Richard's Bachelor Party

We went to New Orleans for Richard's bachelor party last Thursday and returned Sunday less than 12 hours before Hurricane Katrina hit. We had a really great time doing the requisite bachelor party activities including gambling at Harrah's, boobs on Bourbon Street, and plenty of Hurricanes and Hand Grenades.


Drinking hurricanes at Pat O'Brien's on Friday night. We were oblivious that Hurricane Katrina was on her way to New Orleans.

On Saturday night when it was apparent that Hurricane Katrina was heading towards New Orleans, it got pretty scary because United and Delta canceled all of their flights out of the city. We were scheduled on a 12 noon flight out on Southwest airlines on Sunday, but were worried that Southwest would cancel its flights as well based on the speed of the hurricane heading towards NOLA. We decided that we would just rent a car and road trip it home; we thought that would actually be fun. I started calling all of the rental car agencies around 10pm, and all of them were sold out.

I then started calling other airlines to see if we could book an earlier flight just in case our flight was canceled. Every airline was sold out to every city serviced by the airlines. By this point, I wanted a contingency plan, and just wanted a flight to Houston but would go to Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland... anywhere but New Orleans. Additionally, the city was about to announce a mandatory evacuation and initiated "contra flow" in which the major highways out of the city were changed to one direction. The folks at our hotel said during the last hurricane, the roads were so congested with people evacuating the city, that it took 6 hours to get from downtown to the airport.

We decided to leave for the airport at 1:30 am to provide for any delays and to go stand by on all the earlier flights to ensure we made it out. Luckily, there was no traffic at that time of the morning, and it only took us 30 minutes to get to the airport. While in the taxi, we heard someone on the dispatch looking for a cab to drive some folks to Houston for $700. In the back of my mind, this was my contingency plan if we didn't make a flight.


Sleeping in the Louis Armstrong airport in New Orleans.


Once at the airport, I withdrew $1,000 cash from the ATM machine in order to hire a taxi or bribe someone to pick us up while hitchhiking on the highway if we didn't make a flight. Luckily, we finally got on a 9:30 am flight to Houston. As soon as we took off, the pilot came on and said the storm was 37 miles south of New Orleans and said to look out the left side of the aircraft to view the storm. It was an amazing sight; I wish I would have taken a picture. I am very thankful that we got out when we did and have tremendous sympathy for those who did not and for those who lost everything, including their lives. I have been glued to CNN, Fox, and MSNBC all week long. The devestation and chaos is unbelievable.