its time to play, hurricane preparedness drills.

Urwumpe

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Not hearing good news from Galveston, Lake Charles, ect, bad flooding.

I would be surprised if there was no flooding. They question between good and bad is just: Is it more or less than expected?

And how high is the damage afterwards... no damage at all is always impossible in such a event, but as long as people can still return home and find something familiar, it is not too bad.

And people should not fall prone to the hope, that any human structure or system can prevent damage. You can only build things as good as you can, and pray to God (or the laws of Physics), when it is put at the test. And also, for hurricane regions, a good water management system of the whole region is often more useful to prevent damage as better levees at the coast. The storm surge is bad, but it is not as bad the rain, that a hurricane brings.
 

Kyle

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I would be surprised if there was no flooding. They question between good and bad is just: Is it more or less than expected?

Sounds as bad as expected. Which is pretty bad.
 

Urwumpe

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Sounds as bad as expected. Which is pretty bad.

No, as bad as expected is slightly good. Worse than expected, is pretty bad.

If things happen like you expected them, you are prepared for it. If they are not as bad, you are over-prepared. When they are worse than you prepared for, you are not prepared at all.
 

Kyle

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No, as bad as expected is slightly good. Worse than expected, is pretty bad.

If things happen like you expected them, you are prepared for it. If they are not as bad, you are over-prepared. When they are worse than you prepared for, you are not prepared at all.

Not to enter any arguments about phrases or anything, LOL, but
"Certain Death if you stay" - NHC
"Flooding that will completely bring Galveston under water" - Dr Steve Lyons
"Storm of the Decade" - Governor of Texas
 

Urwumpe

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You forget the mother of all storms. Ah wait, that was Gustav.
 

Kyle

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You forget the mother of all storms. Ah wait, that was Gustav.


It was the, er, Great-Great Granddaughter of all storms. 4th most destructive Hurricane to hit the United States. 20.4 Billion Dollars in damage.
 

eveningsky339

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Four million in Houston are without power, which I believe is most of the population, so we won't be hearing from our guys any time soon.

I don't know if I can go to work today. It tanks a quarter of a tank to get to where I need to be, and I only have half a tank. I can't get more because all the gas stations have shut down.
 

Linguofreak

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The northwest edge is starting to hit Dallas. It's later and less severe than I'd been led to expect (mild winds and a bit of rain), although it's supposed to get worse in the afternoon.
 

Tex

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Well, I'm back in the area near my house staying with a close friend who already has power. Almost all of Houston is indeed without power, some 3 million. Power poles are snapped all over the place.

This storm really did some damage. In my area there was lot's of flooding, trees down, boats on the roads, and buildings destroyed. I personally could have seen worse from the storm surge they predicted, but ended up with 2 feet of water in my house, no serious damage from wind on the house. A tree in my backyard took out the entire power line for the neighborhood, so it's gonna be a good while until we get power and until we get the house cleaned up and repaired. I'll do my best to admin the site as I have time and internet access, just wanted to update you all. Tomorrow we move my fish to a friends tank and start pulling up the carpet and cutting out sheetrock. Fun fun...
 

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Nice, you're responsible for bringing down the power of your neiborhood. Next time you plant a tree, Tex, THINK OF THE RE-PERCUSSIONS! :p

I hope your computer's ok. Which is a semi-nerdy thing to say, but anyway.

And diverging for a minute, your new avatar, the dog with the expanse of water, is that somehow related to flooding due to Ike?
 

Tex

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Nice, you're responsible for bringing down the power of your neiborhood. Next time you plant a tree, Tex, THINK OF THE RE-PERCUSSIONS! :p

I hope your computer's ok. Which is a semi-nerdy thing to say, but anyway.

And diverging for a minute, your new avatar, the dog with the expanse of water, is that somehow related to flooding due to Ike?

haha, it was an old tree. :p Computer is fine, I took it with me when I evacuated.

The dog in my avatar is my girlfriends dog, was taken by me weeks before the storm at the lake in my neighborhood which connects to Galveston Bay.
 

James.Denholm

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haha, it was an old tree. :p Computer is fine, I took it with me when I evacuated.

That's the way! Women, children, and expensive electronics first! ;)

The dog in my avatar is my girlfriends dog, was taken by me weeks before the storm at the lake in my neighborhood which connects to Galveston Bay.

Oh. Right. Lake, not flood water. Note to self, learn the difference.

Still, tell your girlfriend for me that that's one cute dog!
 

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Well well well, looks like I was right...Remember, several years makes a difference...

Worst Damage in many years...
 

Urwumpe

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*cough*

For forty years the rainbow will not be seen.
For forty years it will be seen every day.
The dry earth will grow more parched,
and there will be great floods when it is seen.

