators that my friends at Lincoln Electric gave me a few years ago and since I have satellite we were able to watch the UFC fights on Saturday night. It was really cool to have the soldiers over for some R and R to show them my appreciation for their hard work. Like I always say,... God Bless our soldiers! Thanks to my friends Monica and Kerry Dufrene I managed to get a small AC window unit to run on the generator which made the heat much less intense. It was actually pretty comfortable at night time. I learned that I love electricity and after a week of not having any I surely do appreciate it and especially central air!! There are still some areas without power so I am praying for them and hoping that they get it back soon. It’s just miserably hot and humid in Louisiana.

I’d have to say that the worst part of it all, other than the heat, was to sit in line for hours to get more fuel for the generator. I did NOT waste any time when my power came back on to get online and order myself a natural gas-powered standby generator. I will NOT go through that mess again. Seth and I have invested a good bit of time and money into our aquariums and I had to baby sit those things all day long with ice packs to keep the heat down. We were at risk of losing our corals as well as some very expensive fish. The price we pay to have nice things! I was very appreciative though that the aquariums were the most I had to worry about. I just can’t tell you how blessed we were considering what the weather officials thought we were going to get.

The power company said that we would be out of power for four to eight weeks. Well, if it were up to my power company alone, we probably would have been. But thanks to many other power companies from all over the country, I was back online in one week. I have to especially praise the guys from Mid West Powerline Inc. who came from Michigan to help us. They are the guys who got power back to my house.

I met the owner of the company. He was out there in the heat busting his tail for us. I asked him if everyone was treating them well and he said the locals were really nice to them but the power company had not been very nice to them. I was appalled! These guys came here to help! I was so mad to hear that ANYONE would mistreat them in ANY way with what they were doing for us. I am going to write a letter about it to whatever political people I have to. There was also a grocery store in Houma that had a bunch of meat that they were going to throw out because they had no way to keep it cool. Seth’s unit asked if they could have it to BBQ for the soldiers instead of them eating MREs that day. They wouldn’t give it to them, they made the soldiers buy it. I was so mad when he told me that. “ You mean to tell me that these soldiers are here to protect your store from looters and you were going to throw the meat in the trash anyway but you chose to SELL it to them?!!” I promise I will never spend another dollar in that store as long as I live. Neither will any of my family and friends if I can help it!!

Other than that, it was truly amazing how my south Louisiana people pulled together to help one another. My Uncle Chris was running around from house to house between work to check on everybody. My 85-year-old Granny lives alone and didn’t have a generator so Uncle Chris would take his to her house for a few hours each day to keep her refrigerator cool. When I got home, I had the soldiers bring one of my generators to her house for her.

I have been thinking about the storms and how much I hate the stress of them. I am considering moving away from the coast. But I do have to say that the people were I live are so wonderful that I would miss them terribly. South Louisiana cajuns are just GOOD people! They will give you the shirt off of their backs. I live in a very small town and everybody knows everybody. If I am out of town, and I need something, anything, all I have to do is make a call. My friends helped Seth to board up my house for me. After the storm, my neighbor went over to check on my house because he saw someone there and he knew it wasn’t me. What he found was my friends who were there to start my generators and hook them up for me because they knew I was still in Indy. There has been occasions like, Mr. Greg, my banker, has driven to my insurance agency to pay my bill for me when I was racing. My postal workers will call me when I receive a package and they know I am out of town. My pharmacist at CVS in Raceland and my doctors, Mike and Greg, take care of me over the phone no matter what state I am in. I hate the storms and I hate the heat and humidity, but I do love my peeps!! So I guess I will ride out the storms a little longer; after all, it’s hard to keep a Cajun down no matter what you take from us or put us through. With just a little Cajun will power, lending a helping hand to each other, and a whole lot of faith in God, me and my people will be just fine, right where we are!

After Gustav came through, dem waters dey got real high in some areas. Especially by Boudreux’s house. Clotele and dem had to climb to the roof top to keep from drowning. As dey sat dere waiting for the Guardsmen to come, Thibodaux notice dis LSU hat on top the water going back and forth in Boudreaux’s yard. After he watch it pass back and forth bout six times he finally say to Clotele,...” May look at dat LSU hat how is keeps going back in fort in Boudreaux’s yard like dat. I wonder what's making it do dat” Clotele says, “ Dat’s Boudreaux under dat hat,... I told him come hell or high water he was going to cut dat grass today!!”

God Bless you guys and thanks for all of the prayers!!!!