NYC, the "new" New Orleans?

[Dolomite_supafly]

Seems as though they are expecting the worse. They have shut down all subways. They are calling for storm surge in the 8-10 foot range along with 6-12 inches of rain during the same time period. The storm surge is expected during high tide only making matters worse.

If it is as bad as they seem to think it is going to be NYC might be shut down for a little while.

This might be a window into how the country will react to a major catastrophe or collapse of the country as we know it. Wonder if we are going to see similar widespread looting like in New Orleans after Rita/Katrina? I am also curious how the government reacts as far as restrictions on citizens or martial law. they already have miserable gun laws so I don't think this is going to affect those that much, at least not for law abiding citizens.

Dolomite

[DaveTN]

Well you can bet if there is any damage at all the first thing will be to jack the price of gas through the roof. All emergencies justify raising the price of gas nationwide.

[Dolomite_supafly]

I am not surprized there wasn't a run on milk, bread and eggs down here over the hurricane fears. Seems like every "emergency" people buy the most perishable items they can.

Dolomite

[Raoul]

A great deal of this NY thing is Bloomberg's trying to look prepared after the CF of a snowstorm last year. Also, if it happens in NYC it's always a bigger deal. They are the center of the universe after all.

[Garufa]

IMHO the massive preparations in NYC for Irene is like carrying an umbrella on a cloudy day.

[G27]

I'm betting this is all media hype...

PANIC! RUN AROUND SCREAMING BUT MAKE SURE YOU WATCH THIS STATION!

We'll see, but this isn't Katrina...

[Oh Shoot]

I'm betting this is all media hype...

PANIC! RUN AROUND SCREAMING BUT MAKE SURE YOU WATCH THIS STATION!

We'll see, but this isn't Katrina...

Sort of my thought. It's maybe not even gonna be technically an actual hurricane by the time it gets there, Katrina was a Cat 5, this is gonna be a 1 at worst.

Then again, even that level of wind is not something they've faced since the 30's or something. And add torrential rain, surge, and tide, who knows.

- OS

[mikegideon]

Yep. Probably will downgrade to a tropical storm before it hits. I doubt that the surge will be over a couple of feet. Still, it's going to stress test a lot of stuff.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Thursday listening to Mark Levin show lots of northeast folk were calling taking it pretty seriously. Levin was taking it seriously. Some callers said the grocery shelves were going bare and generators were already sold out everywhere.

Same thing always happens in FL. Which is weird because you would think that FL would have more generators than people by now. Hurricanes ain't exactly unusual surprises in FL and they sell out all the generators every time.

Some of the worst problems are "unexpectedly bad". There was a blizzard some years back in Chatt that was supposed to be an inch or two of snow but instead dropped more than a foot of snow. Surprise! Surprise!

Am not hoping for disaster, but hopefully it will be at least rough enough that the preparations do not look silly in hindsight. Every time the gov and media over-hype a problem and it turns out to be nothing-- It is a "boy cried wolf" thang. If nothing much happens this time, then next time when there is a weather warning many people who evacuated this time might ignore the evacuation next time and get hurt if the next one is the "big one"?

[Oh Shoot]

It's all Obama's fault. The earthquake didn't find him DC, so a hurricane was sent up towards Martha's Vineyard. Hmmm.

- OS

[Guest WyattEarp]

Sort of my thought. It's maybe not even gonna be technically an actual hurricane by the time it gets there, Katrina was a Cat 5, this is gonna be a 1 at worst.

Then again, even that level of wind is not something they've faced since the 30's or something. And add torrential rain, surge, and tide, who knows.

- OS

negative. Katrina was a Category 3 when she made landfall. Had she been a 4 or a 5, there would be no New Orleans standing today, there would have been no rebuilding, and the death toll would have been at minium tenfold more than what it ended up being.

Hurricane Katrina - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

she was a Cat 5 in the Gulf, but weakened as she approached Louisiana, and came ashore as a Cat 3.

Edited August 28, 2011 by WyattEarp

[Mike.357]

I am not so sure you really over prepare for a hurricane. Until it happens you never know how bad it is going to be. Sometimes it is the wind, sometimes the rain, sometimes the surge. Slow moving hurricanes or tropical storms always worried me the most.

As for generators and preperation supplies in Florida. There are thousands of people who move there every day, ( and a like number leaving) the newbs needs the supplies, those leaving never seem to leave the supplies behind.

If you have not prepped for one and/or rode one out you just don't know.