Looks like somebody was more accurate in his predictions...
 

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Well, I'm back in the area near my house staying with a close friend who already has power. Almost all of Houston is indeed without power, some 3 million. Power poles are snapped all over the place.

Call it Orbiter karma...
Your mission in life to stay here was stronger than the hurricane...
It is good to know you are Ok and back.
 

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The problem is the Hurricane Scale. NHC needs to revise the scale to account for a combo of Surge Vs Winds Vs Damage Expected... Much like the EF scale in Tornadoes. If they did this it would come out like this...

Category 2-3 winds...

Category 4-5 surge...

Category 5 damage...

But telling the people that Category 2 is coming would not make them leave. Had a scale been in effect to account for all events expected this would be a Category 4-5 and people would take it more seriously. All about numbers...

$19.99 or $20.00?

More people see $19.99 and buy that. $20.00 is just 1 cent higher but the human brain sees it as expensive because of the 2 vs 1.

110mph surface winds is Cat 2. 111mph is Cat 3. 1 mph difference and it was said a Category 2 in winds. Not much of a difference, the dropsonde reports were qualified for Category 3 winds. Not to mention cat 4 winds existed 200 feet up so buildings were blasted by Cat 4 winds.
 

Urwumpe

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But other than Tornadoes, you can't do any meaningful damage assessment for hurricanes. The damage is too widespread and too much depending on local geography.

And Ike was a class 2 hurricane in all aspects - but it hit a place where it can cause heavy damage. If you would calculate pressure drop over area (=total work of the hurricane), you would still get roughly the same scale.

So why change it, in favor of being only able to predict damage once you really know where it hits and have all possible predictions use the same old scale.

(But again, that just my 2 TeV as computer scientist.)
 

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That's true. But in a way it was better they said Cat 2. Why? Because maybe now people will take action if a Cat 2 is coming knowing what even a Cat 2 can do. I sure as heck would have been out of there.
If the conditions support it, another wave in Central Africa is moving West and could form into another named system over the next week...
 

Urwumpe

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It always depends on the where you life. A storm which would make people in Hamburg start prepare for serious flooding, would not even be a small concern where I life, because I have different geography. I would have different concerns, as Hamburg then - massive rain would not disturb people in Hamburg, heavy rain fall years can here cause more damage as any wind. And two meter snowfall would be bad, but not as bad as in the alps.

So... there is no bad weather, but bad locations. ;)

And maybe the Galveston Stormwall now gets a upgrade. Not that it needs it. about 100 years between hurricanes able to cause massive damage is not really that bad for a protection system. But raising it by 2m to 6m might be better, German coast protection systems are over 8m high (maximal 10m), but we have a different topography and flooding history - and we can afford putting a 100m wide dike on our coast.
 

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Glad to see Tex is OK and that his devastation wasn't as bad as it could have been. Hope our other friends there are at least as fortunate.

But telling the people that Category 2 is coming would not make them leave. Had a scale been in effect to account for all events expected this would be a Category 4-5 and people would take it more seriously. All about numbers...

I dunno. The weathermen were constantly saying how much surge was expected where, which is the thing you need to key on. Besides, nobody knew Ike was "only" going to be a 2 on impact until it happened--all the forecasts were for landfall as a 3.

Seems to me most folks just go into denial. They can't imagine what a big surge can do, even when warned about it, so sit there thinking, "How bad could it be?" I think a lot of that comes from the way the coverage of Katrina focused on the slow, fairly gentle, post-storm flooding of New Orleans. Yes, that was technically storm surge, but it wasn't being pushed by the storm at the time, it was just flowing slowly under gravity as it ran back south from the north side of Lake Pontchartrain (where it was NOT gentle). So on TV, folks could watch as New Orleans slowly filled up over the course of a day or 2 without knocking anything down except what was right in front of where the levees broke.

If, OTOH, Katrina coverage had been showing Biloxi and its surroundings, or Plaquemines Parish or Grande Isle in Lousy Anna, where nearly everything (boats, buildings, houses, their contents, cars, trees, etc.) within about 1/2 - 1 mile of the water was converted into a giant solid wall of wreckage piled up for miles far inland, they'd have seen what storm surge REALLY is. It's a like a bulldozer blade dozens of miles wide that just keeps coming for hours, rather like what the tsunami did in the Indian Ocean. It looks like what Ike just did to Galveston.

Anybody living near a coast in an area that's less than about 100 feet ASL, or is surrounded by such areas, should leave when a hurricane of any size is coming to their area. It's really foolish not to. Even a "little" storm surge is a very bad thing.
 
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