Hurricane Katrina

[AGDee]

They've just upgraded Katrina to a Category 5 this morning. Only three category 5s have hit the US. If it continues to New Orleans, it's going to be a very sad situation since the city is below sea level.

My thoughts and prayers to all of the residents of the Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama coastlines. They are even predicting that this storm will remain at hurricane force for between 12-24 hours after landfall because of it's strength.

Stay safe folks.

Dee

[AlphaSigOU]

If you live in the Big Easy and have not evacuated yet, bend over and kiss your ass goodbye! Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned... in this case it's a Cat 5 hurricane named Katrina.

7 am CDT advisory from the National Hurricane Center:

000
WTNT32 KNHC 281151
TCPAT2
BULLETIN
HURRICANE KATRINA SPECIAL ADVISORY NUMBER 22
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
7 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

...KATRINA...NOW A POTENTIALLY CATASTROPHIC CATEGORY FIVE
HURRICANE...HEADED FOR THE NORTHERN GULF COAST...

A HURRICANE WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR THE NORTH CENTRAL GULF COAST
FROM MORGAN CITY LOUISIANA EASTWARD TO THE ALABAMA/FLORIDA
BORDER...INCLUDING THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS AND LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN.
A HURRICANE WARNING MEANS THAT HURRICANE CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED
WITHIN THE WARNING AREA WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS. PREPARATIONS TO
PROTECT LIFE AND PROPERTY SHOULD BE RUSHED TO COMPLETION.

A TROPICAL STORM WARNING AND A HURRICANE WATCH ARE IN EFFECT FROM
EAST OF THE ALABAMA/FLORIDA BORDER TO DESTIN FLORIDA...AND FROM
WEST OF MORGAN CITY TO INTRACOASTAL CITY LOUISIANA. A TROPICAL
STORM WARNING MEANS THAT TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED
WITHIN THE WARNING AREA WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS. A HURRICANE WATCH
MEANS THAT HURRICANE CONDITIONS ARE POSSIBLE WITHIN THE WATCH
AREA...GENERALLY WITHIN 36 HOURS.

A TROPICAL STORM WARNING IS ALSO IN EFFECT FROM DESTIN FLORIDA
EASTWARD TO INDIAN PASS FLORIDA...AND FROM INTRACOASTAL CITY
LOUISIANA WESTWARD TO CAMERON LOUISIANA.

FOR STORM INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO YOUR AREA...INCLUDING POSSIBLE
INLAND WATCHES AND WARNINGS...PLEASE MONITOR PRODUCTS ISSUED
BY YOUR LOCAL WEATHER OFFICE.

AT 7 AM CDT...1200Z...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE KATRINA WAS LOCATED
NEAR LATITUDE 25.7 NORTH... LONGITUDE 87.7 WEST OR ABOUT 250 MILES
SOUTH-SOUTHEAST OF THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.

KATRINA IS MOVING TOWARD THE WEST-NORTHWEST NEAR 12 MPH...AND A
GRADUAL TURN TOWARD THE NORTHWEST AND NORTH-NORTHWEST IS EXPECTED
OVER THE NEXT 24 HOURS.

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 160 MPH...WITH HIGHER GUSTS.
KATRINA IS A POTENTIALLY CATASTROPHIC CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE ON
THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE. SOME FLUCTUATIONS IN STRENGTH ARE LIKELY
DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS.

HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 85 MILES FROM THE
CENTER...AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP
TO 185 MILES.

DATA FROM AN AIR FORCE HURRICANE HUNTER PLANE INDICATE THAT THE
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE HAS FALLEN TO NEAR 908 MB...26.81 INCHES.

COASTAL STORM SURGE FLOODING OF 15 TO 20 FEET ABOVE NORMAL TIDE
LEVELS...LOCALLY AS HIGH AS 25 FEET ALONG WITH LARGE AND DANGEROUS
BATTERING WAVES...CAN BE EXPECTED NEAR AND TO THE EAST OF WHERE THE
CENTER MAKES LANDFALL.

RAINFALL TOTALS OF 5 TO 10 INCHES...WITH ISOLATED MAXIMUM AMOUNTS OF
15 INCHES...ARE POSSIBLE ALONG THE PATH OF KATRINA ACROSS THE GULF
COAST AND THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES.

ISOLATED TORNADOES WILL BE POSSIBLE BEGINNING SUNDAY EVENING OVER
SOUTHERN PORTIONS OF LOUISIANA...MISSISSIPPI...AND ALABAMA...AND
OVER THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE.

REPEATING THE 7 AM CDT POSITION...25.7 N... 87.7 W. MOVEMENT
TOWARD...WEST-NORTHWEST NEAR 12 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED
WINDS...160 MPH. MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE... 908 MB.

THE NEXT ADVISORY WILL BE ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER AT
10 AM CDT.

FORECASTER KNABB/PASCH

$$

[Tippiechick]

I have sisters and friends from NO. I hope they and their families are already in a safe place.

[ZTAngel]

Top winds are now 175mph!!! This is going to be a bad one....

ETA:
Yesterday, I was seeing more Louisiana and Mississippi license plates in the area than Georgia license plates! Looks like everyone is fleeing to Atlanta.

[PM_Mama00]

This seriously makes me wana cry for everyone down there. STAY SAFE!

Holy shit I just saw that Indiana and Ohio are gona be effected too! Obviously not as bad but woah.

