Posted on 10/29/2012 10:21:35 AM PDT by NautiNurse
“It will cause a huge mess, potentially billions of dollars of damage, and some deaths, but I can’t see it depopulating entire neighborhoods the way Katrina did to Chocolate City.”
I can. What is a city of several million going to do without electricity? Without transportation? With winter on the way? Most of their electrical infrastructure is underground and it’s flooded. You can’t just pump it out and throw the switch. It’s probably effectively destroyed, and it isn’t the type of equipment you pick up at radio shack.
I fear that the political powers that be aren’t up to fixing it. This is looking a lot like Katrina.
As bad as Andrew was, which IIRC was a strong cat 3, if it had hit further south in Miami it would have been an even bigger disaster. But while Andrew was a powerful storm, it was small and tightly compacted with many embedded tornados.
What people need to understand when comparing hurricanes in the south and hurricanes and nor’easters in the NE, even if of similar size and strength is that they can’t really be compared.
For one thing the NE (mid-Atlantic up through New England) is the most densely populated region in the country; a hurricane, even a cat 1 is going to impact millions more people. Also the infrastructure is older, the topography is different, most of the houses not built to withstand hurricane force winds, the types of trees are different, the rivers and streams beds narrower and more prone to flooding.
That is not to say that I’m in anyway mitigating the devastating hurricanes that have killed many thousands and caused devastation to my southern friends and neighbors over the years, but for us up north along the mid-Atlantic and NE, there is not really much we can do to prepare for a hundred year event like this one, other than to use some common sense and hunker down.
Galveston got smacked by a Cat 4. So did Houston. We called it Ike. Both cities came out of it relatively unscathed.
Andrew was thought for many years to have been a cat 4 when it hit south of Miami. Now the NHC views it as having hit as a cat 5. However, very small in diameter. The winds were not felt at all until it was very close to land.
“Watch the cops and guard stand... And do nothing.”
Uhhh, no. For all of it’s problems, NYPD is known for smacking heads when they need smacking.
The tragedy is America has squandered her money!! Foolishly we have given it to foreign nations and spent it at home on research on owls, rare rats, etc!!
Now, our people are in need and all we have is a IOU note to China!! SAD ..........
Thanks for the clarification on Andrew. I seem to recall that Andrew intensified very rapidly within just a few hours and overnight just before making landfall. It was a very intense storm but as you said, very small in diameter and thankfully so.
I did not know it was underground, but that makes sense. Still, they have to have designed it to drain effectively once the water level lowers. I wonder when that will be?
I still have power, but my office does not.
I wonder if the folks who were belittling this storm will have enough character to admit they were wrong. I see one has on this thread. But I doubt the most strident will.
As far as the Susquehanna is concerned, the heaviest rain was to the south of its basin.
As far as the Susquehanna is concerned, the heaviest rain was to the south of its basin.
I still have power, but my office does not.
I wonder if the folks who were belittling this storm will have enough character to admit they were wrong. I see one has on this thread. But I doubt the most strident will.
All the forecasts, even several days out was pretty much spot on – very accurate, the storm path, the last minute strengthening and including the warnings about storm surge and flooding in NYC.
So much for the people here (the arm chair meteorologists) who claimed that the storm would harmlessly go out to sea or that this storm would weaken over “cold” water and would be nothing than a little light rain and a light breeze or that the whole thing was a big "fake".
Thanks to NELSON111 and some others for being a voice of reason.
Here in Kent County, MD, on the Eastern Shore, we fared quite well despite the awful sounding winds in the night. We did not even lose power, which is most unusual during such events.
Praise be to our Glorious Lord!
>>If a cat 1 creates this amount of issues, the folks up north will need to some rethinking as a cat 2 or 3 would be a doozy for them. I can’t imaging what they would do with a cat 4.
This storm had a worse storm surge than the 1938 Hurricane, which started as a Cat 5 but hit land as a Cat 3. Wind damage was never the primary concern with this storm, it was storm surge. That 1938 hurricane did way more damage and cut a swath through NY and New England hundreds of miles wide. That is still the worst storm to hit this area, well, that we know about.
I don’t know that we could prepare for that kind of storm to be honest.
Really weird I have four autumn wreaths on my shutters. I thought I would find them about a mile down the road,but when Iwent out this morning, there they were still hanging on to the shutters.
I haven't heard from my brothers and sisters yet. Really worried about my sister who owns a house in Ocean City,NJ right on the bay. I got a feeing the house may not be there this morning.
It’s OK. I was in Andrew’s north eyewall south of Miami, so had a personal interest. My daughter is currently in Midtown Manhattan, so I have a personal interest in Sandy as well. For the moment, we’re out of communication with her, as there’s no power where she lives. Hopefully we’ll get a text from her today. I know her building is on high ground, so no worries about flooding. This won’t be new for her, she went through Andrew as a grade schooler.
Wiki says otherwise - the 38 storm had 18 foot storm surge and this one only hit 15.
Perhaps because the firemen don't like the idea of their equipment and personal property being stolen?
I should have said ‘locally higher storm surge’. 2 feet higher than the ‘38 hurricane according to reports from New London CT. Damage is no where that level though.
WWORTV NJ
Live video
helicopter lying over damage. WOW.
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