HURRICANE KATRINA

[Zachary]

When Hurricane Katrina hit here is South Florida, she was only a Cat 1 storm with 75mph winds.  Even then, she has left over 500,000 people without power.

I can't imagine what this storm will do to our brothers and sisters in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi.

My thoughts and prayers go out to all of you in Katrina's path.  May you and your loved ones be safe.

Zachary

[IntrepidWizard]

In the early 1900's a Hurricane hit Corpus Cristi and killed between 6000-7000 people because they did not heed the warning,on Labor 1935 another on hit and they had warnings and then Camille and Andrews and now Katrina.In the early 1900's the Army Corp of Engineers straighten out the Mississippi river and as a result silt was shifted away from New Orlean causing it to be 13' below sea level and a Level 4 or 5 would have a surge of 15 -25  ' so they are going to get hammered unless it moves toward Mobile which is not much better off.

[Graybeard]

Katrina is now a Category 5 with winds of 175 mph. Here is what the National Weather Service says is gonna happen to New Orleans. Sounds like maybe after the storm there will not be a New Orleans.

URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

...DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED...

.HURRICANE KATRINA...A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED
STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT
LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL
FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY
DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL.
PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD
FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE
BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME
WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A
FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH
AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY
VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE
ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE
WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN
AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING
INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

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.

They are expecting the water level in Mobile to be the highest it's ever been. I think this is only the third or fourth Cat. 5 to ever hit the US.

[IntrepidWizard]

It will be a catastophy for that area of LA and AL,it could --God forbid--destroy Big Easy.

[Graybeard]

Here is the latest update of the B'ham based TV33/40 Weather Blog.

Hourly updates from here on out from the National Hurricane Center...

ZCZC MIATCEAT2 ALL
TTAA00 KNHC DDHHMM
HURRICANE KATRINA TROPICAL CYCLONE POSITION ESTIMATE
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
11 PM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

AT 11 PM CDT...0400Z...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE KATRINA WAS ESTIMATED
BY NOAA/NWS LANDBASED RADAR TO BE NEAR LATITUDE 27.8 NORTH...
LONGITUDE 89.4 WEST. THIS POSITION IS ABOUT 90 MILES
SOUTH-SOUTHWEST OF THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER AND ABOUT
160 MILES SOUTH-SOUTHEAST OF NEW ORLEANS LOUISIANA.

FORECASTER STEWART/FRANKLIN

$$
NNNN

The storm appears to be moving more north...






by Bill Murray in Tropical Weather
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Late Evening Notes
August 28, 2005, 10:57 pm
It is going to be a long night for the poor folks in southeastern Louisiana and southern Mississippi as extremely dangerous Hurricane Katrina moves across the area. The city of Houma is in Terrebonne Parish. It is very close to the Gulf of Mexico, separated from the Gulf of Mexico by only a few miles of marshland. I operate a Hampton Inn hotel there. Brazette Carlos and her team are a brave group of folks that are staying in the hotel tonight along some media folks and government officials. The hotel has never experienced a direct hit from a major hurricane. What a nerve wracking experience that will be for them.

As we commented last night, there are some similarities between Camille and Katrina. Both are powerful, steady-state hurricanes that maintained deep intensities for an extended period of time with little change. It appears that both hurricanes will strike generally the same area. Katrina will be moving north when it reaches the area just west of the Pearl River at the Mississippi/Louisiana border. The storms had nearly identical central pressures, but they still are very different. Camille was a very tight and small storm. Camille’s eye was only about five miles in diameter. It was a tightly wound storm. Katrina has had a 25-30 mile wide eye and a much larger wind field. Even though their central pressures have been very similar, Camille had much higher maximum sustained winds.

J.B. Elliott says he was on vacation on that fateful night in August 1969. He remembers listening to WWL radio in New Orleans to get information on the storm, just like people all over the country are doing tonight.

Walter Maestri, the Emergency Director for Jefferson Parish said on WWL last night that the center of Hurricane Katrina passing directly over the city of New Orleans was actually a blessing. He said that if the hurricane had passed 15-20 miles to the west, things would have been much worse. Hopefully, there will be no major changes overnight.




by Bill Murray in Tropical Weather
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New Recon Data
August 28, 2005, 10:30 pm
Pressure still very, very low... at 908 mb. Flight level winds are down to 122 knots, or 140 mph. NHC will probably lower wind speed in the next advisory... probably dropping Katrina to category four level. This is still a very, very dangerous storm.

