gustav is scary

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Hurricane Gustav is coming. And we don’t like it…
I just made motel reservations. If it comes close we won’t even consider staying. The wind shear and the gulf is favorable. It is going to get to the Gulf Coast and it is going to be a strong one. Wind shear is low. The water conditions (locations of warm core rings) is erilly(sp) similar to Katrina. And the best models have it coming ashore at or just west of the Mississippi river. We took 2 feet of water from Katrina. Of course it all depends, but this one could be worse. Depends on it’s size. If it is as large as Katrina, yup. If it is as small as say Camille, it will be really bad in a smaller area.

Unfortunately, no matter where it comes ashore, the oil industry in the Gulf is going to take a major hit. There is just a lot to lose out there.
Next week is going to be a really bad news week…

2

My sister just emailed me about this (she’s in NO). Is the Gulf water is as hot this time as it was for Katrina? It’s one to keep watch on, for sure.

3

Yikes. Is New Orleans better prepared than they were for Katrina?

4

I don’t think so - there’s not been enough time, yet, to do what’s planned.

From here.

Of course, the best policy is ‘don’t live below flood levels’. That’s a lot easier said than done, however, especially in a historic place like NO.

5

gustav is looking like lightning hitting twice. i hope fema has a better person in charge now.

6

Here he is. Hmm… firefighter from Florida? He might work out well, actually.

Did they do O.K. with Fay? I confess I wasn’t paying attention.

7

If it makes anyone feel any better, it’s far too early to predict where Gustav will make landfall. Right now, pretty much anywhere on the upper Gulf coast could be hit. The picture will be somewhat clearer by Saturday, but remember that regarding Rita in 2005, the forecast had her making a direct hit on the Houston-Galveston area 24 hours before landfall. Instead, Beaumont-Lake Charles took the brunt of the storm.

With that said, it appears strongly likely Gustav will reach Cat 4 status at some point, so someone’s going to be hurtin’ when he comes ashore. I work for an oilfield service company, and pretty much all of the rigs we are currently working on in the Gulf plan to evacuate their personnel or sail out of storm’s path by Thursday or so.

8

Damn Gustav.

9

gustav is slated to strengthen to a cat. 4 in the gulf. nice warm water and nothing has stirred it up lately.

10

the water is warm and note that there is at least one warm core ring in the north central gulf. That is important for the same reason it was important to Katrina. The ring acts as a fuel boost to the storm if the storm crosses it. If the ring is in the northern gulf the storm has enough time to build up a strong storm surge-and not enough time for the surge to relax after the storm passes the ring before it hits land. So Katrina came ashore as a strong 3 but with a Cat 4 storm surge.

All that said, if Gustav misses the ring or if the ring isn’t far enough north (no models I am aware of can make the prediction. We didn’t realize what happened with Katrina until well after the storm), it won’t happen. But it could. And even if it does, the storm is going to be a strong one even without the extra boost.

Hurricanes are a balance. warm water fuels them. wind shear tears them apart. high level circulation gives the rising air someplace to go. Estimating the balance is tough. But that is what is needed to estimate the strength. Course is easier. The regional pressure fields steer the storm.

But it is time for us all on the coast to plan for a weekend gettaway…

11

well I am pretty sure they aren’t going to wait until all the bus drivers have left town to decide to evacuate…

12

If anything was learned from Rita, I hope it was that every Tom, Dick and Mary well inland of the projected path doesn’t need to evacuate when a named storm hits, just those potentially affected by the storm surge. Jeez, what a CF that was.

13

Thanks, that’s what I was wondering about. :slight_smile:

14

Hmm, beginning to look like the same area as Katrina’s landfall.

That’s uncool. :frowning:

15

Native New Orlenian checking in here…

In terms of infrastructure:

Breaches in levees and flood walls have been fixed or improved. Depending on the storm, I don’t think that stuff will break again in those points. It’s the points that didn’t get fixed that have the potential to break.

On the plus side, the Corps of Engineers completed building gates at the mouths of the outfall canals that drain rainwater from the city into Lake Pontchartrain. These were non-existent in Katrina, which was one major factor in the lake flooding the city. The gates will be closed when the lake threatens to flood into the canals.

That said, if we get a category 3 or higher, I’d expect some portions of the city to flood again.

In terms of personal preparedness:

I’ve talked to lots of people who figure that Katrina was among the worst we’d see in terms of flooding, so more people than last time plan to stay and ride out Gustav if he’s a weak 3 or lower. That said, I don’t know how well prepared the citizenry is, probably about the same.

In terms of City leadership:

Don’t get me started. The same clowns from Katrina-time were reelected.

In terms of State leadership:

Governor Bobby Jindal appears to have a firm hand on the tiller. How we wish he’d been governor three years ago and not Kathleen Blanco. While government failed on every level, she was the weak link that delayed much of the Federal help getting to the city in a timely fashion.

In terms of Federal leadership:

I’ll hope FEMA has learned something.

I’m in charge of planning for my office. We’re in readiness mode and watching Gustav closely. It’s too early to tell where he’s headed, particularly 4 to 4.5 days out.