We could very possibly be seeing some history, here, unfortunately- the almost total destruction of present-day N.O. 175mph winds over a 150 mile area, 30 feet of water, N.O. could effectively be erased from the map. Scary.

My memory is muddy what's this river I'm in
New Orleans is sinking and I don't want to swim

Don't be silly. Katrina's not a carbon copy of Camille.

For one, Katrina is much, much bigger.

Camille had slightly higher winds at landfall (190 to 200 MPH), but Katrina's eye is about twice as wide, and is still building in strength (and is showing signs of becoming an "annular" or "doughnut" storm, which means it will get stronger and won't weaken as much after landfall).

Katrina's storm surge is *already* bigger than Camille's...

Expect the worst damages since Andrew, and I'm afraid pretty much the end of N.O. as you may remember it. The cities pump and levee sytems are pushed to capacity by a strong rain; thisstorm really is the worst-case scenario. I'm also afraid we could see a big loss of life, as the very poor surrounding areas are typically small homes sitting on blocks on the flood plain.

I've been through a couple of hurricanes, but never a Cat 5. All of the people I know down there have gotten out already, I hope everyone heeds the evacuation warning.

I do appreciate the cable news reporters down there, giving us the 'before' footage of idiotic people whose bodies are going to be found three miles away under debris and sand.

If I were a reporter and they wanted to send me down to the coast to cover this story, you know what I'd say?

"Kiss my ass."
or
"Send Geraldo."

Just remember: even with a "full" evacuation, about 10% to 12% of the residents of New Orleans are going to stay home. With the "you're all going to die" comments on the news, they might get as low as 5%.

In a city that size, that could mean 25,000 people still in their houses and apartments when the storm hits.

Old houses. In a flood plain.

The math gets pretty ugly from there...

Arrgh.
Goodbye, New Orleans.

I can't believe anyone is fool enough to stay there with that storm coming!

Richmond isn't supposed to get hit this time, I'm still pretty nervous the storm will change it's mind. ::shudder::

Man, that's a big storm.

The weather channel just did a story on what a hurricane could do to New Orleans. FEMA estimates that if a direct hit happened, cirby's math would be correct and it would get worse after the storm left. The flood caused by the storm would overwhelm not just the pumps, but the sewage system, which means sewage could mix in with the floodwater, causing disease.

This just doesn't get any better.

When they had the big build up to Andrew, I got so sick of it, I told my neighbor that it was all b.s. I blame this mostly on the msm for being liars and for every year subjecting us for every little drizzle to STORM WATCH 1990, STORM WATCH 1991, STORM WATCH 1992 – well, you get the picture.

After Andrew hit, and there was that weird eerie blackout and then the reports of all the damage and loss of life, I've felt guilty to this very day.

When they had the big build up to Andrew, I got so sick of it, I told my neighbor that it was all b.s.

See Thursday's postings over at Hog On Ice for a similar phenomenon.

Can't say as I blame Steve - I thought they were hilarious, and yes, TV news has cried wolf for so long with hyping tropical storms over the last few years that the natural reaction is "here they go again."

Talked to my friend who lives in the Warehouse District today; she's holed up with her mother and her aunts several miles away, with lots of booze and a few decks of cards. Her apartment there is on the second floor of a modern brick complex, but they're pretty much expecting the town as we know it to be gone when they return.

Man, storm delusion in the Quarter looks pretty bad: [i]"We're kind of a different breed of people down here, people in the Quarter. Heck, if we can put up with Mardis Gras, we can put up with a hurricane."[/i]

And sadly, some of the biz owners are sticking around to protect their investments from the inevitable looters. Sad. Hope everyone has dogtags in case they need to be id'd.

[url]http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB7BB9NXCE.html[/url]

This is gonna make Andrew look like a cub scout picnic. (most of )Miami is still here, New Orleans looks like its going to be basically erased off the map.

New hurricane hunter flight: pressure down to 902 millibars, and 180 MPH winds.

Some forecasters are suggesting 200 MPH sustained at landfall. Hurricane force winds on a front almost 200 miles wide, gusts to 240(!). Storm surge of 30 ft plus waves of up to 35 feet at the shore.

There are going to be Category 1 or 2 hurricane winds north of Jackson, Mississippi, possibly as far north as Knoxville.

The only hope is that there will be an "eyewall reorganization" in the next ten to twelve hours. That could knock the winds down to a "mere" Category 4. Nobody's really giving good odds on that, though.

After this, they should make it illegal to build wood frame structures down there.

