Hurricane DEAN

[Deb & Bill]

A few years back, there was a hurricane in the Gulf/Atlantic area that would have disrupted the DCL cruise, so the cruise wound up going to Savannah and up the east coast instead of the Caribbean.

And don't mess with my Jim Cantore. He was in Biloxi/Gulfport when Katrina hit and wound up nearly getting into the flood. I heard it scared him good.

We're watching both Erin and Dean here in Louisiana. We don't need another Katrina, but we do have some experience now in getting people out.

Funny thing, earlier this summer the State of Louisiana did a full scale hurricane drill. Name of the Hurricane? Dean. We're going to get the nursing homes and hospitals evacuated 48-72 hours ahead of time this go round.

 

[JimMIA]

Not too much new news this morning. Dean continues to move very rapidly and strengthen. It is expected to hit the Lesser Antilles as a Cat 2, hitting or brushing Jamaica as a Cat 3, possibly a Cat 4 for Grand Cayman, and then hitting the Yucatan as a strong Cat 4 with sustained winds of 145 MPH and gusts over 165 MPH.

If I lived in Texas or Louisiana, I'd watch Dean closely when it gets near Jamaica. If it slips south of Jamaica, good. But if it hits Jamaica and then the western tip of Cuba, there is one computer model that takes it straight to New Orleans.

Doesn't look like Dean is going to threaten WDW unless it makes a dramatic, unexpected turn...which, of course, is always possible.

 

[allicat]

Mark and Sue-We are also on the 8/23 cruise. The forecast is looking better so thats positive! From what I have learned, we will cruise no matter what-even if it means being bussed from Port Canaveral to a different port and changing the cruise itinerary entirely.
I dont really like the thought of being on hurricane fueled rough waters! I believe the insurance will cover if you couldnt get to the cruise due to weather rather than cover the cruise itself. If the boat is sailing, I dont think they are giving refunds.
Not too sure about the points.

 

[mark&sue]

We are at the London airport at moment as we are staying here overnight and could not resist checking the DIS to see if there was an up-date on Dean. Great to see someone else on our cruise.

Good news the cruise will sail whatever as we have never been on one of these before so really looking forward to it.

Good luck to everyone and fingers crossed it missess people and homes.


Susan

 

[Inkmahm]

Those guys never intentionally go within 100 miles of any real weather. If you see them in strong winds, they either have the wind machine running, or their producers messed up. One of my very close family members was working alongside one of those crews -- about 200 miles from the landfall of a storm -- and the cable cameraman accidentally panned to his "other" right and got the wind machine in the picture. Everybody panicked so bad, it was on for about 10 seconds during a live feed! Needless to say, that didn't make any of the hourly re-runs of the old feeds.

You're saying the Weather Channel is a fake?

 

[JimMIA]

You're saying the Weather Channel is a fake?

That particular incident was not the Weather Channel. It was one of the really, really big cable news networks.

 

[snappy]

So I guess this means we should not have brought our nineteen year old son down today to New Orleans to check in to his dorm so he can start his freshman year, right?

If Dean comes up the Mississippi, not a good way to start out your college career. . .

 

[JimMIA]

So I guess this means we should not have brought our nineteen year old son down today to New Orleans to check in to his dorm so he can start his freshman year, right?

If Dean comes up the Mississippi, not a good way to start out your college career. . .

Well, that depends on whose perspective you have! For the students, it is a GREAT way to start the year! But for the parents, it would be nerve-wracking.

Actually, though, the latest run of models looks like they are all in agreement with the storm going to Yucatan and probably from there making landfall again further up the Mexico coast. The one model that was saying NO has now fallen into agreement with the other models.

So, when you talk to your son, tell them to get the hurricane parties going right now, before getting hit is absolutely ruled out!

 

[Camping Cat]

We're watching both Erin and Dean here in Louisiana. We don't need another Katrina, but we do have some experience now in getting people out.

Funny thing, earlier this summer the State of Louisiana did a full scale hurricane drill. Name of the Hurricane? Dean. We're going to get the nursing homes and hospitals evacuated 48-72 hours ahead of time this go round.

