Seems either our beams, St. Jude or Lasher, or all of the above, helped spare NOLA the worst. I was on tenterhooks last night as familiar places were mentioned in the reports...
"On Jackson Square, two massive oak trees outside the 278-year-old St. Louis Cathedral came out by the roots, ripping out a 30-foot section of ornamental iron fence and straddling a marble statue of Jesus Christ, snapping off only the thumb and forefinger of his outstretched hand.
Hotel guests also were treated to some unplanned ventilation, as scores of windows were blown out.
At the hotel Le Richelieu, the winds blew open sets of balcony French doors shortly after dawn. Seventy-three-year-old Josephine Elow of New Orleans pressed her weight against the broken doors as a hotel employee tried to secure them.
"It's not life-threatening," Elow said as rain water dripped from her face. "God's got our back."
Elow's daughter, Darcel Elow, was awakened before dawn by a high-pitched howling that sounded like a trumpeting elephant.
"I thought it was the horn to tell everybody to leave out the hotel," she said as she walked the hall in her nightgown."