New building codes: concrete reinforced with steel, 18 inches thick. Scuba tanks and gear in every pantry. And a dingy lashed to the roof.

Heck, if we can put up with Mardis Gras, we can put up with a hurricane

Evolution and natural selection played out before our very eyes.

This is also a sad commentary on the state of the education system when people can recognize that 5 is greater than 1 or 2.

Laura, people would be insane to rebuild Orleans if this is as bad as it looks like its going to be.

I'd put a nice memorial plaque at ground zero where the eye came ashore and prohibit any new building below sea level in the future.

Laura, the whole city is in a bowl, below sea level. If the Big Hand wipes it off the coast, it probably shouldn't be rebuilt on the spot.

All the tombs are above ground, because you dig a shovelful of earth and it fills right up. That's probably total hyperbole, but that's what they used to tell me. I'll have some very old dead relatives washing around in the surf if it hits the cemeteries.

Laura, people would be insane to rebuild Orleans if this is as bad as it looks like its going to be.

They'd be insane not to. It's been 36 years since Camille. The city recovered and made lord knows how many billions of dollars. Just the building alone will help the economy. Sure, it will take a while for tourism to come back -- they have to have something to come back to, but it will happen.

Have they evaculated all the hospitals? That has to be a pain in the ass.

Oh, I agree that they shouldn't rebuild N. Orleans if it is destroyed.
I'm mainly thinking about the entire area that gets hit again and again...coastal Florida especially.

My comment was a sick joke, but the new building codes in place since Andrew are woefully inadequate.

If this thing is what they say it is, I expect New Orleans will be transformed into a miles-long pile of rubble whose sole function will be to sieve the water running from the lake to the river.

I'm f'n terrified for our people down there.

Living in CO makes helping these poor people out difficult, but I plan to change my vacation plans for next year and give them my business.

Nice group of people they got over at Kos.

To wit:

Kos's Kompassionate Liberalism

Save the Dems!

disaster likely approaching New Orleans and adjacent parts of the Gulf Coast, do so NOW. Things are looking to be catastrophic since (as I understand it) the jet stream is too weak to divert or to weaken Katrina. Southeastern Kossacks, now is the time to volunteer your spare beds, sofas and floors. I'm ... . [UPDATE] Folks have pointed out you should disguise your email address to shelter from webbots, as in lizbryant at yahoo dot com.

--> first comment by the person organizing the effort:

kick ass idea and not only very generous of you, it makes sense politically to preserve as many dems as we can. And I don't mean that lightheartedly, this could be that serious. Anyway, I linked you at the top of mine.

---------------------------------------------

Got it - and Darkwylde does not mean that lightheartedly, too.

forgot to mention :

emphasis added.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Any port in a storm.

One does wonder, given DarkWylde's statement, whether there will be a Kossack developed litmus test involved.

Nice, check for Political Reliability before offering aid, it's the 'Progressive' way. Uncle Joe Stalin would have been proud, turning a natural disaster into a purging. How enlightened.

Ace,
Thanks for that link. Scary stuff.

I hope people are getting the heck out of NO.

It's all a bit overwhelming.

Remember last year, people with trucks got what people would need after the storm and drove it straight there with no middleman and no waiting? A lot of it was bottled water and other items.

How fast does the storm surge surge? I mean, it's not like a tsunami. I imagine there is a whole lot of flooding before the surge and the surge itself is the peak water height of the flooding. So, is it over a period of hours and how many?

BumperStickerist,

On a board my hubby frequents, he saw righties and lefties who have been arguing and calling each other names for YEARS offer each other shelter from the storm.

One rightie stipulated that political discussions would have to be limited to one hour per day. Other than that he would happily share his home with the lefty from down South.

Sigh. Shepard Smith is reporting that a bar in New Orleans is getting more and more crowded. Lots of people there on vacation.
I. Can't. Stand it.

Potable water, non-perishable food, antiseptics, tents, etc. No time like the present to prepare to give.
Hope the surrounding states are prepping their road-clearing equipment.

10 years after Camille, as my family was vacationing on the Redneck Riviera, you could still see signs of the destruction.

My town of Jackson, MS expects to see 70+ mph winds. Katrina is a stone bitch.

The worst part is the last night, as I went to bed, Katrina was labelled as a "weak 4, probably a strong 3". This AM, the radio was blaring "Cat 5". They started the contra-flow out of the Big Easy and the Coast yesterday about 4pm. Looking at some of the photos of the evacuation gives a real sense of how many people are still in danger in the soup bowl that is New Orleans.