[Honeykiss1974]

Wow, a category 5. I'm praying for the best. My family in New Orleans left yesterday and are in northern Mississippi with other family.

[AGDee]

During the last surveillance they found that the pressure was down to 907. If it stays that low, it could be the second most hurricane in history.

1 Unnamed (FL Keys) 1935 5 892 26.35
2 Camille (MS, SE LA, VA) 1969 5 909 26.84
3 Andrew (SE FL, SE LA) 1992 5 922 27.23

Not good, not good at all.

[AlphaSigOU]

Last big Cat 5 storm to hit the area was Camille in 1969, with winds approaching 200 mph and gusts reportedly over 210 mph. Here's the Wikipedia entry:

Camille produced the fourth lowest barometric pressure ever recorded in the Atlantic basin, a scant 901 millibars; the only hurricane to hit the United States with a lower pressure at landfall was the 1935 Labor Day hurricane, which measured 892 millibars. The true intensity of Camille can only be approximated, as no meteorogical equipment survived the extreme conditions at landfall, but Camille is estimated to have had sustained winds of 190 mph at landfall, with gusts exceeding 210mph (340 km/h). Camille retains the record for the highest storm surge measured in the United States, at over 24 feet (6 metres) (see storm surge profile). Camille turned eastward as it moved inland, unleashing torrential rains of up to 31 inches (790 mm) in some areas of southern Virginia. By this point it had been downgraded to a tropical depression, but it re-emerged into the Atlantic Ocean east of Virginia, where it briefly became a tropical storm again before dissipating.

Impact

Camille killed 143 people along Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana as it obliterated an enormous area of the Gulf Coast; the area of total destruction in Harrison County, Mississippi alone was 68 square miles (176 km²). An additional 113 people perished as a result of catastrophic flooding in Virginia. In all, 8,931 people were injured, 5,662 homes were destroyed, and 13,915 homes experienced major damage, with many of the fatalities being coastal residents who had refused to evacuate. The total estimated cost of damage was US$1.42 billion 1969 dollars, or 6.1 billion [1996] dollars. The damage was staggering at the time, but it was dwarfed by the ruinous 36 billion dollars in damage caused by Hurricane Andrew.

The Hurricane Party

One persistent legend about Camille states that a hurricane party was held on the third floor of the Richelieu Manor Apartments in Pass Christian, Mississippi that wound up in the path of the eyewall as it made landfall. The high storm surge flooded and destroyed the building, and there was only one survivor to tell of the story of the 21 others. Who the survivor is, how many party guests there were, and just how far the sole survivor was swept by the storm varies with the retelling.

In reality, most of the people that stayed in the Richelieu Apartments survived, and there was no party. Residents, exhausted from helping to prepare the town to weather the storm, took refuge in the building not out of recklessness, but because it was believed to be one of the sturdiest buildings in the area. Survivor Ben Duckworth is quoted in Hurricane Camille: Monster Storm of the Gulf Coast as stating that the Richelieu was a designated civil defense air-raid shelter. However, their faith in the building's sturdiness was unfounded, as it was completely demolished by the storm. Twenty-three people are known to have stayed in the Richelieu Apartments during Hurricane Camille, but only eight died.

The tale of the lone survivor and the party appears to have originated with survivor Mary Ann Gerlach. Other survivors, including Duckworth and Richard Keller have expressed irritation at the story.

“The hurricane party never happened, nor were the number of deaths associated with the apartment inhabitants accurate,” says Pat Fitzpatrick, Mississippi State University professor and author of Hurricanes: A Reference Handbook.

The mythical hurricane party has been referenced several times in pop culture, and formed the basis for an episode of Quantum Leap titled "Hurricane".

Trivia

In 1969 the naming conventions for hurricanes were not strictly controlled as they are today. John Hope, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center named the hurricane in honor of his daughter Camille who had just graduated from high school. The name was later retired.

I'd say Katrina will probably be retired from the list once it's all over.

[Tippiechick]

We have just been told by the Nashville newscasters that Middle Tennessee is going to get massive amounts of rain with the great chance for tornadic activity. Grrreat.

I feel so bad for the elderly/disabled/poor/tourists that aren't going to be able to get out of there. This is gonna be horrific.

[Buttonz]

I hope everyone who can't get out is ableto stay as safe as they can.

[DeltAlum]

This ain't gonna be pretty. I fear for people who live outside of major population centers who may not get the word in a timely manner -- or worse, may not have anywhere or know where to go.

[Honeykiss1974]

Originally posted by Tippiechick

I feel so bad for the elderly/disabled/poor/tourists that aren't going to be able to get out of there. This is gonna be horrific.

The Weather Channel just did a report about people that are unable to leave the area either due to health, finances, no car, etc. There are two "special needs" shelters that have been set up for people that require extra assistance (and they are offering rides to the shelter).

For those that can't leave because they have no car,money, etc. buses will be driving by every so often at specific locations to pic people up and take then to the shelter.

I was so glad to hear that the city is looking after those that can't leave the area.

[smiley21]

I look at the news and I seriously feel sick. My heart drops at the thought of what these people are about to go through.

[Munchkin03]

As much as it would suck for another hurricane to come to my hometown, part of me would rather have the Panhandle hit over New Orleans...between being below sea level and all the historic buildings (I'm a restoration architect), it's going to be a bad scene all around.

[RedRoseSAI]

How sad, not only for the potential loss of life (of course) but also for the loss of the beautiful French Quarter. I was there this past spring and fell in love with it.