We experienced Hurricane Lite here in Uptown New Orleans.

Our electricity was restored Monday afternoon at 6 p.m., 11 hours after we had gone dark. By mid-week, many of our neighbors even a block away were still without power and electric company estimates for some south Louisiana customers were for four powerless weeks. Governor Bobby Jindal calls it unacceptable.

Nevertheless, evacuees were swarming back into the city and surrounding parishes. New Orleans originally planned a tiered re-entry, giving workers essential to businesses and services a head start. But by mid-morning Wednesday, re-entry screening had collapsed and police and National Guard were pulled away from checkpoints.

Baton Rouge caught more of the hurricane than New Orleans. They experienced winds over 90 miles an hour. (New Orleans probably had gusts to 60 miles an hour.) Many, including our neighbor Ann, sought refuge in Baton Rouge.

New Orleans’ evacuees were discouraged from heading west and those trying to go east found Interstate 10 closed at the Mississippi state line. Some evacuees drove away from the city for as long as they could with enough gas money in reserve to get back. Then they turned around and headed back, pulling their cars onto road shoulders and sleeping in them when they ran into roadblocks established to prevent premature return.

Evacuation is not for the faint of heart.

Gustav’s winds built through Sunday night, but they didn’t wake me from a restless sleep until 4 a.m. We had boarded the windows facing west and south and felt like we were ready.

The winds often carried some rain but never in torrents like they have through much of Gustav’s journey up the Mississippi River Valley. The gusts would rise and fall as the storm forces arrived in narrow bands, training through town. We watched it whip the trees within view through our unboarded, north-facing rear windows and door.

Frankly, it was exhilarating watching that magnificent demonstration of power in the atmosphere. Gusts initially blew from east to west. By early afternoon, as Gustav moved slowly inland, wind direction shifted from southeast to northwest. Finally, the wind’s source shifted to the south from which it still blows, having diminished to a pleasant, light breeze three days later.

A tree on the east side of our house — a hedge that had grown to tree size which we have illogically spared for the shade it has provided during the 10 years we’ve lived here   — broke off at half its height in the wind.

Once the gusts wrested loose a gutter downspout at our back porch and thrashed it back and forth until I ran out and secured it. Duct tape, of course.

Gustav’s debris consists mostly of small branches and lots of leaves. Our downed hedge appears to be an exception. The roof damage damage so ubiquitous after Katrina is absent. This will be no blue-roof town in coming weeks.

We’ve cleaned most of the yard but we’ve only unboarded one door. The upstairs windows and some downstairs windows will remain boarded for now in deference for the hurricane and storms still building in the Atlantic.

We may have faced Hurricane Lite. We may yet have to face Hurricane Evacuation.