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Posted on 08/26/2005 10:25:04 PM PDT by NautiNurse
Hurricane Katrina continues to strengthen in the Gulf of Mexico. Currently, the forecast models are converging upon New Orleans. However, all interests in the northern Gulf of Mexico should follow the path of this storm, and be prepared for a major hurricane landfall. Throughout Friday, the official track forecasts moved west, as Hurricane Katrina delayed making the anticipated northwest turn.
The following links are self-updating.
Public Advisory Currently published every 3 hours 5A, 8A, 11A, 2P, etc. ET
NHC Discussion Published every six hours 6A, 11A, 6P, 11P
Three Day Forecast Track
Five Day Forecast Track
Navy Storm Track
Katrina Track Forecast Archive Nice loop of each NHC forecast track for both three and five day
Forecast Models
Alternate Hurricane Models via Skeetobite
Buoy Data Florida
Bouy Data Louisiana/Mississippi
Images:
New Orleans/Baton Rouge Experimental Radar Subject to delays and outages - and well worth the wait
Ft. Polk, LA Long Range Radar Loop
Northwest Florida Long Range Radar
Storm Floater IR Loop
Storm Floater Still & Loop Options
Color Enhanced IR Loop
Other Resources:
Hurricane Wind Risk Very informative tables showing inland wind potential by hurricane strength and forward motion
Central Florida Hurricane Center
Hurricane City
Crown Weather Tropical Website Offers a variety of storm info, with some nice track graphics
Live streaming:
WFOR-TV Miami: http://dayport.wm.llnwd.net/dayport_0025_live
WWL-TV New Orleans: mms://beloint.wm.llnwd.net/beloint_wwltv
HurricaneCity.com: http://hurricanecity.com/live.ram
WTSP-TV Tampa: mms://wmbcast.gannett.speedera.net/wmbcast.gannett/wmbcast_gannett_jan032005_0856_78183
WKRG-TV Mobile mms://wmbcast.mgeneral.speedera.net/wmbcast.mgeneral/wmbcast_mgeneral_jul072005_1144_93320
Katrina Live Thread, Part II
Hurricane Katrina Live Thread, Part I
Tropical Storm 12
| 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 |
Last night.
Barely, but it won't happen. That would require an orderly evacuation with no wrecks or other incidents that would impede it. It also assumes a uniform traffic flow with the same amount of people leaving now as 3 a.m. Monday morning.
I feel like I'm watching a train wreck that's inevitable. This is exactly what we've always feared. It was a virtual certainty to occur within the next 100 years, but I never expected it to happen next week.
Eep! That is awfully obsolete. I wouldn't go over it in a hurricane either.
What will the impact be to Nashville? Will it move east and miss Music City?
I am not the nurse who wrote the book--but I did work in Homestead after the storm, while living in the Tent City. The death toll from Hurricane Andrew was underreported. There were other things that occurred as well, and I'll not report them in this forum.
The saying down that way is, "they always turn." I've always wondered when one might get them. Is it looking like this is "The One"?
Was any sort of evacuation order issued for those areas so far? I haven't seen anything about it on this thread. If not, then my original point would hold
Then I sure as shoot wouldn't be waiting for government to tell me to bug. Jeepers. Just go and pray it fizzles.
Being in Kansas, we don't exactly have many bridges.
That would terrify me.
If people can grow wings and fly, it would help the evac tremendously at this late hour.
Check out the local news links in my reply #568. Bugouts of a few parishes, but not citywide.
You couldn't be more right, Dog. This looks mighty bad.
Lordy, I have been away for several months and whouldn't ya just know it, now I'm completely blanking on how to post links... Grrrrroan...
satelite loop
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/DATA/RT/gmex-ir4-loop.html
tracking
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/storm_graphics/AT12/refresh/AL1205W5_sm2+gif/031023W_sm.gif
Yes, the lower LA parishes were under evac orders hours ago.
http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf?/washingaway/thebigone_1.html
"...Joseph Suhayda, a Louisiana State University engineer who is studying ways to limit hurricane damage in the New Orleans area..."
(Below he discusses what would happen if a Cat 5 hit. Elsewhere he said that this scenario is possible if the center of a Cat 5 hit within a 30 mile radius of New Orleans, and could also happen with a Cat 4 or slow-moving Cat 3 striking in a smaller radius.)
..."The worst case is a hurricane moving in from due south of the city," said Suhayda, who has developed a computer simulation of the flooding from such a storm. On that track, winds on the outer edges of a huge storm system would be pushing water in Breton Sound and west of the Chandeleur Islands into the St. Bernard marshes and then Lake Pontchartrain for two days before landfall.
"Water is literally pumped into Lake Pontchartrain," Suhayda said. "It will try to flow through any gaps, and that means the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal (which is connected to Breton Sound by the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet) and the Chef Menteur and the Rigolets passes.
"So now the lake is 5 to 8 feet higher than normal, and we're talking about a lake that's only 15 or 20 feet deep, so you're adding a third to a half as much water to the lake," Suhayda said. As the eye of the hurricane moves north, next to New Orleans but just to the east, the winds over the lake switch around to come from the north.
"As the eye impacts the Mississippi coastline, the winds are now blowing south across the lake, maybe at 50, 80, 100 mph, and all that water starts to move south," he said. "It's moving like a big army advancing toward the lake's hurricane-protection system. And then the winds themselves are generating waves, 5 to 10 feet high, on top of all that water. They'll be breaking and crashing along the sea wall."
