Gustav's Northern Edge

Members of the Louisiana delegation head to a function yesterday in Minneapolis. Thoughts of Hurricane Gustav and the damage it might wreak in the Gulf Coast overshadow the Republican convention to nominate John McCain. (By Ricky Carioti -- The Washington Post)
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McCain appeared at a news conference in St. Paul by satellite to announce that for now, delegates should be Americans first and Republicans second, and that he was canceling all but what was absolutely necessary for the first day of the convention. Rick Davis, the campaign chairman, appeared on the podium to say soberly that the candidate might not be appearing at all, and to add that he couldn't foresee what the next few days would bring.

"By nature, it is an unpredictable event," he told the crush of media overflowing the room.

Unpredictable and slow and fateful, the way you could feel the disaster rolling in. That cone of uncertainty.

"You understand what's really important," said Gary Jones, chairman of the Oklahoma Republican Party, who was attending the Louisiana delegation's event. Jones is used to tornadoes -- you hear one is coming and within a few hours it makes landfall, he said. The destruction is small by comparison. With hurricanes, "you're talking about two weeks of waiting," Jones said. And then, the aftermath. Which, this time around -- well, no one knew quite what to expect, but the women feared the worst. They watched the television screen above their table. Somebody remarked that even her stubborn-as-a-mule dad had left his home, and wasn't that something.

"I didn't leave for Lili, I didn't leave for Andrew, I didn't leave for Rita, but this I would leave for," said Peggy Buckels. (That is, if she hadn't already left to come here.)

"Jindal is doing -- he's doing everything he can possibly do," said Madeleine Deslatte, 43, an alternate delegate, referring to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

"Before, we used to have hurricane parties," Hindelang said. "We would just ride it out." And by "before" she meant Rita and Katrina.

"I will stay through a Category 3," Buckels said.

"See, it depends on what happens once it hits the gulf," Deslatte said.

"I went to the mall and I felt guilty," said Hindelang, who stared up at the news on the television screen as she spoke.

Every once in a while, someone hurried over and dropped a piece of information. The women craned forward for the briefings -- how the evacuations were going, whether the storm might turn toward Vermilion Bay, 40 miles south of their homes in Lafayette. They talked about storm surge and they said things like "For Hurricane Betsy in 1965 . . . ." They talked about the uncertain future.

"My dad has a home in Cocodrie," Deslatte said. "This could take it out."

"It's the lives," Hindelang said.

And then they left to take one of the last shuttles back to their hotel.

Get home safe, a reporter said, meaning the hotel.

"We hope we have a home to go home to," said Connie Boyer, 61, already way past the convention in her mind.

Staff writers Roxanne Roberts and Holly Watt contributed to this report.