I don't even want to think about it! I'm sitting here with my stomach in knots and feeling sick. The same feeling I get every time I see a hurricane evacuation route sign. Please let us get through another year without even a minimal storm!

 

[bobbiwoz]

I don't even want to think about it! I'm sitting here with my stomach in knots and feeling sick. The same feeling I get every time I see a hurricane evacuation route sign. Please let us get through another year without even a minimal storm!

My feelings exactly, for the good people of New Orleans and whoever have weathered bad storms!
Bobbi

 

[JimMIA]

As you watch this storm and others, it's good to remember that Katrina was only a Category Three storm when she hit New Orleans, as was Wilma when she hit South Florida a couple of years ago. (Both had been Cat 5's at sea, but were 3's when they made landfall.)

Erin was only a tropical storm when it hit Texas yesterday, and it killed at least seven people. Another tropical storm (Jeanne, I think) killed more than 2,000 people in Haiti in 2004.

A storm doesn't have to be a Cat 4 or 5 to kill people and do tremendous damage.

 

[snappy]

Watching local weather reports very carefully here. I always like my 83 yo MIL and the rest of the inlaws to evacuate to our house early so they don't get caught in the craziness on the roads.

One silver lining. . . MIL does not have nearly as much to pack as pre-Katrina.
She still has not replaced much due to 18 mos of cramped living quarters. There is an upside to downsizing.

 

[JimMIA]

Hurricane Dean continues to move along, and as mentioned earlier, we probably will not have a good idea where the storm will end up until Saturday...possibly even as late as Monday/Tuesday.

For the next two days, the storm's track seems pretty predictable, but beyond Sunday is somewhat less certain today than it looked yesterday. People in Texas and Louisana will just have to wait and see.

The storm is NOT expected to impact WDW unless there is some radical change.

Dean is currently a Category 2 storm and is expected to hit Jamaica as a Cat 4 storm. By the time it reaches the Yucatan Peninsula, it is currently projected to be a very strong Cat 4, with 150 MPH sustained winds gusting to 180 MPH.

 

[snappy]

Question, Jim, do you have a favorite web site to go to for watching storms?
I had several bookmarked but lost all bookmarks when went to a new computer.

I went to several grocery stores this morning, they all had mega displays of bottled water, batteries, etc. stacked prominently by the checkout area.
I stocked up yesterday, last year was the first in three years running that we did not family/friends evacuate to stay at least overnight with us.

 

[JimMIA]

Question, Jim, do you have a favorite web site to go to for watching storms?
I had several bookmarked but lost all bookmarks when went to a new computer.

By far the best is www.nhc.noaa.gov That's the National Hurricane Center site, and the only limitation on the info there is your stamina in digging through the resources. It has all the advisories, of course, complete with all of the background info you don't usually see -- not only the public advisories, but also forecast advisories and forecast discussions. There's a bit of a learning curve for those last two, because they are written in semi-technical language. But after you read them for a few days, you'll get the hang of it.

On the left side of the page, there are links to literally hundreds of other pages. For example, if you click on Satellite, you will have access to real-time satellite photos AND loops of weather worldwide, including closeups. When Charley hit Ft. Myers in 2004, I was watching on the computer and telling my cousin in Ft. Myers what the storm was doing via cell phone.

The best commercial site I've found (and I'm sure there are others) is WeatherUnderground. http://www.weatherunderground.com/

Once you get there, click on Tropical/Hurricane, and that will take you to the storm page. In particular, I like their pretty color-coded 3- and 5-day charts -- but they've also really done a nice job of simplifying the NHC information so that normal people can understand it.

WU also shows the computer models. Models will make you crazy, and the key is to simply never believe anything you see on the models because it's all going to change in a couple of hours. Models bounce all over the place, and they really are NOT intended for lay persons to use for hurricane prediction.

For local information, we use a three-tiered system. Early on, it's NHC and WeatherUnderground. If the storm looks like it's going to threaten South Florida, we go into "MaxWatch". (Max Mayfield lives down the street from my daughter, so when Max puts up his shutters, we put up ours!) And then during the storm, we watch Brian Norcross on Channel 4, although some of the other local stations also do a very good job. We truly NEVER look at cable TV during storms, because the info we get from NHC and local TV is a) much more accurate, b) much more timely, and c) contains much less hype.

