What an eventful weekend my husband had. He is a truck driver and had a load to deliver in the panhandle of Florida last Friday. Well, anyone watching TV knew that hurricane Gustav was headed into the Gulf Coast over the weekend. His next load after Florida was Houston, TX for a delivery on Tuesday AM! Well, if you look at the map of the US and figure it out..he would have gone right through the thick of it while going east to west. I told him to be sure to tune his XM radio in to the weather channels down there so he didn't head into the eye of the hurricane. He did major zig zags up into Mississippi and then down to the coast west of New Orleans. When he called Monday to say that he was on Interstate 10 west of New Orleans...I about wet myself. I said, "Oh honey, I think you better head for higher ground..from what I'm hearing you are right where Gustav is headed". He called later to say that he was heading north on I49 up into Louisiana. He got not quite halfway up the state and had to stop as he was going to run out of fuel and there were no truck stops open! He hadn't eaten for two days and only had enough water left to take his AM meds on Tuesday!
I was in panic mode which is nothing new for me. I tried to google on the internet to find a station open for him to get fuel. I called more than 5 stations and no one was answering. So he finally pulled over and just waited for Tuesday morning and hope that something would open close to him. Well, the truck stop where he was at, opened the pumps to credit card purchases only..which meant he had to use OUR card..but at least he could get some fuel so he could get the heck out of there.
He went a bit further north and fueled up more (again on our credit card) and then headed for Houston TX. I am glad to report that he called last night and said that he made it to Houston and has one more drop in TX then he goes to the 'yard' in Grand Prairie and get the truck serviced and hopefully they will send him home to Nevada, IA.
Now we just need to hope and pray that we don't have to fight to get reimbursed for the $700 worth of fuel that we just paid for!! The first station had run out of receipt paper..it said to see attendant...which there wasn't one. So all we have is our credit card statement. Russ assures me that they will reimburse us. So I will remain optimistic.
So the Iowa boy got a hurricane education. Next time they predict one close to you...get food and water and park the truck out of harms way and RIDE THE STORM OUT!
2 comments:
Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. Thank God he is OK. A friend of mine works as a dispatcher here in IA, for a trucking firm and they have dispatchers on duty 24/7. Makes no sense to me that Russ' place doesn't have this. I sure hope that he gets to come home for some much needed rest, and the reimbursement is soon in coming.
I'm with Mary. . . thanks go to God for keeping Russ safe. . . but the learning curve of the company that he works for sure needs to improve. Maybe someone needs to tell them that "they" really didn't need to evacuate and next time take the radio with them, ha. Good news though Judith. . . that Russ is safe and closer to heading home.
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