HURRICANELONNY
Weather Guru
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Posts: 100
Loc: HOLLYWOOD,FL.
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Area forecast discussion
National Weather Service Miami Florida
209 PM EDT Monday Sep 26 2005
Discussion...middle level trough southwest of Andros moving west and
approaching South Florida showing up well on water vapor. 12Z sounding
showed cooling from 700 mb to h4 but we still have a weak subsidence
cap around 600 mb. Short wave and front to move into North Florida
and northeast Gulf and stall. shows a low developing in the
northeast Gulf of Mexico possibly on the south end of the front.
That seems to weaken and fade away by Friday but another low forms
over the northwest Caribbean and moves northwest through the
Yucatan Channel early Saturday. This one really needs to be
monitored.
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MapMaster
Weather Guru
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Posts: 138
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Margie:
I appreciate your fervor and zeal. I agree with your conclusion re: media overfocus on NO. However, your pictures don't show much, sorry. Aerials aren't as convincing as ground shots.
However---I WAS THERE for weeks in S. Mississippi, on the ground, in many of the places you (and others) are talking about. There is terrific destruction, but NOT to the degree you are stating. However, we are merely talking about differences in terminology/degree, most likely. It IS terrible in S. Mississippi...and directly related to the storm, not to subsequent events ("levee'" breaks).
I dispute your assertion about planning by the three counties....if there were plans, that were executed and executable, I didn't see them.
It was criminal that the public safety agencies didn't pull back out of harms way...one of the first rules for responders...."don't become a victim yourself"... if you become a victim, then you are of no help to anyone and actually absorb resources that could be better used. I heard about police swimming out of their stations ...saw a fire station ONE BLOCK from the coast that had all apparatus still in it, destroyed of course.
Hundreds of cars were abandoned along the median and sides of 603 and 607--in neat lines..by folks who thought they would be safe there. All destroyed...and people died in some of them....planning, I didn't see it.
Many people died due to lack of planning and lack of executable plans...I saw the proof of that.
The % of damage you stated in some of the coastal communities are true for the areas SOUTH of the RR tracks and /or US 90, but not true overall. Some figures have been highly overinflated (90% of Pascagoula was not destroyed...I was just there).
However...everything south of the RR tracks in Gulfport, Waveland, BSL and Pass C..yes, gone. Heartbreaking.
FEMA has started putting in trailers...and blue roofs went up much faster than last yr in Fl.
As in most cases--extremes on both ends can be discounted...the truth is in the middle. The truth is pretty terrible, any way you look at it. And NOLA was not the main damaged area by the STORM direct effects.
MM
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Margie
Senior Storm Chaser
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Posts: 1191
Loc: Twin Cities
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In Pascagoula, the buildings are destroyed, because they are inhabitable due to four feet or more of flood waters. They are all going to have to be razed! It is exactly the same results as if nothing was left but a slab.
Those images do show complete destruction...did you use the zoom feature to look at the details?
Because my brother was in charge of rescues in the western part of the county, I know there was a great deal of hurricane planning done in Jackson County (by the way the county with the least number of deaths along the MS coast). I think it was more planning than was done by the other two counties. Harrison County did not have a mandatory evac and was not very proactive in asking people to leave the coastline; they did have the highest number of fatalities so far, but that may also be because they have the highest population.
Do you know that ATV in the western part of the county saved 23 lives before the surge hit? That's 23 people that didn't have to die from storm surge. That is a poor county and they didn't have to spend money on those vehicles; they had a long-term plan to save lives and it worked.
The police that had to swim out of the station were in BSL, I believe, in Hancock County. That is also the county where the EOC almost didn't make it. However they were in a building 30 feet above sea level. The surge there was 30 feet with waves on top of the surge, and ate away one of the walls of the building.
