Hurricane Gustav

[RedScare]

The New Orleans moral to the story??

A hurricane slightly to the west doesn't push the beast(Lake Pontchartrain) upon the city like a hurricane slightly to the east does. It's not about clean/dirty side...it's about Lake Pontchartrain.

That is not entirely true. Gustav came in at 110 mph. Katrina was at 125 mph. Katrina did not cause overtopping of the levees through storm surge. Neither did Gustav, but the reason was that Gustav was weaker than feared, and came in just slightly west of where it would have done the most damage. The Katrina problem was failed levees AFTER Katrina had moved through, perhaps due to a different configuration of canal gates than used during Gustav. This has not occurred so far during Gustav.

Billions have been spent rectifying poorly designed levees since Katrina. This has likely helped keep many of the levees from failing, but many weak areas remain. The biggest present New Orleans got was a strong Cat 2 rather than a strong Cat 3 storm.

[westguy]

The New Orleans moral to the story??

A hurricane slightly to the west doesn't push the beast(Lake Pontchartrain) upon the city like a hurricane slightly to the east does. It's not about clean/dirty side...it's about Lake Pontchartrain.

Billion dollar Betsy hit Louisiana a few miles to the east of Gustav and flooded New Orleans back in the 60s. They came in at the same angle, putting the city on the dirty side. However, Betsy was much stronger. I think Cuba took its toll just before shear started to attack, although Gustav blew up under the same amount of shear.

[Rammer]

That is not entirely true. Gustav came in at 110 mph. Katrina was at 125 mph. Katrina did not cause overtopping of the levees through storm surge. Neither did Gustav, but the reason was that Gustav was weaker than feared, and came in just slightly west of where it would have done the most damage. The Katrina problem was failed levees AFTER Katrina had moved through, perhaps due to a different configuration of canal gates than used during Gustav. This has not occurred so far during Gustav.

Billions have been spent rectifying poorly designed levees since Katrina. This has likely helped keep many of the levees from failing, but many weak areas remain. The biggest present New Orleans got was a strong Cat 2 rather than a strong Cat 3 storm.

Katrina had winds of 125 at landfall (just east of Grand Isle, Louisiana) about 80 miles to the south of New Orleans. It's silly to quibble over 15 miles per hour anyway...especially considering wind gusts vs sustained winds and their exact location.

News story quotes:

'Katrina, by comparison, brought a storm surge of 25 feet, causing levees to break.'

'The storm(Gustov) would hold steady as a Category 3, packing winds of 115 mph. Katrina also made landfall as a strong Category 3, which carries sustained winds of between 111 mph and 130 mph.'

This diagram tells the Katrina story:

http://www.npr.org/templates/common/image_...geResId=5419259

[citizen4rmptown]

Katrina was a Category 2 when it hit LA/MS.

really? thanks for correcting me, everybody, until i joined this forum,

have been telling me it made landfall as a cat.3..

[houstonmacbro]

I am really kinda bummed that we didn't see even a drop of rain from this system. My lawn is thirsty!

Dang, I guess I need to go water.

[20thStDad]

Update from LA - over the weekend my grandmother, sisters, and parents all got their power back on, despite initially being told it would take 3-4 weeks. So that's good news.

I think this just proves that Bobby Jindal is infinitely more capable than that idiot Kathleen Blanco. Instead of crying and screwing things up he had a plan in place, and it has been much much better than the last go-around.

I hope Ike stays south and west, LA might not be able to take another hit.

[houstonmacbro]

Update from LA - over the weekend my grandmother, sisters, and parents all got their power back on, despite initially being told it would take 3-4 weeks. So that's good news.

I think this just proves that Bobby Jindal is infinitely more capable than that idiot Kathleen Blanco. Instead of crying and screwing things up he had a plan in place, and it has been much much better than the last go-around.

I hope Ike stays south and west, LA might not be able to take another hit.

Not to mention GW (that's global warming, not George W.), but I think with warmer climates, we are going to be seeing stronger and stronger storms, with more of them reaching landfall.

Oddly, I was watching a show last night on Discovery Espanol and it was about this crew of folks who were monitoring these storms. They had 4-5 of them lined up in the Atlantic and it was strangely reminiscent of what we have going on now.

[20thStDad]

Pictures (post Gustav) of a family/friend fishing camp that was on Little Lake in Louisiana. Yeah, those piers are where it used to be. Later in the gallery you can see the camp, it floated about a quarter-half mile from where it started. For Katrina/Rita, the same camp only floated about 5 feet off its base, and they were able to reset it and hook everything back up. This time, I doubt it.

http://kdog.bdal.org/camp_gustav

[editor]

Pictures (post Gustav) of a family/friend fishing camp that was on Little Lake in Louisiana. Yeah, those piers are where it used to be. Later in the gallery you can see the camp, it floated about a quarter-half mile from where it started. For Katrina/Rita, the same camp only floated about 5 feet off its base, and they were able to reset it and hook everything back up. This time, I doubt it.

http://kdog.bdal.org/camp_gustav

Great pictures, and sad at the same time. I especially like the picture toward the end where the blue house looks like it had its guts ripped out by the storm.