Hurricane Katrina Live Thread, Part VIII

Category	Wind Speed	Barometric Pressure	Storm Surge	Damage Potential
Tropical Depression	< 39 mph < 34 kts			Minimal
Tropical Storm	39 - 73 mph 34 - 63 kts			Minimal
Hurricane 1 (Weak)	74 - 95 mph 64 - 82 kts	28.94" or more 980.02 mb or more	4.0' - 5.0' 1.2 m - 1.5 m	Minimal damage to vegetation
Hurricane 2 (Moderate)	96 - 110 mph 83 - 95 kts	28.50" - 28.93" 965.12 mb - 979.68 mb	6.0' - 8.0' 1.8 m - 2.4 m	Moderate damage to houses
Hurricane 3 (Strong)	111 - 130 mph 96 - 112 kts	27.91" - 28.49" 945.14 mb - 964.78 mb	9.0' - 12.0' 2.7 m - 3.7 m	Extensive damage to small buildings
Hurricane 4 (Very strong)	131 - 155 mph 113 - 135 kts	27.17" - 27.90" 920.08 mb - 944.80 mb	13.0' - 18.0' 3.9 m - 5.5 m	Extreme structural damage
Hurricane 5 (Devastating)	Greater than 155 mph Greater than 135 kts	Less than 27.17" Less than 920.08 mb	Greater than 18.0' Greater than 5.5m	Catastrophic building failures possible

To: Steve_Seattle

But it remains to be seen what the extent of the damage is; the reports so far are fragmentary and laced with rumor.

I remeinded myself this morning that, without fail, the news the second day is ALWAYS worse.

Just look at Katrina in Florida last week.

2,921 posted on 08/29/2005 9:53:06 AM PDT by Howlin

Good live reporting on WDSU.com

2,922 posted on 08/29/2005 9:53:19 AM PDT by 3dognight

To: WestCoastGal; sissyjane

I think they still don't know. The radio reporter said they were unable to travel the streets. Information will be slow coming I'm afraid.

Probably won't know until they can get aircraft up over the city.

2,923 posted on 08/29/2005 9:54:01 AM PDT by r9etb

To: ken5050; All

---STRATFOR EMAIL

Hurricane Katrina: Crunch Time

Hurricane Katrina continues to rage over southern Louisiana. The storm already has left the primary oil and natural gas production regions and is assaulting the mainland itself.

First, the good news. An 11th hour burst of relatively dry air succeeded in taking (a touch of) the wind out of Katrina's sails. In technical terms, this means the storm has been downgraded to a Category 3 hurricane; however, as of 10 a.m. local time, 100 mile-per-hour winds are still hitting New Orleans.

Another small bit of good information is that the storm did shift course to the east in the early hours of Aug. 29 and is traveling due north. Though parts of New Orleans will still be in the "eyewall" -- the most dangerous part of the storm -- the city itself seems posed to just barely avoid a direct hit. As of 9:30 a.m. local time, Katrina's eye was even with New Orleans on an east-west axis

Very soon, the focus will shift from stunned awe at Mother Nature's raw power to the dreary and painstaking work of damage assessment and repair. The storm passed directly over the Mississippi River's mouth, raising the prospect that the main channel has shifted. Such a development would delay the reopening of the river until the channel could be resurveyed and likely dredged. Depending on the silting, that could take a few hours -- or a few weeks. Add in damage to critical energy infrastructure and initial damage estimates, before a single assessor has put foot on soggy Louisianan ground, are at a floor of $30 billion.

It is difficult to predict the damage -- and impossible to underestimate the significance -- of what the United States faces. The city of New Orleans, the Port of South Louisiana and Port Fourchon combined serve as the hub of trade and energy collection and distribution for the middle third of the country. All have been hit -- and hit badly. But, for a few hours, we will not know specifically how badly.

Which means that we are now in the realm of logistics, and if what few scattered reports out of New Orleans are correct, there will be few people available to do the work necessary to repair the damage.

The northwest quadrant of the hurricane is currently whipping waves south and southwest across Lake Pontchartrain. With storm surges expected to hit as high as 20 feet -- before the waves are taken into account -- the expectations are that water is already gushing across the northern levees protecting New Orleans from the Mississippi. Needless to say, no one is standing on said levees reporting live. The world will have to wait a couple of hours until winds drop back into the double digits before a few brave souls can venture out and assess how bad a shape the city is in -- particularly whether the levees held at all.

