Just finshed watching the local weather and they were naturally talking about Katrina. This will be only the 3rd category 5 hurricane to hit the US mainland. Sustained winds of 167 and gusts to 202mph. I just can't imagine a wind like that.
Hope everyone down that way stays safe.

Edit - Just found out this is the 4th cat 5 to hit the US. 4 times to many.

 

What I am watching is the FEMA officials and hurricane experts saying the weather and water temperature is prime for Kat to stay at a cat 5, after it hits land. That boggles the mind as to the devastation that would bring. The largest problem is not only the wind, but the lake at the edge of New Orleans will be shoved down Bourbon St. , making it another Atlantis. Lets just pray the officials are calling it wrong, but it is not looking like it.

 

Yeah, they are talking about still being a cat 4 when it hits the Lousiana-Mississippi border.

 

This thing is huge. Ive seen a lot off hurricanes on TV weather reports but this thing makes the rest look like dwarfs. You could fit 3 or 4 in side off this big one. This is scary I hope people down there have left. I f you get stranded on the highway when it hits good bye youll be gone your car will be gone./ You ll be just history. Id wanna be out there or a designated shelter. Like one guy said its like 400 mile wide tornado comin at you. Have you seen this thing on TV. You almost put the whole state off Texas in there. On another note this effect on oil prices could be amazing. We might think todays fuel price is a bargain compared to wh. at it will be. $5.00 looks like a rweality

 

They were just showing a live feed out of Alabama. These waves were 8 - 10' crashing into the shore line, you could see the water begining to rise up onto the coast. Then you see people running around on the beach like it's some kind of summer day, where they have nothing else to do. They had the Governor of Alabama on, he called them "nuts."

- Chris

 

I've been watching continous coverage from a local (NO) station at http://www.wwltv.com/perl/common/vid...props=livenoad


I always follow hurricanes and theres definiatly a lot of buzz on this one, mostly due to NO's vuneralbility to flooding.

Here's the warning from the NWS (national weather service) http://weather.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/iwszone?Sites=:laz069

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT
LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL
FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY
DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL.
PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD
FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE
BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME
WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A
FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH
AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY
VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE
ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE
WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN
AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING
INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

 

1. Shep Smith on Bourbon Street? Go figure.

2. At least people didn't get stupid like they did with Ivan. Somehow, someone figure, "Oh, well, the weatherguy knows the storm will hit Tampa...so all of us in Fort Myers will just relax even though we in the general path to Tampa". I don't know how that logic works, really.

http://www.sailwx.info/shiptrack/shiplocations.phtml

I guess the tankers are calling it a night already....I think I got this link from teh NOAA site after some digging, but I am going there next just for kicks.

 

Not to mention the flooding from the Mississippi and other drainage basins is just going to cause more flooding over the next week or so as the hurricane moves towards the NE US.

I don't know why they didn't have evacuations yesterday. We knew it was coming, we know New Orleans is the worst place to be in hurricane, even a weak one, but now they got thousands of people jamming in the superdome, which itself will see flooding.

I guess they'll just blame this on their inexperience with hurricanes.

 

Over on the Texas coast, we are starting to get some good waves coming in which means the idiots over here will be surfing. Course, I was surfing down in Port Aransas when emily hit Mexico and Ill be going tomorrow afterschool.

 

I heard something very early this morning about having to rebuild the pumps that keep New Orleans dry if they are submerged, it could take 6 weeks to do that.

The Big Easy may be renamed to the Big Squeegee

 

Has anybody heard the FEMA death toll estimates? Try 40-60 thousand. Hello? I thought this was 2005. I can't imagine they are correct. I certainly hope that is not a good number. If you know of anybody down there, call them. Tell them to get their brains back in their head and get out. I can only pray for the less fortunate that have no means to flee. This is going to be historic.

 

I just watched a report that said this thing is so big that it'll still be a hurricaine when it passes over the great lakes and it'll regain some of it's strength there...... This is nuts

My prayers to everyone in it's path tonight...

 

That storm is going to be a doozy. Where I am stationed currently (Guam) they call them super typhoons. Every year we get several tropical storm or typhoons (same thing as a hurricane, just on the other side of the international date line) that come close. Sometimes the island takes a direct hit and everything gets trashed. Power, water, roadways, everything gets trashed. And the worst part is we are on an island and can't leave, we have to stay here and batten down the hatches.

Building code out here is very strict. 95% of the power poles are concrete instead of wood. Buildings must be earthquake resistant and tyhoon resistant. Many homes, busnesses, and structures are built from steel rebar reinforced poured concrete instead of wood, plywood, and roofing shingles. A vast majority of homes and buildings sport typhoon shutters (accordian style aluminum shutters), or typhoon glass. Typhoon glass must be able to withstand a full size coconut (with the thick outer husk) flying into the glass at 85 MPH and not shatter. Just want to give you guys an idea of what its like to sit through one.

Last year we had to sit through a typhoon. This one in particular would be equivilant to a Class II hurricane. The eye passed just barely 20 miles north of the island. I was watching from inside the house and watched as the wind would rip palm tree branches off the tree and carry them away. If you leave anything out in the yard it usually become a missile hazard and you usually won't see said object again unless its pretty heavy. We moved houses recently and our new house has a standby diesel generator in the back. I am not looking forward to starting it during a typhoon. Its not one of the automatic varieties.

Good luck and God speed to those being affected by Katrina, especially my wifes family, they live 3 hours west of New Orleans along the I-10.

 

I was just watching the TV link provided by Jerseysbest and the New Orleans radar link shows the cloud deck out to the Atlantic ocean and into southern Georgia already. That's a few acres.

 

Here is the Live TV Link thru WWLT