God speed, and may you outrun the water.

All the tombs are above ground, because you dig a shovelful of earth and it fills right up.

My recollection is that a casket buried below ground will actually resurface in fairly short order.

You're right, no one would build at that location if the city weren't already there. Which means that this could be especially tragic. New Orleans is a cultural gem, and we may never see it again.

I'd make a crack about blaming Bush, but the DU crowd are already working on it.

CNN is saying that a lot of the people still downtown are tourists trapped in N.O. - flights out were booked solid, then ceased, and all the rental vehicles have been taken. I guess the hotels are high enough to be above the water line, but surely there's a danger of buildings just collapsing. Anyway, I don't think it's just idiots who are left behind in N.O. - there are just some who have no way of getting out.

The big problem with staying in most of those hotels is that the winds are going to be high enough to blow out all of the windows on all sides of many buildings.

A number of high rises are going to just plain fall over. Probably not a lot of them, but enough. If I was going to be stuck in Nawlins right now, I'd be looking for one of the newer hotels, higher up and on the lee side.

I lived through Hurricane Georges that hit NOLA in 1998. It was a Cat 2 that passed to the east at the last minute. Even though that's the "dry side," the city was underwater and shut down for a week. It was nothing compared to what's coming.

The city's canal pumps keep it dry even during normal conditions. Unfortunately, the pumps stop working when they are submerged. When that happens, things go from bad to worse pretty quickly.

I went to school there. Met my wife there. Got married there. We're just sick about it.

I'm worried there will be nothing left. 200 year old houses, many with termite damage, built on post-and-beam foundations, below sea level, with about 30% of the houses uninsured and unisurable (due to an insane property tax scheme).

We lived through the double-strike hurricanes of Florida last year, and even with concrete block construction and hurricane-preparedness systems in place, civilization came to a grinding halt for 10 days. Food, water, gas, electricity: all unavailable. Apply those conditions to NOLA and you've potentially got the end of a whole town.

I recall seeing, quite some years ago, a computer simulation of what was called "The worst case scenario" for natural disasters. It was a category 5 storm hitting New Orleans. There was virtually nothing left of it.

I can't imagine the panic that is felt by those who are wise enough to know what can happen. I can feel only pity for those who don't heed the warnings.

As for the comment about the news folk down there, the reporters at the Weather Channel made it quite clear, just this morning, exactly how they felt about it....they won't be there.

Two words: Monolithic Dome.

Oh yeah--two more--ABOVE SEALEVEL!

Rightly or wrongly, whether a completely blotted off the map N.O. will be rebuilt will come to dollars and cents. If they can make more by rebuilding there than elsewhere, they will.

However, my prayers are with all those faced with this incoming storm--those who are not smart enough to get out and those who are alike. May above all they be safe, and then may God minimize the damage. May this bring us all closer together and closer to God.

I wonder if fat slob, James Wolcott - "I root for hurricanes" - has any comments this time around?

I just emailed jerkoff Wolcott asking him if his opinion of hurricanes has changed now that its the democrat bastion of NOLA about to be erased off the map.

I don't think I'll get an answer...

The latest from the weather station at SW Pass, LA:
ENE winds 62kts (71.4mph)

It's on!

And of course, the LLL's are ALREADY blaming Dubya for... Hurricane Katrina. Karl must have commandeered Dr. Evil's hurricane machininator.

http://www.swingstateproject.com/2005/08/katrina_proves.php

No story about the weather would be complete without obeisance to environmentalism. From an AP news article:

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.

Yeah, 200 MPH winds and 25 feet of water would pose no problem as long as a few square miles of wetlands existed to defend the Big Easy. Did Mississipi have marshes when Camille arrived in 1969?

I have a passionately hated ex-girlfriend just north of Biloxi. With an easterly landfall, it will roll right over the top of her. Damned shame. I would have been happy with a neat, surgical bolt of lightning and not the wrath of God on a coast I've partied on since 1991.

Still, if she's going to catch a stop sign to the spleen at 200MPH, I won't complain too hard. Too bad all the books she never returned will get wiped in the process.

Ah, romance.

Special thanks to all the southern white males getting the power back on in S. Florida. The leftist media always bashes NASCAR men aka white southern males but these guys have been working 24x7 to get the power back on. We have trucks from GA, TN, SC, AL and other southern states. Every power truck I have seen driving past, and I have seen at least 40, has a good old boy driving. We appreciate their hard work usually under lous,y hot conditions. Thanks again and many prayers for the people in LA, MS, AL and in the path of Katrina.