That remains the question. In addition to the humanitarian disaster -- there are scattered reports that several evacuation centers have sustained heavy damage -- there is at least one report of a barge breaking free of its moorings. Should it strike the levee in the current conditions, the rupture would put the viability of the city in doubt. At present, there is at least one report that one levee has been breached already, although it is not clear if the barge caused the breach.

Assuming that all were well in the world and that the New Orleans pump system were safe above water (it is not), operating at full capacity the city could drain itself in three weeks. A more likely figure is six months. If New Orleans is out of the equation, then repair efforts will need to be based from further inland at a slow pace and higher cost. The next few days will be a race against time to get everything in working order again. What is not clear at this point is whether there will even be a city from which to base the effort.

---STRATFOR EMAIL

2,924 posted on 08/29/2005 9:54:10 AM PDT by RobFromGa (Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran-- what are we waiting for?)

What is amazing are the people on this thread saying this thing was "over hyped"! I wonder what they are thinking.

Well, there were posts about 100,000 deaths...I think I'd call that going over the top.

2,925 posted on 08/29/2005 9:54:44 AM PDT by maquiladora

To: rolling_stone

Oh dear. Especially the Slidell relatives must have had a terribly rough ride. I'll be praying for them and that you hear something soon. But I have a feeling it may be a while (even days) to get any phone service coming from out of there. Keep us posted.

2,926 posted on 08/29/2005 9:54:51 AM PDT by LibSnubber (Lafayette, LA........PRAYER AGAINST STORMS on my homepage)

To: Abigail Adams

Thank you! I do believe that the 25' figure is an embellishment on someone's part. (At least I hope.) The truth is sobering enough.

Here's another good link for updated info: Nola.com

2,927 posted on 08/29/2005 9:55:04 AM PDT by gbunch (Inventor of the P-Sight rear blade sight for Kel-Tec P-3AT/P-32 http://www.psenhancements.com)

FOX: "... buildings collapsing all over the place in Louisiana..."

!?

2,928 posted on 08/29/2005 9:55:40 AM PDT by Michael Goldsberry (Galveston)

That's nothing; during Hugo the USS Narwhal (SSN-671) broke it's mooring lines and had to submerge in the Cooper River channel. Hurricane mooring lines consist of six 3/4 inch steel cables, doubled.

2,929 posted on 08/29/2005 9:55:40 AM PDT by Doohickey (If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice...I will choose freewill.)

wdsu just switched over to "charmed" from Hurricane coverage

Semper Fi

2,930 posted on 08/29/2005 9:55:53 AM PDT by Trident/Delta (Chaos, Panic and Disorder.....My work here is done!)

To: RobFromGa; All

Thanks for the post..Has anyone seen/heard of any prelimiary reports of damage assessment to the drilling platforms in the Gulf?

2,931 posted on 08/29/2005 9:55:58 AM PDT by ken5050 (Ann Coulter needs to have children ASAP to pass on her gene pool....any volunteers?)

Looters occupy that *special* place between pedophiles and those who prey on the elderly.

2,932 posted on 08/29/2005 9:56:11 AM PDT by bwteim (Begin With The End In Mind)

Buildings collapse as Katrina pummels New Orleans, Gulf Coast (flooded to 2nd floor of Beau Rivage casino)

Excerpt:

Mayor C. Ray Nagin said the Ninth Ward, a particularly low-lying neighborhood in the below-sea-level city of 480,000 people, was flooded and 116 residents retreated to roof tops, waiting for help through howling wind.

At least three fires were reported in the area and one building collapsed there. In nearby Gretna, a motel also reportedly collapsed. Roofs are said to be ripping off countless homes and other structures.

Police and rescue crews said they were getting calls about medical conditions -- heart attacks, pregnancies and other urgent situations.

About 370,000 customers in southeastern Louisiana were without power.

New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass said three people were arrested for looting by 7:30 a.m. ''I couldn't believe it,'' he said in a radio interview.

Katrina made landfall south of New Orleans as a monstrous Category 4 hurricane with 145-mph wind. It weakened slightly as it moved inland and now has maximum sustained winds of 125 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Elsewhere along the upper Gulf Coast, Katrina -- not only viciously powerful but also ambitiously wide in sweep -- swamped bridges and overran beaches in Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, and it hurled boats onto land in Mississippi.

