The cat carrier was by the door. The go-bag was in the truck. The cooler had ice and four days of medication, which was two more than she'd probably need, but she'd learned about probably.
She filled the cat's water dish, which was stupid because she was about to put the cat in the carrier, but the cat was watching her from under the kitchen table and she figured it would want water before the drive.
Her phone buzzed. Parish alert, same system that had pinged her twenty minutes ago. Voluntary evacuation for areas south of Florida Boulevard, with a projected 78 percent probability of major flooding in the Bayou Fountain watershed by 6 PM. She was north of Florida. She had time. She already knew she had time.
She opened 511 and checked the roads. I-10 west was yellow, moving. I-12 east was green. Airline was green. The predictive overlay showed I-12 going yellow by midafternoon, but the predictive overlay had been wrong before. She closed the app and opened it again, like checking a lock she'd already checked.
The cat wouldn't come out from under the table.
She got on her knees and reached. The cat backed against the wall. She could hear rain starting, light, the kind that didn't mean anything yet.
"Come on," she said. "We've done this."
The storage unit was off Burbank, past the Bayou Fountain bridge, in a facility called StoreRight that had been called something else when she'd rented it and something else before that. The buildings sat on a pad maybe two feet above the road. She'd noticed that the first time, walking in, how you stepped up slightly from the lot to the concrete apron. The buildings had come through the last two events fine. The road hadn't.
Her mother's ashes were on the second shelf of Unit 114, between a box of kitchen things she hadn't unpacked since the move and a plastic tub of photo albums she kept meaning to digitize. The ashes were in the container the funeral home had provided. Beige plastic, snap-top, about the size of a shoebox but heavier. A label on the side with her mother's name and a number.
She'd put them there because she was between apartments when her mother died and the new place was small and she didn't know where to put them. That was two and a half years ago. She'd been meaning to figure it out. She'd looked at urns online a few times, the way you look at something you're going to do eventually.
By noon the rain was steady. Not heavy. Steady.
She had the cat in the carrier. She had the truck loaded. She could leave now, take I-12 east to Hammond, stay with Denise, come back when the water dropped. She'd done exactly that in March. The time before that she'd gone to her cousin's in Alexandria. The system worked. She was good at the system.
She pulled up the StoreRight app. Facility status: OPEN. Hours: 6 AM - 9 PM. A banner across the top, same one from last time: Tenants are responsible for securing personal property. StoreRight LLC is not liable for damage to stored items including but not limited to damage caused by weather, flooding, or facility conditions. By accessing your unit you acknowledge and accept all associated risk.
She'd gotten an email from them yesterday. Autopay. Her card was expiring and she needed to update it through the portal or her October payment would fail and the unit would be assessed a late fee and after sixty days the contents would be subject to lien and auction per Louisiana statute.
She'd updated the card.
The drive to StoreRight was eleven minutes in normal conditions. South on Burbank, across the bayou, left into the lot. She could go get the ashes, come back, and be on I-12 by two. That was the math.
She checked 511 again. Burbank south of the bayou was unlisted, which meant either it was fine or nobody had reported it yet. The bridge wasn't flagged. The main corridors were still moving.
She texted Denise. heading your way this afternoon probably
ok. same room. sheets are clean
how bad is it
not bad yet. just being careful
She didn't text about the ashes. She didn't know how to put it. That she needed to drive eleven minutes in the wrong direction to pick up a plastic box that weighed maybe six pounds from a shelf in a storage unit that might or might not flood. That she couldn't leave without doing it, and couldn't explain why.
Her mother had been dead for two and a half years. The ashes weren't going anywhere. Except they might be. That was the thing.
She drove south on Burbank with the cat in the carrier on the passenger seat. The rain was heavier now but the road was fine. She passed the strip mall with the nail salon and the vape shop. She passed the church that had been a bank. Across from it, a lot where a house used to be, the slab still visible under the grass. The parish had bought it after the second flood. There were a lot of those lots now.
The bayou was up but not over. She could see it from the bridge, brown water moving faster than usual, carrying sticks and a plastic bag and something that might have been a shoe.
The bridge was fine. She crossed it.
On the other side, the road dipped. She knew it dipped. She'd driven it dozens of times. But the dip had water in it now, four or five inches, running across from the drainage lateral. She slowed. A truck coming the other way pushed through and the wake hit her windshield. She drove through. It was fine.
The StoreRight lot was half empty. A couple cars. A woman loading boxes into an SUV. The facility was open. She parked and got out and the rain was warm and she was wet before she reached the keypad.
She punched in her code. The gate didn't open.
She punched it again. Nothing. A small screen on the keypad said: System update in progress. Use app for temporary access code.
She stood in the rain and opened the app. It wanted her to log in. She logged in. It wanted to verify her identity. It sent a code to her email. She opened her email in the rain. She entered the code. The app loaded her account. There was no temporary access code. There was her unit number, her payment status, the liability banner, and a button that said REQUEST ACCESS.
She pressed it.
Your request has been received. Temporary codes are typically issued within 2-4 hours during normal business operations.
She stood there. Rain ran down her neck. The woman with the SUV pulled out of the lot. She watched her go.
She called the number on the gate. It rang six times and went to a recording about higher than normal call volume.
She sat in the truck with the engine running and the wipers going. The cat was quiet. She checked 511. Burbank south of the bayou was yellow now. Not closed. Yellow. She couldn't see the dip from the lot but she could see where the road curved toward it, and the water was higher on the shoulders than it had been fifteen minutes ago.
