To those living in Louisiana and the gulf coast stay safe! The Eutronix guys are just north of New Orleans, I'm not sure about the geography of the area but I hope you guys are in a safe place if you haven't evacuated. The eye of this storm passed right over the area I live (North Miami-Dade county) as a weak catagory 1 but still did some damage including killing nine people here in south Florida. If you are new to hurricanes, please don't go out and "explore"! Heed all your local warnings and stay indoors!!!

Better yet, get out of the way while you still can! Now at catagory 5 with sustained winds about 175 MPH, you do not want to be anywhere near where this thing hits the land. Plus, given that most of the New Orleans area is below sea level, the storm surge is going to be a nightmare.

Yeah, was hoping everybody was out of the way, had Fox News on here all day and it looks like a biggie (I know, I know, but the UK news channels aren't giving it a lot of coverage)

Funnily enough I did a bit of reading on New Orleans a couple of months back and saw the pretty dodgy situation it could be in.

Gareth

And for those people that do have to evacuate, please take your pets with you! So many are killed and lost during hurricanes, it's not just the people who are effected.

This storm has all the ingredients for a serious tragedy. It's massive in scale, it's moving very slowly, the air pressure is among the lowest for any hurricane on record, the water temperature is high, and the city is 6+ feet below sea level, with water on all sides.

Of course anything can happen at this point, but it is very much within the realm of possibility that New Orleans may not exist after this storm. I hope that nobody in the storm's path is thinking that just "staying indoors" is going to be enough. Of course some will get stuck and have to hang out at the Superdome or other shelters, but I hope everyone's taking this one more seriously than many in Florida did with some of last year's storms.

Best of luck to anyone here who's directly affected or has family/friends in the area.

On animated satelite imagery it looks like it is going straight for New Orleans. Good luck, people!

I hope they're putting out the "worst case" here:

http://weather.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/iwszone?Sites=:laz069

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT
LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL
FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY
DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL.
PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD
FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE
BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME
WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A
FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH
AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY
VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE
ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE
WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN
AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING
INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY
THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW
CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE
KILLED.

Well, I always wanted to see New Orelans. I guess I never will now. This is truly an amazing thought. The town is going to cease to exist as we know it today. Scary, and very sad.

Pray hard for us. I'm currently bunkering down at city hall. Sometimes it sucks to be "essential personnel". They are estinmating the storm surge as high as 30 feet with another 9 feet of wave action on top of that. Just to give an idea of what could (probably will) happen, the greater New Orleans area is surrounded by a levee system that is 14 feet tall. New Orleans is 10 feet below sea level. If water is at 40 feet, that means it's 26 feet ABOVE the levee. That levee system will do squat. Much of the area will be covered with at least 15 feet of water, obliterating most homes. Just so you know, there are htousands still in the city that refused to evacuate. I don't want to be around for cleanup, but I guess I will be. The winds are right now beginning to pick up to the point that power lines are leaning over and creaking. Next time I post, hopefully it will be to say that I'm still alive. Ya'll have a good one and please please keep us in your prayers for the next 12 hours or so. At this point, it's the only thing that can help. I had never been scared of a hurricane before, but this one has me terrified at the possibility of what could happen. Cya.

Lec

You are definitely in our thoughts and prayers. Talk to you after it's over.

Thanks. It really doesn mean a lot.

I went through hurricane Charley, it had 180mph+ gusts. It was something truly amazing.

It took half the roof of my condo.. i was at work though, at a hospital (like you, i had to work during the storm) but to have a nice safe brick bldg to watch it from was something to be grateful for.

My town is maybe 3-6 feet above sea level, and we were expecting a one-two combo of wind and surge/rain but never got any rising waters. the storm moved that fast.

god speed and good luck!!

I'm very concerned for the thousands holing up in the superdome. What if that structure doesn't withstand the storm?

This sounds totally surreal, as if describing dangers to an outpost on some distant wild planet. And yet it is terribly real, with some of our own in the middle of this...

Once more, I wish you best of luck (that's all that this non-believer can offer )

Most of my family that lives in New Orleans took off a couple of days ago and are staying with family in Houston and Baton Rouge. My cousin however is on the New Orleans Police force... and is having to stay. Baton Rouge is apparently also pretty freaked and boarded up. I remember riding out hurricane Andrew and watching a garbage can go flying down my street horizontally at a sustained 5 feet above ground, and the ensuing lack of power for 2.5 weeks. My family also lost a house in Gulf Breeze to hurricanes... twice in the past 10 years and it was just partially repaired before the last one hit and redid the damage times 3... and now this. Is it just me or is the whole hurricane frequency off the charts?

We can only hope this one is another false alarm and won't do the expected damage... seeing New Orleans under water would be an incredible disaster, the long term effects of which are pretty hard to imagine... the best description I've read said something like New Orleans becoming a 30 ft deep toxic lake filled with petroleum and sewage. Man I hope that sucker dies fast.

There is an interesting article in the Houston Chronicle a few years back. FEMA warned in mid 2001 that a hurricane in New Orleans as among the "three likeliest, most castastrophic disasters facing this country." The other two: A terrorist attack in New York, and a major earthquake in San Francisco. So that is two out of three now. Scary.

http://www.hurricane.lsu.edu/_in_the_news/houston.htm

Good luck Lectric. I'm sorry you are going to be there for this; it may be the worst natural disaster in American history.

Then again... this is the exact same stuff they were saying earlier this year on the news channels, who love to sensationalize, about Dennis. Just hope they are wrong yet again.

Quote:
who love to sensationalize

Yeah, it's increasingly looking like that is the case, and I got suckered into it. I should know better. I am very glad that the worst apparently did not come true and New Orleans should be able to bounce back.

Well, in this case, whether it was to avoid litigation or in a sincere desire to protect human life, I'm okay with the decision. "Civil disruption" pales in comparison to a humanitarian disaster that could result from complacency. Mother nature doesn't fsck around.

There is a really great shot of the storm on the Astronomy Picture of the Day web site.

Wow -- truly amazing satellite photo. I've been to New Orleans several times and always had a great time. The food, alone, is all the reason you need to go. The initial photos of flooding look a whole lot like what Houston had a couple years back in Tropical Storm Allison. If that's the worst of it for New Orleans, they'll probably consider themselves very lucky.

EDIT: I looked through all the photo spreads on the NYTimes home page. Looks like the damage in New Orleans is far worse than what we had here. Look at those pictures and tell me about the bravery / insanity of the photographers taking them. Stuff flying through the air, rain coming down heavy, and the last thing I'm going to be doing is reaching for my shiny, expensive digital camera.

Wow - I'm always amazed at the power of these things, just because of the spin and low pressure. Back home we regularly have 150 mph plus winds (twice over 200mph in the last 30 years) and the worst we ever got was the odd roof tile removed, and bus toppled.

But that is just from constant westerlies...

Think I'd not cope very well with a hurricane...my reflexes would assume I'd be fine...and then I'd probably not be!

I hope all of you based there are okay!

I've heard that gas prices are expected to go up an average of 10 cents per gallon tomorrow. Then again...it could be sensationalism. Either way, I'll have a full tank tonight and no regrets tomorrow.

I was watching CNN and they mentioned how price gouging is starting to pop up. That is just sickening. Is this not illegal? How could people do that to their own neighbors in such difficulty? Is there not immediate (and justified) violence against the price gouger? I don't understand.

On the other side of the price gouging, there's plenty of good ol' fashioned American looting going on. Maybe the store owners are raising prices to compensate?

(No, I don't believe that either, but it is just as despicable to steal from honest businesses as it is for businesses to gouge consumers.)