Aberdeen family’s 11-hour journey to flee hurricane
Traffic chaos hit roads near danger zone
Published:
AN ABERDEEN family drove for 11 hours to escape the devastation of Hurricane Gustav.
They were part of a four- vehicle convoy amid the thousands of cars fleeing Louisiana.
But Frances McIntosh nearly turned back to her Lafayette home – and the chance of being caught in the storm – when traffic hit a standstill.
The 48-year-old eventually took advice from maths whizz-kid son Kieran, 12.
“It was a nightmare,” she said. “I just felt I was so unsure and thought we would still be safe in the house – even with Hurricane Katrina three years ago we just boarded up and stayed.
“We don’t really have anyone we can go to here, we have friends in Houston but the storm looked like it was going to go that way too. Our 12-year-old gave me the probabilities and said it was likely to hit us so we said let’s go.”
Neighbours invited Frances, also mum to 16-year-old Sheldon and seven-year-old Darcy, and her family to Dallas where they had friends.
But a torturous journey made her think twice.
The dietetics student, whose mum Iris Mowbray still lives off Aberdeen’s Holburn Street, packed the children, dogs Duke, Tess and Mollie and cats Big Cat and Belle into various vehicles and trailers.
It took Frances, whose husband Richard, 49, is president of offshore firm 2m-Tek and was in India, 11 hours to get to Dallas in a trip that would normally take six.
The family, who moved to the US in 2002, have not yet returned home to check for damage.
Readers' Comments
Are our links to the outside world so tenuous that we have to rely on people who moved away in 2002 for news. They are not an Aberdeen family, they haven't lived here for 6 years.
Angry BOD
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