According to the parish Web site, even Ike’s passing the Louisiana coast is enough to put Lafourche in danger of a storm surge, and the parish is under a state of emergency:

* MANDATORY EVACUATION: all areas south of the Leon Theriot Floodgates in Golden Meadow and the community of Pointe-Aux-Chenes.

* This is due to lingering flood waters expected due to Hurricane Ike.

* A State of Emergency has been declared for Lafourche Parish.

Current call is still for landfall on the central Texas coast. According to Jeff Masters at Weather Underground:

The appearance of Ike on infrared satellite loops is similar to Hurricane Wilma during its rapid intensification phase, when Wilma became the strongest hurricane on record. Like Wilma, Ike has a very tiny “pinhole” eye, but the storm is huge in size. Ike has a long way to go to match Wilma, but I expect Ike will be at least a Category 3 hurricane by morning, and probably a Category 4.

Ike is almost as large as Katrina was, and this large wind field is already beginning to pile up a formidable storm surge. Tides are running 2-4 feet above normal along the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the west coast of Florida. Tides have risen one foot above normal in Galveston already, too. The water level will continue to rise as Ike approaches Texas, and NOAA’s experimental storm surge forecast is calling for a 10% chance that the storm tide from Ike will reach 10-12 feet at Galveston, and 18-21 feet on the south and east sides of Houston.

Best wishes to the Houston/Galveston area if large-scale evacuations become necessary.

At 10 p.m. tonight, inside two of New Orleans’ best (if most disparate) music venues, two each of the best (if most disparate) up-and-coming local and national bands will do a familiar battle for scant attendance. It’s an odd phenomenon: This city — in rock terms, at least — is sadly prone to long stretches of inactivity and single nights of multiple goings-on. Tonight is a Wednesday. There is no good reason why the two best rock concerts of the week are happening at the same time, on the same night. But indeed they are. At Republic New Orleans, San Diegan (San Diegoan?) rockers Delta Spirit team with the area jazz/pop ensemble Antenna Inn. Six blocks away, Austin’s Low Lows (above, in a rather amazing video) tackles the Circle Bar’s cramped quarters with experimental locals Magna Porta. (And thank your lucky stars those bookings weren’t reversed, or you might’ve had one of AI’s nine members sipping from your straw.) Call it the Crescent City clubgoer’s dilemma. The simple math, however fuzzy, breaks down like this: Is a Northern Soul-adopting, mass-harmonizing classic rock redux + a stage-crashing, meter-defying Steely Dan fete > peculiarly voiced, pretty-as-hell indie rock + space-tripping, forever-soloing, Mars Volta-aping prog? My abacus, please.

Photo by Jonathan Bachman

Most of the world has not seen Sedrick Ellis’ tattoos. Partly because of his tendancy to wear sleeves during games and partly because he doesn’t want you to.

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From the Corpus Christi Caller:

While no mandatory evacuation has been issued in Corpus Christi because of Hurricane Ike, contra-flow evacuation lanes will be opened on Interstate 37 tomorrow starting at 7 a.m. Thursday, city officials said.

Texas Department of Transportation spokesman Cliff Bost said all lanes on Interstate 37 will be opened to go out of town.

Still no word on Houston/Galveston contraflow, but Galveston mayor Lyda Ann Thomas has called for a voluntary evacuation from the “low-lying” parts of Galveston Island.

“Unlike politicians, however, food unites with complete sincerity. It harbors no ulterior motives; its power is irreversible. Red beans and rice is my best example.”
- Sara Roahen, from “Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table”

A native of Wisconsin, Sara Roahen had a unique vantage from which to learn about the intertwining of food, family, friendship, business, ethnic identity, history and personal politics in New Orleans as restaurant critic for Gambit Weekly from 2000 to 2005.
Her explorations around the region, her research into the creation and development of iconic recipes and the personalities of her food-obsessed friends gave her plenty of material outside of the standard weekly restaurant critique, however, and this she poured into her memoir, “Gumbo Tales,” published around Mardi Gras time this year.

Each chapter corresponds with a specific New Orleans food item, like red beans, or a drink, like the Sazerac, but this book is no mere catalog of our favorite things.  Rather, the food and drink set the scene for lively storytelling that gives readers a richer sense of how our everyday culinary traditions came about, their diversity in practice today and how the discussions born from both their commonalities and differences help bind our community together. It may be hard to get two New Orleans cooks to agree on a gumbo preparation, after all, but most of them will agree the spectrum of recipes help build a defining sense of home.

The book’s perspective is intensely personal, and therefore also more memorable and meaningful than the many cookbook histories of New Orleans food.  There are no recipes included, but reading it will make you want to eat, and even cook, something local right away.

Ms. Roahen will give a reading from her book and even provide samples of her own red beans and rice this Sunday, Sept. 14, at the Southern Food & Beverage Museum.
The event begins at 2 p.m. Admission is $10 and includes the exhibits of both the Southern Food & Beverage Museum and the Museum of the American Cocktail.

- Ian McNulty

Whoo-ee, but that plan to get emergency food vouchers into the hands of Louisiana citizens is — as my favorite nola.com blogger would put it — a hot mess:

Topping the list of problems was miscommunication between state officials and New Orleans police on whether applications would be taken at St. Maria Goretti Church, 7300 Crowder Blvd., the only city location open on Tuesday.

Despite conflicting reports, that location is closed, according to state Department of Social Services spokeswoman Cheryl Michelet. There is only one site open in New Orleans today, she said, at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, which began taking applications at 8 a.m.

Lines at that location began forming around 1 a.m., and for a brief time, police officers were redirecting people away from there as well, telling them to report to the New Orleans public library branch at Tulane and Loyola avenues.

New Orleans Police Department spokesman Bob Young said that’s because the library was announced as a new location at 7 p.m. roll call on Tuesday. Word of the convention center site didn’t reach Superintendent Warren Riley until 12:30 a.m., Young said, and despite radio broadcasts, many overnight officers did not get the word before the 7 a.m. shift change.

“Police were just trying to do those people a favor,” Young said.

Seems like we fixed the evacuation problems (mostly), but not the contraflow or the post-evac situation. But I think I have a solution.

Let’s put the government functionaries charged with implementing the 2009 digital-TV switchover in charge of all emergency relief.

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