NOAA ISSUES SERVICE ASSESSMENT REPORT ON HURRICANE KATRINA

www.noaa.gov ^ | 3 July 2006 | NOAA

[Howlin]

Here is the ONE reason everybody is so upset:

Can you read that? Your five states have more REPETITIVE LOSSES than ALL THE REST OF THE COUNTRY since the beginning of time.

Take a hint, bud.

[Romulus]

I note that you failed to respond to any of my comments about why an evacuation of New Orleans is not practical.

[Howlin]

Two articles that we should all save:


http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/2315076.html?page=1&c=y


and

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1472323/posts


and this compilation:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1477621/posts

from BEFORE LANDFALL.

[houeto]

REALITY: Though many accounts portray Katrina as a storm of unprecedented magnitude, it was in fact a large, but otherwise typical, hurricane. On the 1-to-5 Saffir-Simpson scale, Katrina was a midlevel Category 3 hurricane at landfall. Its barometric pressure was 902 millibars (mb), the sixth lowest ever recorded, but higher than Wilma (882mb) and Rita (897mb), the storms that followed it. Katrina's peak sustained wind speed at landfall 55 miles south of New Orleans was 125 mph; winds in the city barely reached hurricane strength.

I haved lived through many hurricanes. We lived 3 miles inland in Gulfport when Camille struck in 1969.

The thing about Katrina that shocked us all here in Pascagoula was the magnitude of the storm surge. It's as if she picked up the whole gulf and slammed it into the coast.

Bayou LaBatre Alabama had their port detroyed. Everything on the Mississippi coast was destroyed.

I have completely reshaped my decision making because of Katrina. If I see another storm get as big AND AS INTENSE as she did out in the open gulf, I don't care if it's a Cat 1 at landfall, I'm RUNNING!

[Romulus]

Your five states have more REPETITIVE LOSSES than ALL THE REST OF THE COUNTRY since the beginning of time.

Unlike most of the rest of the country, we actually pay those flood insurance premiums. Participation in the NFIP in Orleans Parish is 65%. And our windstorm deductibles are pretty stiff too. We're not free-riding.

[freedumb2003]

THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

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."

BUT THERE IS GOOD NEWS.

I JUST SAVED A TON OF MONEY ON MY AUTO INSURANCE.

[houeto]

Will Bay St. Louis and Waveland ever recover?

I doubt that Waveland will ever recover in my lifetime. Bay St. Louis will have the assistance of casino money.

I remember years ago Dr. Neil Frank talking about how New Orleans thought it was safe behind its seawalls.

I went to a conference in Houston years ago and saw him graphically explain the potential. NOLA really did dodge a disaster of biblical proportions.

[hedgetrimmer]

Best practices

[Howlin]

Unlike most of the rest of the country, we actually pay those flood insurance premiums.

You see, this is exactly what I'm talking about: the sheer arogance of most of you all.

We pay them, too.

The difference is we have learned from past experience and we LEAVE.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

I was a kid in New Orleans when Camille hit. The damage then to Waveland and Bay St. Louis was unbelievable. But What happened with Katrina was amazingly more intense.

Storm surge is an awesome, terrible monster when it has that much water.

[Howlin]

One of my earliest memories is being taken out of school during Hurricane Hazel. A storm, I might add, that we had practically NO WARNING of until it was right upon this state.

[Romulus]

You're talking to people who have lived through probably more hurricanes than you have.

I doubt it.

You need to face the fact that other states DO GET IT DONE, repeatedly.

Indeed? Which other states repeatedly evacuate a million people? I ask only for information.

The fact is that the reason New Orleans turned into such a f'ing mess is because of its city government, aided and abetted by people like you who continue to excuse their absolute negligence.

Stupid cheap shot. You don't know anything about me. NOLA was a disaster because flood walls that were designed and supervised by the federal government failed to perform as designed, and because the state-caused welfare class was either too feckless to help itself, or else intent on exploiting the situation. I might add that with your evident interest in scoring political points above all, you seem to share this latter trait as well.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Where I live now could only flood from rain or storm if the Great Salt Lake rose 200+ feet. I had my fill of flooding forever.

[Dog Gone]

Excellent links!

[Howlin]

I doubt it.

Proving my point yet again.

Indeed? Which other states repeatedly evacuate a million people? I ask only for information.

At least 3.5 million people from four states—Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina—evacuated during Hurricane Floyd. It was the largest evacuation in U.S. history. Lines of cars backed up for hundreds of miles on several interstates. Trips that would have taken two hours on a normal day took 16 or 18. Many evacuees could not find bathrooms, motel rooms, or shelters. Cars ran out of gas or broke down, littering highways and small roads.

Stupid cheap shot.

But true.

I might add that with your evident interest in scoring political points above all, you seem to share this latter trait as well.

Ah, the last resort: no facts, ad hominem attack.

[MikefromOhio]

Best practices

yes that is mentioned in the article, but that STILL has nothing to do with the EU except in YOUR world of kookery.

[MikefromOhio]

Right. On Friday and Saturday, when there was time to evacuate, it didn't seem to be such a dire threat.

Actually Saturday is when the storm grew in size and intensity.

On Monday, when Katrina struck, she was well off her peak strength. So what was your purpose in posting the worst-case end-of-the-world forecast from Sunday morning, when the storm, at its worst, was in the Gulf?

Ummm if you check the link, it came with the story. I didn't have crap to do with it and this entire line of questioning makes absolutely NO sense.

Your decision to rip that single report from its context, especially to take a swipe at a local politician strikes me as disingenuous.

If that "local politician" had F-ed up royally.....quit covering for him. It makes you look as bad as he did. He was warned, yet he did absolutely NOTHING until Sunday.

[Amelia]

I note that you failed to respond to any of my comments about why an evacuation of New Orleans is not practical.

I thought I answered your questions.

Google up "Hurricane Floyd evacuation". I was in the middle of that one.

[Romulus]

At least 3.5 million people from four states—Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina—evacuated during Hurricane Floyd.

Floyd went up the east coast from the Bahamas to NC, making landfall as a Cat 2 at Cape Fear. Why 3.5 million people bothered to run away from that is something I can't explain. (I note that hurricanes of serious intensity scarcely ever strike your state; unlike you, I don't have to reach all the way back to Hazel in 1954 to recall something truly threatening.) And it's worth pointing out that those 3.5 million folks were spread out over four states and dozens of cities. If you emptied out a single metro area by a million (my number for Katrina doesn't count the folks in MS and AL who had to bug out, just the New Orleans MSA), I'm still saying I'd like to hear about it.

My point is and remains that no city has ever been asked to do what we had to do, and if it should come to that (God forbid), it'll be every bit as chaotic and last-minute as it was for us.

[Ingtar]

The devestation they predicted hit Mississippi and the area east and north of New Orleans. If the levees had been built to the standard that they claimed, New Orleans would have been a nonstory within a week or two. The areas that were truly damaged by the storm that we don't hear about now would have been the catastrophe. That and the destruction of the oil facilities in the Gulf and east of N.O.

Their best practices did predict the devestation, but their hesitance to move the forcast path as radically as they should have left a lot of people unprepared. I remember the discussion where they said they should move the track close to New Orleans, but they did not want to move it that drastically in one update. I believe that was Thursday night early, but could be wrong. And the discussion here was fantastic that night. That is a best practice we should keep.