 

[Deb & Bill]

Louisiana Government will announce H-120 hours at 6PM CDT tonight. Hospitals start taking actions about H-96 hours, meaning planning evacuations, getting staff back to assist, etc.

 

[snappy]

Thanks, Jim. Weather Underground was the one I was using in 2005 during Katrina's advance. I could not remember the name, so thanks.

I just watched our local weather, they are saying for the residents in our area (Baton Rouge) to watch where the storm is on say Sunday night in relation to Jamaica, if it passes at least a bit south, it will probably continue on its probable course to the Texas/Mexico border. If it passes to the north of Jamaica, watch out Louisiana. It really depends a bit on the low pressure system over the southeast gulf and how long it lingers.

Nothing to mess with, Cat 3. The report I saw predicts it will ramp up to a 4 at least for awhile.

Our gas prices have dropped a little (I paid $2.51 at Sam's Tuesday), I sure hope Dean doesn't level the offshore platforms.

 

[JimMIA]

Louisiana Government will announce H-120 hours at 6PM CDT tonight. Hospitals start taking actions about H-96 hours, meaning planning evacuations, getting staff back to assist, etc.

These kinds of decisions are really the most difficult decisions any government official will ever make. They are no-win decisions -- you are damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

It seems so simple to say that you can move everyone out of every hospital and nursing home in the state in 48 hours, but it just doesn't work that way in real life. It takes a LONG TIME to make the arrangements, get the transportation, get the employees away from their own hurricane shutters and into work...and then you have to be finished a LONG TIME in advance of the storm hitting.

Once gale force winds start (often 12-36 hours ahead of landfall), all the buses and ambulances come off the streets because they can't drive safely in the wind. In coastal areas, you also have the problem that tides WAY out in front of a storm may make bridges and causeways unusable.

The problem is, NOBODY knows where a hurricane is going 96 hours out, or 120 hours out, or even 48 hours out. But you can't wait.

Evacuations are very, very difficult, and very dangerous. People die being evacuated...and then the darned storm goes the other way. That is why we don't evacuate much in Florida.

 

[snappy]

I don't remember evacuating either while living in New Orleans in the 60's growing up, even when Betsy hit (on my birthday, what a memory), or in the 70's through most of the 90's. The first time I remember getting out was '98.

Even if you don't flood, it is not much fun staying home without electricity (esp, a/c). It happens, especially with the above ground electrical lines.

Luckily our neighborhood here has the electic lines buried. We only lost power for 8 hours after both Katrina and Rita.

I wonder if Houston is going to evacuate again like they did for Rita. The traffic getting out of town was worse there than the evacuation from New Orleans for Katrina.

 

[Camping Cat]

I don't remember evacuating either while living in New Orleans in the 60's growing up, even when Betsy hit (on my birthday, what a memory), or in the 70's through most of the 90's. The first time I remember getting out was '98.

I was 13 when Betsy hit and I'll never forget a second of that long, long night! It certainly was a coming of age experience.

I think we started evacuating around 1998 also. We live on the West Bank of New Orleans and it is always very vulnerable. Although it's called the West Bank, it is actually south of the city and there isn't much between us and the Gulf, now that the wetlands are almost a thing of the past. And the Harvey Canal is our MRGO. Rita actually caused us more problems than Katrina because it passed to the west of us and piled water up through the marshes and the Canal. We first started evacuating when they started telling us we could get up to 20 feet of water on the West Bank. No thanks!

Even if you don't flood, it is not much fun staying home without electricity (esp, a/c). It happens, especially with the above ground electrical lines.

Luckily our neighborhood here has the electic lines buried. We only lost power for 8 hours after both Katrina and Rita.

You were very lucky! We didn't evacuate far enough....just north of the lake where we have some property out in the country. We were without power for a week and out in the country, no power means no running water either. We had to haul buckets of water a quarter of a mile from the pond to flush the toilets. Fun, fun times.

I wonder if Houston is going to evacuate again like they did for Rita. The traffic getting out of town was worse there than the evacuation from New Orleans for Katrina.

I guess we've had more practice.