As Hurricane Katrina leaves the New Orleans area, moving further away from the ocean waters, Memphis is sure to get its share of Katrina’s wrath.
“It [Katrina] went from a Category 5 before it hit, to a Category 4 when it hit New Orleans,” WREG-TV meteorologist Jim Jaggers said Monday afternoon. “Now it’s down to a Category 2.”
Shelby County should expect many inches of rain as the storm moves northward in the form of a tropical storm. There is also potential for winds with gusts of 20-30 mph. Even with as dry as it has been, strong winds could bring down trees and power lines, Jaggers said.
On Monday some schools in Mississippi closed and schools in the eastern part of West Tennessee considered closing.
Former U of M student Jo Ann Craig of Dubach, La., which is on the north side of the state said members of her family evacuated the coastal areas. Her mother-in-law left her home in Ocean Springs, Miss., and is staying with Craig.
“Getting out of town, traffic was slow,” she said. “She was creeping along for a while.”
Craig’s parents drove to Alabama to flee the storm.
While some people decided to leave their homes, others decided to ride Katrina out.
“I’m sitting here watching the hurricane out the back window,” Carol Bell, the mother of a University of Memphis student, said by phone from Fairhope, Ala. It’s really windy, tree limbs are down and there are power outages throughout the area, she said.
Bell is a nurse at Thomas Hospital in Fairhope, a town about 20 miles from Mobile. Patients were evacuated to the 1st floor Sunday in case windows were blown out of the four-story hospital. She worked Sunday and today.
“If I wasn’t a nurse, I probably would have evacuated to Memphis,” she said.
She said bands of high winds would last for a little while and then things would look like a normal storm.
When it’s not raining, she runs outside to take pictures.
The Holiday Inn at the University of Memphis noticed an increase in business due to the evacuations.
According to the reservations desk, there were 30 rooms available Sunday, but by the end of the night, there were no rooms left.
Yesterday 61 rooms were projected booked, but people leaving areas affected by the hurricane reserved the remaining rooms.
“The majority of the people needed rooms Sunday,” Grant said.
The Fogelman Executive Center, a meeting facility on campus, opened 51 rooms on the top floor Monday.
By midday Monday, 19 guests were already there and 18 more were scheduled to arrive.
“People are bringing pets, lots of luggage and whatever they have from home (to the Holiday Inn),” she said.
