Power’s apparently out in NO now. It took some other friends of mine 11 hours to drive from NO to Memphis(a six hour trip normally). And apparently her son made it to Baton Rouge(55 miles from NO) in six hours.
-Lil
I know this is almost completely irrelevant, but I don’t think this is an actual weather service warning. Out of idle curiosity, because it didn’t read like any weather warning I’d ever read, I had a look through the NOAA’s sites and can’t find anything like it.
The use of exclamation marks kind of gives it away, weather services don’t seem prone to them. I can’t find the original source, but I don’t think it has come from any official site, so I suspect it’s a “fake” warning.
It has already turned up in one article in The Age newspaper, directly attributed to a New Orleans official.
I don’t know, things seem pretty grim for people in the path of the storm without the spread of material designed to scare the holy crap out of them.
As it happens we’re having 80-100kmh hour winds here right now, which are unsettling, I can’t even imagine how terrifying winds two or three times as strong would be.
I hope that the storm passes leaving as little destruction in its path as is possible.
I think the Superdome will survive, but the 10,000 people holed up inside are going to have a miserable time of it. The roof is leaking badly and the eye of the storm is 40 miles away.
Mobile is also being evacuated because of flooding-- more than 3 feet high in the downtown core.
Hmm…I think you’re right. The address isn’t right, though it does link to the NOAA site.
It’s just that this pretty much outlines the usual worst-case scenario. It does seem a bit alarmist but it’s possible, if not this time.
BASTARDS.
The roof of the Superdome is beginning to leak.
Barbarian, I’m sorry, I missed you had already said that. I hope it doesn’t get any worse, but it seems like a vain hope at the moment.
Weather.com is saying that one of the levees was breached and there’s 3 to 8 feet of water flooding the 9th Ward. I don’t know where that is in the city, though.
I never could figure out a lot of the local geography; for some reason, I find New Orleans to be incredibly confusing. I know how to get to here and there, but I can’t picture it, and I can’t find a map online to tell me where the heck the 9th Ward is. I do know that it’s an incredibly low-lying area, and has flooded badly in past hurricanes.
Hurricane updates from NOLA.com and the Times-Picayune. There is structural damage and some flooding, but the eye of the storm is about 45 miles east of the city rather than right above it, so they won’t get eyewall winds. Looks like 145ish mph or so, which is bad, but not Category 5 bad. Parts of the city had power as of 6:15 CDT this morning, because the French Quarter cam was still working and showing streetlighting.
Its legitimate, its not a hoax, you can find it yourself on NOAA by simply going to weather.noaa.gov, going to United States weather, Louisiana then choose county Orleans and there the warning is. http://weather.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/iwszone3 a few warnings down.
No worries Kyla.
The weather guys I’m working with say that the NOAA site is crashing because too many people are trying to access it, so you probably won’t be able to get through to see the specific warnings. If you’re in the area, listening to to radio is probably your best bet.
I-10 will probably be shut down for a long time, since an oil rig in dock for repairs is smashing the bridge between Mobile and Pensacola.
Several buildings have collapsed in and around New Orleans, and the levees have been topped at several points. Looks like that toxic cesspool scenario is about to happen.
I was curious and hadn’t heard a couple of issues addressed…(1) Did the Army Core of Engineers make any effort to “pre-drain” any of the areas expected to flood, and (2) What efforts were made to secure Mississippi River shipping and other waterborne vessels like the casinos?
Or did this infernal thing just come up too quickly?
Please pardon my ignorance.
I would like to know the approximate geography of this area but can’t find a decent map, possibly because most of the top hits on Google are too busy today.
I’m gathering that many people are heading from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. I have a vauge idea where the first is (only from the satellite weather maps, I can tell where NO is because of where the hurricane is) and none at all about the second.
Can someone please post a link to a map of the Gulf Coast area, including surrounding states, and names of cities and bodies of water? Preferrably one that’s not too busy right now?
Thanks!
But when I go to the NOAA weather info area, all the URLs seem to start with http://nws.noaa.gov. Not http://weather.noaa.gov. Something weird is going on here.
Also, the graphics on the supposed weather.gov site look wrong, now that I looked more carefully. I was more than a little freaked out last night.
Its the national weather service (nws) subdomain, nothing weird. Its like here, boards.straightdope.com a subdomain of The Straightdope.com main website.
I wish I was better at web stuff, but I’m still skeptical. There’s an awful lot of info there for a fake, but I can’t find out whether I’m being redirected but it’s showing a fake address or if it’s real. I’d try emailing the NWS, but they are a little bit busy right now.
Looks like New Orleans just barely dodged a bullet again. It’s still going to be a huge mess, but at least it’ll still be there tonight…
We left at before dawn Sunday morning after working all day Saturday getting the house ready. My wife went to bed while I worked the rest of the night getting every last thing done I could think of. At 3am the latest on the storm put it at Cat 4 and expected to go 5. At that point I woke my wife up, told her to pack up while I got other things together and we were leaving. We made it to Alexandria, La with little delay only because we beat the mass exodus out of the city Sunday morning. My mother and brother stayed behind since my mother wouldn’t leave her animals(3 dogs, 4 cats).
Just got off phone with my mother. I’m amazed cell phones are still working. Street flooding on the west bank of the city(across the Miss. rover from downtown) but no house flooding. Trees down and power out but the levees are holding. She sees no houses destroyed and only spotty roof damage.