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Posted on 08/19/2007 3:52:51 AM PDT by NautiNurse
The Jamaica radio station I was listening to has been on generator power since this afternoon, and is now doing a three hour shut-down to do repairs (and probably conserve fuel). They have a national election scheduled on the 27th, and there’s been a state of emergency declared. Most of the talk wasn’t about the storm, but about the opposition claiming the whole thing’s a plot to avoid the election. Pretty typical of our situation where we’ve got people playing politics with national disasters within hours. They had some armed gangs roaming around shooting at each other in CAT4 winds, but in general they seemed less distressed than N.O. did in the immediate aftermath. So, I have a feeling there’ll be a lot of property damage, but not a huge number of fatalities. One report of a roof ripped off one the cell blocks in the main prison facility was included.
The low just took a W track.
I found an interesting animated hurricane tracking map at this site. However, it does not animate the predicted path but is great for seeing what happened.
http://html.wesh.com/sh/idi/weather/hurricanes/hurricanetracker.html
Oh, that reminded me of something Doc Frank said tonight that I wanted to pass on.
He said the “cone of uncertainty” represents a 65% chance of being right on the money - but we should keep in mind that there is also a 35% chance of a storm going outside of those imaginary boundaries, too.
He was making that point in reference to the lower TX Gulf Coast and what to do about Dean in the next few days.
Official Preliminary Report from Jamaica’s Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management.
IMPACT OF HURRICANE DEAN
The Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) is reporting that, as at 5:00pm on Sunday, August 19th, a total of 191 shelters have been opened across the island, housing some 4,594 shelterees. Severely, affected parishes are as follows:
PARISH HAZARD
St. Thomas, Portland, St. Mary and St. Catherine
Substantial wind damage, storm surge and flooding
St. James, Kingston & St. Andrew
Severe wind damage and flooding
Clarendon Flooding
DAMAGE HAS BEEN REPORTED FROM COMMUNITIES IN THE FOLLOWING PARISHES:
1. St. Thomas:
Extensive damage has been reported from several communities within the parish of St. Thomas. Significant wind damage to roofs, storm surges, flooding, collapsed structures, impassable roadways are among the many reports.
2. St. James:
The community of Coral Gardens is severely affected by wind damage.
3. Kingston and St. Andrew:
Severe wind damage and downed power lines in the Riverton city area. Also, a fallen tree caused the collapse of a residential building in the Chambers Lane Area of Liganea, St. Andrew.
4. Clarendon:
Flooding has been reported from the Denbigh gully.
5. Portland:
Several roadways in Port Antonio, Manchioneal, Mount James and Mount Airy in Buff Bay are blocked.
6. St. Mary:
Several roadways from Junction to Broadgate are impassable due to fallen trees.
7. St. Catherine:
Storm surges have been reported along the Port Henderson road in Portmore rendering the roadway impassable along with roof damage in the communities of Naggo Head and Newland. The Newland Road is also impassable due to a fallen utility pole. Additionally, sections of the roadway have been eroded in Hellshire due to storm surges and rising water levels have been reported in Old Harbour forcing the evacuation of several persons.
DAMAGE TO CRITICAL FACILITIES ARE AS FOLLOWS:
1. Telecommunications
Cellular telephone lines are down in sections of Portland, St. Mary, and Clarendon and there is currently no communication link with the parish of St. Thomas. Efforts are underway to re-establish communication links with St. Thomas as soon as possible.
2. Electricity
Well over 125,000 JPS customers are without power supply.
3. Water Supply
There have been reports of damage to water supply systems.
Heh, they’re doing better overall than I thought they might.
FWIW, all the inmates in the Rio Grande Valley jails and prisons have already been evac’ed to other prison facilities around TX, according to our local news.
*this ain’t NOLA, folks*
Outstanding Catholic Church in the middle of the City. We had a great time there. People were wonderful with US people.
Most of the tour guides in Cancun live in Merida.
I just love the people in that area. Have had about a dozen great trips there.
~~~~~~~~~~~~Walkin’LikeAnEgyptianRoundNRound~~~~~~~~~~~;0)
No Crow Fer’ Me !!~~~;0)
No foolin’ that’s gunna be real close,,,
Anybody In Front Of This Storm Better Get The Hell Out Of The Way Now !!!
Campeche(Area)Mexico~~~(Gulf Side)~~~
http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/post-goes
For Texans. NASA site, shows a straight-up N track in the last frame.
Near Miss on Jamaica:
http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/tropic/real-time/marti/2007_04L/webManager/last24hrs.gif
My first boss had a home there and regaled me with many stories of his love for the town. I’ve been close, but have never been there - have just seen lots and lots of pix.
I still don’t see it being totally out from the under the gun on Dean, tho.
That loop really looks like Dean bounced off of Jamaica.
I have no idea what you are saying. Please explain.
Under the gun of Dean?????????????.
I'm missing something here.
It sure does, once it got to about the middle of the island, it shirfted from slight north-west and stayed due west.
Ah, here, just a little Cro’Boy to keep up your strength. Eat! It’ll do you good. Want olive salad or slaw on that?
I wonder if the chattering Mayan monkeys all go silent when a storm is approaching, like animals elsewhere. Oh, well, hard to know when there’s *no one* there to hear them, anyway!
Go there, Dean, go there!
Near Miss on Jamaica:
~~~~~~~~~~~
TANKS Rob,,,It sure was,,,Too Close !!,,,The only good thing
is that the hurricane-force winds are only about 120 miles
across at this time,,,
Still heading just a touch north of due west in this
sat-loop,,,waiting for up-date...
Well, if Dean stays on a westward course, as it has been, and it hits Cancun, it’s just a hop, skip to the coast at Merida to get to the bahia. Comprende?
However, once inland, we don’t know what Dean will do, so that’s just a *guess* based on his previous behavior. I’m thinking he will be south of there, but that still puts Merida on the dirty side.
I thought one of the moves the Jamaica authorities made is something one could learn from. Rather than continue providing utilities until the storm wiped them out, causing massive damage to transformers, pumps, and substations, putting the whole system out of service for weeks, they just shut down electricity and water area by area as the storm hit. Everybody knew about it ahead of time, and they’ll be able to start firing up the undamaged sectors first thing in the morning. Pretty slick idea, actually. They’ll have partial power and water back quickly, then be able to start the repairs a leg at a time.
Those people would welcome Americans immediately.
I can't say enough good things about people from Merdia.
There are 75,000 tourists in Cancun who are being evac’ed.
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