[vontar]

About a year before Katrina on Discovery or one of the related channels there was a show that talked about what would happen if New Orleans was ever hit by a Hurricane and how in recorded history it has never happened. Then about a year later Katrina hit and it was almost to the letter. Seems they did a similar what would happen if New York was hit and they talked about the subways would flood

[laktrash]

It's all Obama's fault. The earthquake didn't find him DC, so a hurricane was sent up towards Martha's Vineyard. Hmmm.

- OS

Naw just another try at making him look good or really caring for cutting vacation early. What 1/2 day. Probably tired of Michele anyway

Edited August 28, 2011 by laktrash

[Ramjo]

It's all Obama's fault. The earthquake didn't find him DC, so a hurricane was sent up towards Martha's Vineyard. Hmmm.

- OS

BWHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mav]

I was in Myrtle Beach this week. We got some big waves Friday evening (~10 feet), a lot of wind, and intermittent periods of heavy rain. It wasn't all that bad. I was out walking the beach and driving around that evening. Come Saturday morning, everything was gone except the wind, which wasn't terrible (20 - 40 mph gusts).

I always thought the media was over-hyping this hurricane. I sometimes got the impression that some in the media wanted it to be really bad so they could create a narrative on how great a leader Obama was in the aftermath.

If the media and the government keep making mountains out of mole hills, the public is going to become desensitized to their warnings and ignore them. If that happens, I couldn't imagine how disastrous it would be if we got a really nasty storm.

[Ebow1]

This kinda stuff always annoys me. Every hurricane that comes anywhere near the east coast is made out to be the northeast's own Katrina. After travelling across all that land there's no way anything more then a category 1 is hitting NYC. After it happens and the grand total of damage is that literally a few things fell over the media is STILL going to make it out to be another Katrina.

[bajabuc]

My daughter is in Nudehampsta...it's flooding in her backyard...but that's nothing new.

[K191145]

I was in Myrtle Beach this week. We got some big waves Friday evening (~10 feet), a lot of wind, and intermittent periods of heavy rain. It wasn't all that bad. I was out walking the beach and driving around that evening. Come Saturday morning, everything was gone except the wind, which wasn't terrible (20 - 40 mph gusts).

I always thought the media was over-hyping this hurricane. I sometimes got the impression that some in the media wanted it to be really bad so they could create a narrative on how great a leader Obama was in the aftermath.

If the media and the government keep making mountains out of mole hills, the public is going to become desensitized to their warnings and ignore them. If that happens, I couldn't imagine how disastrous it would be if we got a really nasty storm.

Well the good side of this is that a good number of people will finally realize what the lame stream media is really all about. Their about ratings, controlling people, and their political agenda and will over dramatize and manufacture(lie), and hide or omit information for their own gain. They have 0 credibility with me. They are the way they are because millions of DOLTS enable them to be that way. Hopefully quite a few people will finally wake up.

[Oh Shoot]

....she was a Cat 5 in the Gulf, but weakened as she approached Louisiana, and came ashore as a Cat 3.

Correct, mea culpa.

- OS

[Guest WyattEarp]

I always thought the media was over-hyping this hurricane. I sometimes got the impression that some in the media wanted it to be really bad so they could create a narrative on how great a leader Obama was in the aftermath.

If the media and the government keep making mountains out of mole hills, the public is going to become desensitized to their warnings and ignore them. If that happens, I couldn't imagine how disastrous it would be if we got a really nasty storm.

I don't think the media overhyped it, I think the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center's did, however, in retrospect, weather forecasting is not a rock solid accurate science and all forecasts are prone to change. Atmospheric conditions can and do change so rapidly, and they are virtually unpredicatable. One minute all the models can predict that all the of the ingredients will be present to indicate a catastrophic storm will form, or that a storm will intensify and cause massive devastation, but the atmosphere can change so radidly, and many of those ingredients that were there, are no longer there. Had that Hurricane been in the Gulf, where it's already been noted that the Gulf water temperatures are 6 degrees above normal this year, I think Irene would have been a lot worse, because she would have had more fuel to throw into her fire. the Atlantic tends to be a bit colder the farther north she went, which would explain why she lost a lot of her punch as she continued north.

The media took it's lead from the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center, but I think it's better for people to have been warned early, and evacuated, than to have let them just stay put and there end up being a lot of people who lost their lives.

The victims of the Joplin EF-5 tornado had 20 minutes of warning time, and still a record for lives lost in a single tornado event was set back on May 22. But I was in Joplin shortly after it hit, and the things I saw were so unexplainable, if you didn't see it with your own eyes, you wouldn't believe it and your brain couldn't wrap itself around the magnitude of the destruction. Seeing it, is just unreal, and so much different than seeing it on tv or in some video. There were people in Joplin who took cover in the places they tell you to go (basement, bathtub, crawl space, interior closet) and they were still killed because of the intensity and speed of the winds throwing stuff through walls, sometimes mother nature is just so powerful, it doesn't matter if you have warning time or not to seek shelter, she can still get you.

