As you’ve probably read, Hurricane Gustav is churning in the Gulf and appears to be headed straight for Louisiana. It’s already a Category 4 storm and could reach Category 5 today, so the residents of New Orleans are evacuating. The New Orleans airport (MSY) is closing at 6:00pm on Sunday. Since Southwest has lots of employees who work at MSY and need to evacuate, dozens of volunteers from other SWA airports are flying in yesterday and today to work our flights so that the local employees can wrap up their affairs and hit the road.

I spoke with one such volunteer last night, a great guy who normally works at Dallas. He said he grew up in the Bay Area and understands about natural disasters, so he wanted to help out in New Orleans. He’ll probably return on the last flight out of MSY this evening. I am proud to call him a coworker.