000
URNT12 KNHC 290307
VORTEX DATA MESSAGE
A. 29/02:36:10Z
B. 27 deg 34 min N
089 deg 25 min W
C. 700 mb 2289 m
D. NA kt
E. NA deg 000 nm
F. 035 deg 122 kt
G. 306 deg 015 nm
H. 908 mb
I. 13 C/ 3018 m
J. 25 C/ 3022 m
K. 17 C/ NA
L. CLOSED WALL
M. C30
N. 12345/ 7
O. 0.03 / 2 nm
P. AF305 2012A KATRINA OB 04
MAX FL WIND 122 KT NW QUAD 02:31:40 Z




by James Spann in Tropical Weather
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Katrina Podcast
August 28, 2005, 10:23 pm
David Black has put together an excellent audio update on Katrina over on our podcast site:

http://www.jamesspann.com/bmachine/podcast.php

You can play the file directly from the web if you want, or download for use on a portable MP3 player.




by James Spann in Weather Discussions
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9:30 PM Update
August 28, 2005, 9:41 pm
Fresh information from the National Hurricane Center tonight. Main points:

* Sustained winds now 160 mph
* Still moving NW
* At landfall, projected to be at the high end of a Category 4
* Overall track forecast will show little or no change.
* However, at 36 hours a bit more eastward placing it in NW Alabama
* Hurricane eye now easily seen on New Orleans Radar

ALABAMA
No real changes from earlier posts. Tornado Watch continues for South part of the state. Several spiral bands have moved inland. At one time, tornado warning were issued for Mobile and Baldwin County tonight. A big storm surge expected along the Alabama Coast. Forecast on that unchanged. Could be 20 feet in upper part of Mobile Bay. In Central Alabama, including Anniston-Birmingham-Tuscaloosa, worst weather will be from Monday afternoon into Tuesday. Not as bad east of I-65, worse west of I-65. On west side of the state, including places like Livingston, Demopolis, Moundville, Tuscaloosa, Fayette (to name a few) could get as much as 3 to 6 inches of rain. Whole state will be on "bad side" of hurricane so there will be a risk of spinoff tornadoes.

LATE SPOT REPORTS
New Orleans International Airport...cloudy, wind NE 31, gusts to 39
New Orleans Lakefront Airport...light rain, wind NE 37, gusts to 45
Baton Rouge...light rain, wind NE 12
Gulfport and Biloxi...light rain, wind NE 24
Brookley Field, near Downtown Mobile...light rain, wind NE 20, gusts 25.

Prayers...many prayers are in order for all the folks in New Orleans tonight. In 40+ years of weather work, I have never seen anything this scary...






by J.B. Elliott in Tropical Weather
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One Million Homeless?
August 28, 2005, 9:17 pm
From the Associated Press wire here at ABC 33/40...

When Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans on Monday, it could turn one of America's most charming cities into a vast cesspool tainted with toxic chemicals, human waste and even coffins released by floodwaters from the city's legendary cemeteries.

Experts have warned for years that the levees and pumps that usually keep New Orleans dry have no chance against a direct hit by a Category 5 storm.

That's exactly what Katrina was as it churned toward the city. With top winds of 165 mph and the power to lift sea level by as much as 28 feet above normal, the storm threatened an environmental disaster of biblical proportions, one that could leave more than 1 million people homeless.

"All indications are that this is absolutely worst-case scenario," Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, said Sunday afternoon.

The center's latest computer simulations indicate that by Tuesday, vast swaths of New Orleans could be under water up to 30 feet deep. In the French Quarter, the water could reach 20 feet, easily submerging the district's iconic cast-iron balconies and bars.

Estimates predict that 60 percent to 80 percent of the city's houses will be destroyed by wind. With the flood damage, most of the people who live in and around New Orleans could be homeless.

"We're talking about in essence having _ in the continental United States _ having a refugee camp of a million people," van Heerden said.

Aside from Hurricane Andrew, which struck Miami in 1992, forecasters have no experience with Category 5 hurricanes hitting densely populated areas.

"Hurricanes rarely sustain such extreme winds for much time. However we see no obvious large-scale effects to cause a substantial weakening the system and it is expected that the hurricane will be of Category 4 or 5 intensity when it reaches the coast," National Hurricane Center meteorologist Richard Pasch said.