So if the NWS or NHC or the media said, "oh well this doesn't look like much of a threat, and didn't warn and prepare people to evacuate, and that storm intensified and killed a bunch of people, then everyone would be screaming at the NWS, NHC, Media and government because they stood by and didn't warn people to evacuate and get out of town. It's a double edged sword, and you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

In the end, we're all at the mercy of Mother Nature, people are still going to suffer injuries and die in storm related deaths no matter how prepared people are, or how warned they are.

God help any place ever in the path of a Cat 5 Hurricane that makes landfall, catastrophic will not be the word to use to describe the damage....

[Dolomite_supafly]

Talking about media hype.

A few years ago I watched a local television reporter as she commented on the effects of a hurricane on the local weather. She was dressed up in a rain slicker type overcoat even though it wasn't raining. She stood there in a braced position as if she was fighting the wind. She even acted as though the strong gusts of wind were moving her from side to side. Seemed realistic enough until they zoomed in on the wind meter she was holding. It was reading 3mph-5mph winds.

At that point I just laughed and changed the channel.

Dolomite

[Dolomite_supafly]

I don't think the media overhyped it, I think the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center's did, however, in retrospect, weather forecasting is not a rock solid accurate science and all forecasts are prone to change. Atmospheric conditions can and do change so rapidly, and they are virtually unpredicatable. One minute all the models can predict that all the of the ingredients will be present to indicate a catastrophic storm will form, or that a storm will intensify and cause massive devastation, but the atmosphere can change so radidly, and many of those ingredients that were there, are no longer there. Had that Hurricane been in the Gulf, where it's already been noted that the Gulf water temperatures are 6 degrees above normal this year, I think Irene would have been a lot worse, because she would have had more fuel to throw into her fire. the Atlantic tends to be a bit colder the farther north she went, which would explain why she lost a lot of her punch as she continued north.

The media took it's lead from the National Weather Service and National Hurricane Center, but I think it's better for people to have been warned early, and evacuated, than to have let them just stay put and there end up being a lot of people who lost their lives.

The victims of the Joplin EF-5 tornado had 20 minutes of warning time, and still a record for lives lost in a single tornado event was set back on May 22. But I was in Joplin shortly after it hit, and the things I saw were so unexplainable, if you didn't see it with your own eyes, you wouldn't believe it and your brain couldn't wrap itself around the magnitude of the destruction. Seeing it, is just unreal, and so much different than seeing it on tv or in some video. There were people in Joplin who took cover in the places they tell you to go (basement, bathtub, crawl space, interior closet) and they were still killed because of the intensity and speed of the winds throwing stuff through walls, sometimes mother nature is just so powerful, it doesn't matter if you have warning time or not to seek shelter, she can still get you.

So if the NWS or NHC or the media said, "oh well this doesn't look like much of a threat, and didn't warn and prepare people to evacuate, and that storm intensified and killed a bunch of people, then everyone would be screaming at the NWS, NHC, Media and government because they stood by and didn't warn people to evacuate and get out of town. It's a double edged sword, and you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

In the end, we're all at the mercy of Mother Nature, people are still going to suffer injuries and die in storm related deaths no matter how prepared people are, or how warned they are.

God help any place ever in the path of a Cat 5 Hurricane that makes landfall, catastrophic will not be the word to use to describe the damage....

Same for hurricanes Rita and Katrina. The devastation I saw was unimaginable. What stood out to me more than anything else was that the damage was so random. One house would be virtually unscathed while next door was a concrete slab where a house once stood. One of the most memorable things I saw was a concrete slab with the pipes sticking out and not much else, that is except for the perfectly intact toilet in the middle of the slab. It made no sense to me how a house could be destroyed yet a fragile toilet remained.

Something else that was odd was seeing a boat, a large boat, miles from the nearest body of water.

Dolomite

[Guest WyattEarp]

here's some photos I took while in New Orleans last December, there are still houses and apt buildings with major damage....5 years later.

Hurricane Katrina: 5 Years Later - Welcome to DrewG Photography

[mav]

here's some photos I took while in New Orleans last December, there are still houses and apt buildings with major damage....5 years later.

Hurricane Katrina: 5 Years Later - Welcome to DrewG Photography

Looks like some neighborhoods in Detroit.