Posted on 07/06/2006 7:08:05 AM PDT by MikefromOhio
NOAA ISSUES SERVICE ASSESSMENT REPORT ON HURRICANE KATRINA
Evaluation Highlights Agency Successes & Recommends Improvements
July 3, 2006 — The NOAA National Weather Service released an internal evaluation of its operations during Hurricane Katrina. Service assessments are done routinely following major weather events and include input from government agencies, emergency managers, media and the public. (Click NOAA satellite image for larger view of Hurricane Katrina taken at 12:15 p.m. EDT on Aug. 29, 2006, after making landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast. Click here for high resolution version. Please credit “NOAA.)
The NOAA National Hurricane Center consistently projected for more than two days in advance that Katrina would strike southeast Louisiana as a "major" hurricane and later issued hurricane watches and warnings with lead times of 44 and 32 hours, respectively—an extra eight hours beyond when such alerts are typically issued.
The accurate forecasts provided for extended warning times," said Brig. Gen. David L. Johnson U.S. Air Force (Ret.), director of the NOAA National Weather Service. "Our ability to identify where a major hurricane would hit the Gulf Coast was among the actions that saved countless lives." (Click NOAA satellite image for larger view of Hurricane Katrina showing the NOAA National Weather Service five-day forecast (dark blue) issued Friday, August 26, 2005, and the storm’s actual track (light blue). The satellite image was taken at 11:45 a.m. EDT on Aug. 28, 2005. Click here for high resolution version. Please credit “NOAA.)
Katrina first crossed the U.S. coast as a Category 1 hurricane near the border of Broward and Miami-Dade counties in Florida on August 25. Katrina was a Category 3 hurricane with top winds of 125 mph during its second landfall in Buras, La., on August 29, and soon thereafter made its final landfall near the border of Louisiana and Mississippi.
Service assessments are a valuable contribution to the ongoing efforts to improve the timeliness and effectiveness of NOAA National Weather Service products and services. "The Hurricane Katrina assessment highlights the best practices while recommending improvements that will allow the National Weather Service to better serve the American public in effort to protect life and property," added Johnson.
Thirteen "best practices" were identified in the Katrina assessment, among them:
Recommendations also were cited in the assessment and are currently being addressed by the NOAA National Weather Service. They include:
The full NOAA Hurricane Katrina Assessment may be found online.
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NOAA National Weather Service office in Slidell, La., which serves New Orleans, issued a statement that explicitly described the impending catastrophic damage expected from Katrina. Here is the original statement issued the day before Hurricane Katrina made landfall. This is known as an “inland hurricane warning.”
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| WWUS74 KLIX 281550 NPWLIX URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA ...DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED... .HURRICANE KATRINA...A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969. 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. THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED. AN INLAND HURRICANE WIND WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR HURRICANE FORCE...OR FREQUENT GUSTS AT OR ABOVE HURRICANE FORCE...ARE CERTAIN WITHIN THE NEXT 12 TO 24 HOURS. ONCE TROPICAL STORM AND HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ONSET...DO NOT VENTURE OUTSIDE! |
Show the legislation or regulation please.
Why are you disrupting this thread?
Are you trying to take the heat off of Nagin and Blanco, whom this report CLEARLY damns by showing that they WERE contacted by NOAA?
Interesting that you want to make this about the EU and "freedom" when it's a report about WEATHER.
Nothing, huh? Man, you paint with a broad brush. Don't you have anything to do today besides piling on New Orleans?
The sickening thing is that many of us on the Katrina thread here at the time were pointing out that New Orleans was a potential bullseye on the THURSDAY before it hit.
The NHC still had it as a likely Florida panhandle strike at the time, but we had a lively discussion about the landfall likelihood.
We all know what happened at the end of that weekend. Nagin and Blanco had ample warning. They did nothing until President Bush personally intervened, and it was largely too late at that point.
Yet, the conventional wisdom is that Katrina is all Bush's fault.
If you'll recall, Saturday before Katrina hit, NOAA was calling for a catastrophic storm to hit in the vicinity of NOLA, but Nagin was refusing to issue mandatory evacuation orders, and Blanco said in a press conference that maybe if everyone just prayed real hard the storm would go somewhere else.
They reacted late, and didn't do enough to get people out, IMHO. The people there just didn't believe it would happen, I think. It probably comes from years and years and years of it not happening. I had friends I begged to get out a day earlier, and they just wouldn't.
But I don't fault the NWS. They told'em that it was going to be devastating.
True, but they already had models showing that might happen, too.
NOLA should have been evacuated, starting the Saturday before Katrina hit.
Then you shouldn't bother responding.
"Best practices" has been used in industry since at least the 1970s.
Maybe the UN & EU just discovered it in the late 1990s...I haven't noticed them giving more than lip service to the term, however.
MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER.
I was back in my home (uptown New Orleans) on Tuesday, September 5. I had gas service and running water. When I relocated to suburban New Orleans on September 11, I had electricity, A/C, and potable tap water. At the end of September, I was back in my home permanently, with all utilities except cable TV (oh, the humanity!)
AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE.
Didn't happen.
ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...
Didn't happen. There was almost no structural failure outside of the worst flood zones. None whatever in my 100-year-old residential neighborhood.
THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED.
Industrial buildings that retained their roofs and escaped flooding did quite well.
ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED.
Didn't happen -- and I'm in the apartment business, so I ought to know. We suffered widespread roof damage, but no structural failure anywhere, in a portfolio of 7,000 units.
CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.
Scare-mongering rubbish.
HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.
No high rise buildings collapsed or were even rendered structurally unsafe. Maybe 5% of their windows were lost.
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.
I wish the junked dishwasher in my back yard, along with my neighbor's felled tree, had been blown away.
THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION.
I didn't lose a single window.
POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...
Downtown power was back on in two weeks or less. My home had power back in 4 weeks. I was receiving incoming land line phone calls at home on September 5.
AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED.
Nope. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.
No for those who'd stockpiled.
THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED.
Lots of tree debris, but fewer than 5% came down. Defoliation? Man, who writes this stuff?
What do you do for a living? Are you grown up yet?
Go GOOGLE "best practices" and you'll see that most businesses and professions have "best practices".
It's not a conspiracy, it's an attempt to ensure that things are done correctly.
I guess you don't believe in quality control, either?
Pass Christian.
I don't remember everything, just the NOAA side of it.
I remember there being another inland hurricane warning that REALLY sounded like the death Knell for New Orleans. It was depressing to read.
Then the storm shifted a bit to the east.....
What's disrupting is bringing the "long arm of the EU" into something that has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with it.
When that advisory was written, the storm had 170 MPH winds with gusts to 200 MPH.
When it hit, the storm was weakening and had winds around 125 MPH.
You're comparing apples to oranges and you should be very happy they were incorrect and the storm weakened.
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