''The wind is whipping now,'' Kate Magandy, city editor of the Biloxi (Miss.) Sun Herald reported at 7:30 a.m. CDT. ``The roof on the building is creaking. You can hear the building's joints straining.''

Winds of 84 mph were registered in Mobile, Ala., 66 mph in Biloxi and 64 mph in Pascagoula, Miss., with much higher gusts throughout the regin.

Magandy reported that Gulfport Fire Chief Pat Sullivan successfully rescued a woman and her four children from their apartment after the roof ripped off.

Later, she relayed unconfirmed reports of water up to the second floor of the Beau Rivage Casino in Biloxi and water standing in the Grand Casino Biloxi.

In Gulfport, the business district was partially underwater and the wind shattered countless windows. Sullivan described the damage as ``massive.''

2,933 posted on 08/29/2005 9:56:15 AM PDT by cgk (We'll have to deal w/ the networks. One way to do that is to drain the swamp they live in - Rumsfeld)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1472820/posts?page=15#15

From the weather channel blog:

An amazing phone call just aired on The Weather Channel a few minutes ago from Jim Cantore's producer, Simon Temperton. The two of them are at the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Gulfport, Miss. (current conditions), where they have sought refuge from rapidly rising floodwaters on the second floor along with 300-400 residents of the home.

Here's some of what Simon reported in his phone call:

"We're going through some unbelievable conditions. Water is seeping into the building. I'd say we've had at least a 20-feet [of] storm surge. It has washed away all our rental cars, and everything else [in the parking lot]...

"Now water is seeping into the home and they are evacuating everyone to the second floor. I'm standing in 5 or 6 inches of water [on the second floor]. The power is out. There are a few emergency lights. It's a very daunting prospect right now....

"It's a very dangerous situation. I've been doing this for 15 years, and [I've] been Mr. Cantore's producer for many hurricanes, and I've never seen anything like this. This is probably the scariest situation we've ever been in -- just the sudden rise of water and how fast. They said we were good here for 27, 30 feet [of storm surge] -- they've never seen anything like it. They thought we were completely safe.

"We're not even shooting [video] anymore. We're basically in self-preservation [mode] right now. We're helping people put up boards and sandbags to keep the water from coming in. We've become part of the crew.

"In the time we've been talking, the water has risen, I'd say, another 3 inches. It's up to the top of my boots. The water keeps rising."

-- Posted by Laurel, Product Manager, The Weather Channel Interactive

2,934 posted on 08/29/2005 9:56:22 AM PDT by Diddle E. Squat

"...The power of these things is just unimaginable...."

You're not kidding. I just sit in awe of things like this. Raw, natural power unleashed. And there is absolutely nothing we can do about it.

2,935 posted on 08/29/2005 9:56:30 AM PDT by NCC-1701 (ISLAM IS A CULT. IT MUST BE ERADICATED FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH!)

To: carl in alaska

Gators just don't stalk people for miles like a Bruin.

2,936 posted on 08/29/2005 9:56:55 AM PDT by Dead Dog

To: WorkingClassFilth

Hello WCF,

Of course, you are right on the mark re: journalists "breaking the rules, ignoring the law and spitting on decency".

I am OK. Dodged a bullet here. Have high winds (60 MPH or more) 24 foot waves across the street but I still have power and 'net connection. My bees are OK. They'll just be agitated - AGAIN.

Thanks for asking.
miele man

2,938 posted on 08/29/2005 9:57:11 AM PDT by miele man

A downtown New Orleans bus stop is flooded as rain and strong winds from Hurricane Katrina batters the Crescent City on Monday, Aug. 29, 2005. (AP Photo/Bill Haber)

An Interstate-10 sign is nearly underwater near downtown New Orleans on Monday, Aug. 29, 2005. Hurricane Katrina battered the coast with strong winds and heavy rains when it came ashore near Grand Isle. (AP Photo/Bill Haber)

Windows are blown out on a building in downtown New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina batters Louisiana on Monday, Aug. 29, 2005. (AP Photo/Bill Haber)

2,939 posted on 08/29/2005 9:57:20 AM PDT by OXENinFLA

Glad to hear you are safe! I hope your home is, too.

2,940 posted on 08/29/2005 9:57:23 AM PDT by Abigail Adams

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794