The EOCs across the MS Gulf Coast did set up according to the surge forecast (which was 18-22 feet, higher locally). In Jackson County they did not anticipate the max surge, being so far from the eyewall - and remember the original track was to go to the west of NOLA. There was really no way they could anticipate an 18 foot surge there; the EOC, at 13 feet of elevation, was felt to be out of the area of danger. Remember that "locally" turned out to be 90 miles to the east of the center of the eyewall (Ocean Springs had a surge higher than 22 feet). This had never happened in any other storm, and I don't believe that warnings specifically anticipated this. The western deployment area in Jackson County was felt to be safe at 25 feet and I don't think they anticipated a 26-foot surge there.
Vehicles were not safe regardless of whether they were in the surge area or not. All glass was blown out of vehicles due to the wind whether they were flooded or not.
Also in Jackson County the upper part of the county, where they might have "pulled back" to, did not have any buildings to pull back to. That is totally rural up there; all the public buildings are on the coastline, and no one really travels to the back county unless they live there. In fact, so much of that county is water, that by "pulling back" to the rural area, they would have probably been surrounded by water and trapped, and unable to get to the populated areas to be of any service.
There are only a couple of roads, all rural, out of that county to the north. The only interstate, I-10, runs along the coast to Mobile, in AL, or to Biloxi, in Harrison County. Even parts of I-10 were flooded after the storm in Jackson County, and impassable. All the local roads into and out of the county were initially flooded somewhere during the surge.
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Katrina's Surge: http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/Katrinas_surge_contents.asp
Edited by Margie (Mon Sep 26 2005 05:34 PM)
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Thunderbird12
Meteorologist
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Posts: 644
Loc: Oklahoma
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Here is what the afternoon TWD mentions about the wave in the Caribbean:
CENTRAL CARIBBEAN TROPICAL WAVE IS ALONG 70W S OF 20N MOVING W
15 KT WITH A 1010 MB LOW NEAR 13N70W. THE WAVE HAS BEEN
REPOSITIONED SLIGHTLY TO THE E BASED ON SURFACE OBSERVATIONS
FROM THE ABC ISLANDS REPORTING LIGHT SW OR NW WINDS. PRESSURES
FALLS ARE OCCURRING WITH THIS WAVE THOUGH THE CONVECTION PATTERN
IS DISORGANIZED. A BAND OF TSTMS MOVING AWAY FROM THE WAVE IS
ALONG 17N71W TO 15N75W WITH WIDELY SCATTERED MODERATE CONVECTION
CLOSER TO THE BROAD LOW FROM 13N-15.5N BETWEEN 66W-71W. WITH
THE SO FAR TO THE NORTH IN THE EPAC.. IT IS POSSIBLE THAT
THIS WAVE WILL ENCOUNTER A CYCLONIC LOW-LEVEL ENVIRONMENT
FAVORABLE FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENT IN THE W CARIBBEAN IN A COUPLE
DAYS.
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dave foster
Weather Hobbyist
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Posts: 73
Loc: UK
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Quote :
[ No I don't agree. NOLA most definitely did not get the brunt of . Didn't you look at any of the images in the link I provided? ]
Yes, I did take a look at your images and they are indeed disturbing but, you obviously never read my post properly. If you care to read it again you will find that your assertion that I said 'New Orleans got the brunt' is most definitely incorrect.
Whether the loss of life in New Orleans can be directly attributed to the storm, the lack of an evacuation plan or the subsequent breach of the levees is not the issue now. The loss of life in New Orleans was terrible and, as you state later, considerably greater than in the 200 miles of coastline.
On a final note, I consider the loss of life, whatever the circumstance, to be more profound than the destruction and loss of property.
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Dave Foster
http://www.ascn92.dsl.pipex.com
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Sheeper
Weather Hobbyist
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Posts: 62
Loc: Vero Beach, FL
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the kind of destruction that these storms bring is teriible, the loss of life worse. As a professional, i tell civilians that "if you value your property and things more than your life and the life of your family then you WILL die." Plain and simple. I'll be back in S. Miss with a medical team and relief later this week. This group is a private organization that has engaged my services to understand US disaster response (they have experience in global relief). I'll ask anyone here that if they know of specific needs and/or specific contacts that this group can work with and/or help to let me know.
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Emergency Management Consultant & Trainer
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