Soon waves will start breaking over the levee.
"All of a sudden you'll start seeing flowing water. It'll look like a weir, water just pouring over the top," Suhayda said. The water will flood the lakefront, filling up low-lying areas first, and continue its march south toward the river. There would be no stopping or slowing it; pumping systems would be overwhelmed and submerged in a matter of hours.
"Another scenario is that some part of the levee would fail," Suhayda said. "It's not something that's expected. But erosion occurs, and as levees broke, the break will get wider and wider. The water will flow through the city and stop only when it reaches the next higher thing. The most continuous barrier is the south levee, along the river. That's 25 feet high, so you'll see the water pile up on the river levee."
As the floodwaters invade and submerge neighborhoods, the wind will be blowing at speeds of at least 155 mph, accompanied by shorter gusts of as much as 200 mph, meteorologists say, enough to overturn cars, uproot trees and toss people around like dollhouse toys.
The wind will blow out windows and explode many homes, even those built to the existing 110-mph building-code standards. People seeking refuge from the floodwaters in high-rise buildings won't be very safe, recent research indicates, because wind speed in a hurricane gets greater with height. If the winds are 155 mph at ground level, scientists say, they may be 50 mph stronger 100 feet above street level.
Buildings also will have to withstand pummeling by debris picked up by water surging from the lakefront toward downtown, with larger pieces acting like battering rams.
Ninety percent of the structures in the city are likely to be destroyed by the combination of water and wind accompanying a Category 5 storm, said Robert Eichorn, former director of the New Orleans Office of Emergency Preparedness. The LSU Hurricane Center surveyed numerous large public buildings in Jefferson Parish in hopes of identifying those that might withstand such catastrophic winds. They found none.
Amid this maelstrom, the estimated 200,000 or more people left behind in an evacuation will be struggling to survive. Some will be housed at the Superdome, the designated shelter in New Orleans for people too sick or infirm to leave the city. Others will end up in last-minute emergency refuges that will offer minimal safety. But many will simply be on their own, in homes or looking for high ground.
Thousands will drown while trapped in homes or cars by rising water. Others will be washed away or crushed by debris. Survivors will end up trapped on roofs, in buildings or on high ground surrounded by water, with no means of escape and little food or fresh water, perhaps for several days.
"If you look at the World Trade Center collapsing, it'll be like that, but add water," Eichorn said. "There will be debris flying around, and you're going to be in the water with snakes, rodents, nutria and fish from the lake. It's not going to be nice."
Mobilized by FEMA, search and rescue teams from across the nation will converge on the city. Volunteer teams of doctors, nurses and emergency medical technicians that were pre-positioned in Monroe or Shreveport before the storm will move to the area, said Henry Delgado, regional emergency coordinator for the U.S. Public Health Service.
But just getting into the city will be a problem for rescuers. Approaches by road may be washed out.
"Whether or not the Airline Highway bridge across the Bonnet Carre Spillway survives, we don't know," said Jay Combe, a coastal hydraulic engineer with the corps. "The I-10 bridge (west of Kenner) is designed to withstand a surge from a Category 3 storm, but it may be that water gets under the spans, and we don't know if it will survive." Other bridges over waterways and canals throughout the city may also be washed away or made unsafe, he said. In a place where cars may be useless, small boats and helicopters will be used to move survivors to central pickup areas, where they can be moved out of the city. Teams of disaster mortuary volunteers, meanwhile, will start collecting bodies. Other teams will bring in temporary equipment and goods, including sanitation facilities, water, ice and generators. Food, water and medical supplies will be airdropped to some areas and delivered to others.
Stranded survivors will have a dangerous wait even after the storm passes. Emergency officials worry that energized electrical wires could pose a threat of electrocution and that the floodwater could become contaminated with sewage and with toxic chemicals from industrial plants and backyard sheds. Gasoline, diesel fuel and oil leaking from underground storage tanks at service stations may also become a problem, corps officials say.
A variety of creatures -- rats, mice and nutria, poisonous snakes and alligators, fire ants, mosquitoes and abandoned cats and dogs -- will be searching for the same dry accommodations that people are using.
Contaminated food or water used for bathing, drinking and cooking could cause illnesses including salmonella, botulism, typhoid and hepatitis. Outbreaks of mosquito-borne dengue fever and encephalitis are likely, said Dr. James Diaz, director of the department of public health and preventive medicine at LSU School of Medicine in New Orleans.
"History will repeat itself," Diaz said. "My office overlooks one of the St. Louis cemeteries, where there are many graves of victims of yellow fever. Standing water in the subtropics is the breeding ground for mosquitoes."
Katrina's Past Cousins:
http://www.easternuswx.com/bb/index.php?showtopic=47366
Worth looking at!
Hurricane Alley, but that site is getting pounded right now.
She's not too bright to figure out how to get that message out. I live in Lake Charles and when I went to get supplies, it was pretty dead in Walmart this morning, the traffic on I10 was light. Usually it's back to back with a cat 3 storm aiming at us. Of course people could be going to the casinos instead of passing through ;)
Most of the people I know who were around for Audrey don't wait for someone to tell them to get out. They still remember being taken by surprised. They have told their children and grandchildren the horrors. My uncles worked with the Red Cross on the clean up and the stories they told stuck with me.
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