Outdoor Life friend and Venice, Louisiana charterboat skipper Devlin Roussell has been through hell before. Venice was Ground Zero for Hurricane Katrina which completely destroyed one of North America’s finest fishing destinations. With Hurricane Gustav’s sights firmly set on Venice again, we’ve asked Roussell to provide Outdoorlife.com readers with updates on storm preparation. Stay tuned to OL.com for the latest on Gustav and how it will affect hunters and fishermen:
After getting to New Orleans at about midnight last night, I was awakened at 5:30 am by my neighbor, who was outside, talking on his cell phone. He sounded upset, and he is pretty calm and collected. He was talking about leaving the city. I got up and checked the track, it still had south La as the projected landfall. I decided to go check on the boats and I made a quick trip to Belle Chase. The roads were pretty busy with people trying to get out before the 12:00 pm mandatory evacuation. No one looked even remotely amused with the situation.
With a projected landfall west of us as a cat 3 or 4, this storm could do some serious damage to Plaquemines Parish. Hopefully, New Orleans will be somewhat safe. Let’s just hope that gustav doesn’t take an easterly jog. We will probably pull out tommorow morning. My wife has to be back at work on Thursday, so we will try not to go too far. She is on the relief team at her hospital and while she doesn’t have to be here for the storm, she does have to relieve the team that stays. I am sure that they will be looking for some relief after 5 days at work.