As they raced to put meteorological instruments in Katrina's path Sunday, wind engineers had little idea what their equipment would record.

"We haven't seen something this big since we started the program," said Kurt Gurley, a University of Florida engineering professor. He works for the Florida Coastal Monitoring Program, which is in its seventh year of making detailed measurements of hurricane wind conditions using a set of mobile weather stations.

Experts have warned about New Orleans' vulnerability for years, chiefly because Louisiana has lost more than a million acres of coastal wetlands in the past seven decades. The vast patchwork of swamps and bayous south of the city serves as a buffer, partially absorbing the surge of water that a hurricane pushes ashore.

Experts have also warned that the ring of high levees around New Orleans, designed to protect the city from floodwaters coming down the Mississippi, will only make things worse in a powerful hurricane. Katrina is expected to push a 28-foot storm surge against the levees. Even if they hold, water will pour over their tops and begin filling the city as if it were a sinking canoe.

After the storm passes, the water will have nowhere to go.

In a few days, van Heerden predicts, emergency management officials are going to be wondering how to handle a giant stagnant pond contaminated with building debris, coffins, sewage and other hazardous materials.

"We're talking about an incredible environmental disaster," van Heerden said.

He puts much of the blame for New Orleans' dire situation on the very levee system that is designed to protect southern Louisiana from Mississippi River floods.

Before the levees were built, the river would top its banks during floods and wash through a maze of bayous and swamps, dropping fine- grained silt that nourished plants and kept the land just above sea level.

The levees "have literally starved our wetlands to death" by directing all of that precious silt out into the Gulf of Mexico, van Heerden said.

It has been 40 years since New Orleans faced a hurricane even comparable to Katrina. In 1965, Hurricane Betsy, a Category 3 storm, submerged some parts of the city to a depth of seven feet.

Since then, the Big Easy has had nothing but near misses. In 1998, Hurricane Georges headed straight for New Orleans, then swerved at the last minute to strike Mississippi and Alabama. Hurricane Lili blew herself out at the mouth of the Mississippi in 2002. And last year's Hurricane Ivan obligingly curved to the east as it came ashore, barely grazing a grateful city.





by James Spann in General Thoughts
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TV Specials About To Begin
August 28, 2005, 7:49 pm
Our first TV special begins at 8:00 p.m. on Comcast Cable Channel 16 in Tuscaloosa, and our digital channels 33.2 and 40.2. We will feature live coverage from our meteorologists here in the Weather Center, our crew in Gulf Shores and local EMA officials. We will take your questions at this address:

hurricane@abc3340.com

We will answer as many questions as possible during the special.

This one hour program is specially designed for our viewers in west Alabama, where the most Katrina will bring a serious threat of widespread tree damage and power outages.

On our main ABC 33/40 signal, we will have a one hour special version of ABC 33/40 News at 10:00 with complete coverage of Katrina.

Long form coverage begins tomorrow morning at 5:00 a.m.

We hope to stream our coverage tomorrow...




by James Spann in Tropical Weather
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Early Evening Spot Reports
August 28, 2005, 7:41 pm
These observations were made at 7 pm, CDT:

Brookley Field, Mobile...wind NE 17
Biloxi...Light rain...wind NE 15, gusts 24
Gulfport...light rain, wind NE 12, gusts 24
Baton Rouge...light rain, east 23, gusts 31
New Orleans International...light rain, NE 17, gusts 26
Dauphin Island (Alabama)...east 34, gusts 38, water temperature 87 (very warm)
Mobile South Buoy #42040...east 40, gusts 47, 28 foot waves





by J.B. Elliott in Tropical Weather
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Coastal notes - 7:30 p.m.
August 28, 2005, 7:33 pm
Good feeder band in the Gulf Shores are where we are at 7:20 p.m. We saw strong winds gusting to arprximately 40 mph. One interesting feature is the lightning. Brian Peters reports that he has never seen this much electrical activity with a tropical system. A tornado warning is in effect for Baldwin County and Mobile County until 7:40 p.m. A tornado watch is in effect for South Alabama until 2 a.m.

Curfews are now in effect in most Southeast Louisiana Parishes and the coastal counties of Mississippi.

Cars are still stuck in gridlock on I-10 east. People are running our of fuel. But all in all, reports indicate the traffic is easing up now in Southeast Lousiana and Mississippi.