She could wait for the code. Two to four hours. She could sit in this lot and wait.
I-12 was still green. I-10 west was red. Airline was yellow.
She texted Denise. might be a little later
everything ok?
She looked at the phone. She typed yes and sent it.
She'd held the box when the funeral director handed it to her and it had weight. Not a lot. But enough that she'd adjusted her grip, shifted her hands, and something in that adjustment she couldn't take back. What was left of her mother was hers now. She hadn't done much with it. She'd put it on a shelf between kitchen things and photo albums and paid eighty-nine dollars a month to not deal with it. And now the water was coming up and the gate wouldn't open and the app was processing her request.
She knew the ashes weren't her mother. She knew that. Ground calcium and phosphate. What was left after the rest burned away. She knew it and it didn't matter.
At 1:40 she drove back to the gate and tried the keypad. Nothing. She checked the app. Your request is being processed.
The rain was heavy now. Real rain.
She drove to the dip. The water was over the road surface, maybe eight inches, moving. An orange and white barricade had appeared across the right lane. The left lane was technically open. A parish truck sat on the shoulder with its lights on.
She could drive through it. She'd driven through worse. But the cat was in the truck and her go-bag was in the truck and her medications were in the cooler and if she got stuck in eight inches of moving water she'd lose the truck and the bag and the system she'd spent three evacuations building.
She sat at the edge of the water and watched it.
Her phone buzzed. StoreRight app: Temporary access code: 7734. Valid for 24 hours. Please note: StoreRight LLC does not guarantee facility accessibility during weather events. Tenants access units at their own risk.
She had the code. She was two hundred yards from the gate. The water was between her and the gate.
She pulled over and parked on the high side of the road, above the dip. She could see the StoreRight sign from here. She could see the lot. She could probably walk it. The water was shin-deep, maybe. Moving, but not fast. She could leave the truck running, leave the cat, walk through, punch in the code, get to 114, grab the box, walk back. Twenty minutes, maybe. If the water didn't get worse. If she didn't step in a hole. If the code worked.
She opened her door. The rain hit her. She looked at the water. She looked at the cat carrier. The cat was watching her through the mesh.
She closed the door.
She checked 511. I-12 was yellow now. Yellow meant slow, and slow meant filling, and in an hour it could be red and then she'd be on the wrong side of a flooded road with a cat and a go-bag and no route to Hammond.
She knew what the right decision was. She'd gotten good at the right decision.
Probably.
She texted her sister in Houston. They hadn't talked in two weeks, which was normal.
hey. evacuating again. mom's ashes are in the storage unit and I can't get to them
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared.
can you go tomorrow
road's flooding
shit
are they in the urn
we never got an urn
A pause.
they're in the plastic thing?
yeah
that's sealed right
yeah
they'll be ok
She sat with the phone in her hand. The wipers beat. The rain came down. The water in the dip was the same or higher. She couldn't tell.
nora they'll be ok. just go
I know
She didn't go. She sat there for another ten minutes watching the water, watching the StoreRight sign through the rain. The parish truck pulled away. The barricade stayed.
She thought about her mother's kitchen. The one in the house on Perkins, before the assisted living, before the hospital. Her mother had kept things on shelves in a particular order. Spices alphabetical. Canned goods grouped by type. When she'd moved her mother out of that house she'd packed everything into boxes and labeled them and stacked them in the storage unit in the same order, and her mother had watched from the car in the driveway and hadn't said anything, and that was four years before she died.
The ashes were on the shelf in the order she'd put them. Between the kitchen box and the photos. She'd placed them there without thinking about it, or she'd thought about it more than she wanted to admit. Either way, they were there, and she was here, and the water was between them.
At 2:20 she got out of the truck.
The rain was heavy and warm. She left the engine running. She left the cat. She walked to the edge of the water and looked at it. Shin-deep. Brown. Moving, but not fast. Debris in it. A paper cup. Leaves. The water was coming from the lateral and crossing the road and draining into the ditch on the other side, except the ditch was full, so the water was just spreading.
She could see the StoreRight gate. Maybe a hundred and fifty yards through the water, then up onto the lot, then the keypad. 7734.
She stepped in. The water was warm. It came up over her ankles. She took another step. The road was solid under her feet. She could feel the current but it wasn't strong. She took another step.
She stopped.
She stood in the water in the rain and thought about the box on the shelf. Six pounds. Beige plastic. Her mother's name on a label.
She stood there. The water moved around her shins. The rain came down.
- "Open" versus reachable: AP's reporting on the 2016 Baton Rouge flood describes how 20 to 30 inches of rain closed I-10 and I-12 for days and flooded tens of thousands of structures without a named hurricane ever making landfall.
- Contraflow is fading: Axios reported that Louisiana officials now say they need a minimum of 72 hours to implement contraflow, and rapidly intensifying storms are making that window harder to guarantee.
- Buyouts awarded, not settled: The Washington Post documented households in western North Carolina carrying mortgages on uninhabitable homes while waiting months for FEMA buyout decisions that had not yet been approved.
- Insurance premiums outpace inflation: A Treasury Department analysis of more than 246 million policies found that average premiums rose 8.7 percent faster than inflation and that the highest-risk ZIP codes faced nonrenewal rates roughly 80 percent above the lowest-risk areas.