Holy CRAP is what I’m sayin! We just saw a band move through and I’m starting to get pretty nervous. Thinkin I’ll be unplugging the computer this evening. For now (and I don’t know if this link is going to work for you guys, but I tried), Here are some pictures of what it looked like here about 20-30 mins ago. Oh dear… the wind is picking up. I’m getting a little panicky. :eek: <–that’s the most appropriate smiley for me right now
Wow, I usually have to pay for the opportunity to tie girls up. Count me in.
I keep remembering a grim prediction that’s been wandering around for a while…that if New Orleans should receive a direct hit from a hurricane at category 4 strength, and the levees are overtopped, the death toll from flooding, drowning, and otherwise essentially tsunami-like effects could top 100,000…and that New Orleans could be the first total, unrecoverable loss of a major metropolitan area in American history.
<Mickey Mouse Club Theme>
Now’s the tiiime,
To Run Like Hell,
So, All our
Com-pan-eeee,
FLEeee,
(that’s “E” as in EEEEE!:eek: :eek: :eek: ),</Mickey Mouse Club Theme>
Errr, sorry to be a downer. That would be absolute worst-case scenario, obviously.
I just heard on Fox that they’re starting to shut down the bridges out of the city. So the window for evacuation is almost closed.
(A lefty like me getting his news from Fox … it must be bad … .)
My grandparents’ house is practically next to the southern lakefront in New Orleans. Two of my aunts live in or around NO (Metairie). Another aunt is in Picayune. My parents and two of my brothers live a couple miles from the MS coast. Everyone is evacuating to Tallahassee except my oldest brother, who’s sticking it out in Jackson, MS.
I’m safe at school in California, but I wish I was with my family…it’s not going to be a good week for us…
I’m really trying not to panic.
Hey Logan, those houses look familiar, which complex do you live in? I’m in the neighborhood of Highland Creek. Think we should move up?
Glad to know I’m probably not the only one to spend it here.
My sister who lives in New Orleans, by strange coincidence, was up here for the weekend. When they shut down I-10 she was stuck up here. Still, her three dogs are down there. Her friend was going to take care of them when Katrina was still a baby storm, but I’m afraid to ask now. That made it five dogs, one of whom was a Great Dane who’s scared of thunderstorms. And I don’t think Meg has an especially big car, so I don’t know how she could get them all out. I’ve also heard from other friends who are headed toward MS as we speak. That was good to hear.
Still I’ll be with the thousands of others waiting to see what Katrina does.
-Lil
I’m in Oakleigh Apts on Perkins near Siegen (no stalkers please, we have very large and scary neighbors who are willing to protect us). I might be going to a friends house later on, because the big scary protective neighbors are going and I want them to be around if an emergency situation presents itself. (which I doubt it will, and I hope it doesnt) Besides, he has a house, which seems like it might be safer than the 2nd floor of an apartment building whose sliding glass doors face north. I dont know where your neighborhood is, but if it’s on Highland I have a pretty good idea. Is Highland actually “high land” anyway? I’m pretty sure our parking lot is going to flood. We have drains in the parking lot in front of our apartment and they flood when we get a heavy rain. My car is moved away from the drains to a higher part of the lot though. I think some people will have flooded cars though. - hopefully not me.
My little brother just bought a house in Baton Rouge. I hope he has hurricane insurance. Knowing his luck, this whole storm was sent for him. He is a police officer too so I know he is going to get tapped for some pretty serious duty in the next few weeks.
AIGGGGH!
percypercy now I am going to really worry about those pets. (Humans too) but someone’s got to think of the animals that were left behind.
I don’t know about Highland being high… my car is going to be in the neighbor’s garage…
Karl, Logan – I’m also off of Seigen … more toward the Sherwood Forest area. My wife and I both have our N.O.-area families here, except for a few scattered relatives that evacuated elsewhere.
I’ve been hearing promising reports for Baton Rouge. Bruce Katz predicted max winds tomorrow of 70-75 mph for our area.
(I moved my cars to higher ground, too)
Well, that’s scary. Hopefully sustained winds won’t be that high here! They’re saying 10-12 hours of storm force winds. It looks like we’re about to have another band move through BR within the next hour, and after that it’s straight downhill. Tornado watch is on now too. New Orleans won’t live to see tomorrow.
I’m at Lee/Nicholson. I’ve been here for 4 years and I’ve never seen significant flooding, though I missed the one that came last September.
I was in New Orleans for the Great Flood of May 1995. Twenty-something inches of rain fell in just a few hours. Most of the city filled up with 2 - 5 feet of water because the pumps couldn’t keep with it. All the water was pumped out by the next day.
Even that little rainshower caused massive damage. My car was the only one on our street that didn’t get submerged and the bottom floors of most houses were damaged.
That experience makes me fear for this storm even more. If a rainstorm can cause that much damage, then I can easily see what will happen when the storm surge breaches the levies and fills the whole city in like a bowl. Add the massive wind on top of that and I don’t see how it can work out to be anything other than a distaster of monumental proportions.
Yeah, I was there for the May 8th one too. The flooding is fairly random as we had a tropical storm recently (maybe it was last year) that caused a good deal of flooding, yet a hurricaine about a month after caused none. I was actually talking about being in Baton Rouge for the last 4 years, and I’ve never seen flooding significant enough to worry about cars, though clearly none of our past storms were comparable to this bitch.
I was considering news of sustained 70 mph winds to be great news. Totally positive news, IMHO, because I’d initially feared sustained 120 mph or so.
Yea, 70mph winds, I’ve lived through those before (Hugo and Georges). 150mph winds? Not yet, and I wouldn’t want to live them here.
Ivan did NOTHING. I got two days off of school, only to have nice sunny days.