High tide in Hancock County, Mississippi is around sunrise. It will be near astronomical low tide when the main hurricane surge arrives.

More soon....







by Bill Murray in General Thoughts
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Late Facts on Katrina 7 pm CDT
August 28, 2005, 7:12 pm
KATRINA STEADILY MOVING TOWARD COAST...
STILL CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE...
CENTER LESS THAN 15 HOURS FROM CITY...
BASIC TRACK UNCHANGED...

FAST FACTS ON KATRINA AS OF 7 PM CDT...
LOCATION....Latitude 27.2N Longitude 89.1W or about 120 miles S of the Mouth of the Mississippi River
MOVEMENT: NNW 11 mph
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS: 160 mph (Category 5)
CENTRAL PRESSURE: 904 millibars... 26.69 inches




by Bill Murray in Tropical Weather
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The ABC 33/40 Weather Blog was created and is maintained by The Weather Company  

[Lone Star]

In the early 1900's a Hurricane hit Corpus Cristi and killed between 6000-7000 people because they did not heed the warning....

Actually it was in September 1900 and the location was Galveston island.  It was not so much that the people disregarded warnings as much as there was no radar and very little knowledge about hurricanes at that time; Galveston had never been hit by a large hurricane before.  The warnings were not to evacuate the island but to move off the beech onto higher ground.  Since the highest point on the island is about 9 feet above sea level and the storm surge was over 15 feet, the warning was useless.  With ca. 6000 dead it remains the deadliest natural disaster in US history.

[1911crazy]

If we ever wanted the weatherman to be totally wrong this is it, of course this time they seem to be right.  I think were all going to feel the wrath of this one in some way. But i'm praying it won't be too bad for our southern sisters and brothers.  

If this weather pattern keeps up like this into the winter i think were going to get some awesome snow fall amounts this comming season.  Its time to stockup on food and keep the firewood near the house too. I have a feeling were going to get hammered.

[IntrepidWizard]

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/

[Zachary]

GB,

I see that Katrina has moved inland and it headed toward Mississippi and Alabama.  How are you holding up?  Are you guys Okay?

Zachary

[Graybeard]

Doing fine here. Been mostly sunny so far today. Some clouds but not heavy cloud cover. No rain yet. Current prediction for my area is 20-30 mph winds and about 2" of rain. We get that every time we have a summer thunderstorm. Don't expect much from it here. The western part of Bama and eastern part of MS and especially the southern MS and Bama areas are getting hammered. Looks like the Big Easy dodged the bullet again.

[mr.frosty]

she seems to headed toward my part of this end of tenn and looks like to the southwestern part tonight of tenn so lets be wary of this one.
the forecast for here is 25 to 35 mph winds and heavy thunderstorms

[jmckinley]

Gentlemen I just finished watching the ABC news speical in The Wake of katrina and I must admit this ole man was heart broken. I lived and worked in Kessler AFB while in the USAF and was staitioned with the Hurricane Hunters. The devistation is beyond comprehension and the suffering of our fellow citizens heart wrenching. I'm posting this for a very specific reason, Greybeard is it possible that the members of this site donate to a relief fund under the banner of this forum? I do not know if it's possible but I think we as a group of liked minded people need to do something. They need our Prayers for sure but they need so much more! What do you gentlemen think?

                                        God Bless,
                                           Jess :cry:

[Graybeard]

Greybeard is it possible that the members of this site donate to a relief fund under the banner of this forum? I do not know if it's possible but I think we as a group of liked minded people need to do something. They need our Prayers for sure but they need so much more! What do you gentlemen think?

Possible? Probably. How? Dunno. Not sure how the logistics of such might be handled.

I guess first you'd need to decide the "who" to donate the money to. Not sure if there is something set up for it already or not. Then you'd have to decide who was gonna collect the funds from members to forward to whomever it was to be given to.

[jmckinley]

GrayBread,
       My suggestion would be the700 Club. This isa proven, trustworthy Christian Organization who provides assistanceall over the world. I know the money or supplies would getto where it needs to go. If we can't collect it for agroup donation we can do this as individuals of the larger group.
How does that sound to you, sportsmen and women united to assist our neighbors in time of overwheleming need and sorry.
                               Jess

[Slamfire]

Graybeard, one old man to another, put up a link to one or more of the organizations. Be sure to include the Salvation Army, I won't deal with the Red Cross after the 9/11 shenagians.  :x