Hurricane Laura, et autres catastrophes

[JGP]

This thing is scary, just shy of a CAT-5, accompanied with tornado warnings [WTF] and massive storm surges predicted. In a couple hours it'll be the greatest storm to make landfall in the US since like 1850 something or some shit. I don't know if we have boarders down there, but it's estimated there'll be hundreds of thousands of people who didn't make the evacuation.

The devastation going to be all over the news tomorrow morning, and for a while. I'm not even going to get into all the refineries that could potentially be affected beyond mentioning it.

Hearts out to everyone in its path.

[Fragile Bird]

I think the worst thing is that it is moving in in the dark, between 2 and 4 am. And many people have not evacuated because of Covid-19, they were afraid to go to shelters. A lot of people are going to drown, I fear. Of course, many folks have gone through other hurricanes and are  willing to face this one.

We have a number of boarders in Louisiana, like sologdin. solo, keep safe.

[JGP]

I didn't know soggy was down there. Damn.

Be well, yo.

[sologdin]

there's a few boarders in new orleans, but this thing's center hit a couple hours west of us, between lake charles and beaumont. it looks to be apocalyptic for them.  (the tornado thing is regular, by the bye.) i'm not noting any adverse conditions outside my window.

 

 

[Paladin of Ice]

I just posted about this in US Politics but I wanted to mention it here too: when you see the devastation that will result from this (and likely other major storms) just remember that less than two weeks ago Trump's Executive Order took 44 billion dollars from FEMA to cover unemployment payments so Trump wouldn't have to fund unemployment by signing off on a bill that gave money to the Post Office.

Quote

As 2020’s record-setting hurricane season enters its most active phase, President Donald Trump wants to take billions of dollars away from hurricane-related disaster relief to provide expanded unemployment benefits due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last weekend, Trump announced a series of executive orders after congressional leaders and the White House could not agree to another coronavirus relief bill that would have likely expanded federal unemployment benefits.

One of the orders would allow the president to take up to $44 billion in disaster relief funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay for COVID-related unemployment claims. The order would leave $25 billion in FEMA’s disaster relief fund if all the unemployment money is spent, down from the $68.4 billion that is currently in the fund as of July 31.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, sologdin said:

there's a few boarders in new orleans, but this thing's center hit a couple hours west of us, between lake charles and beaumont. it looks to be apocalyptic for them.  (the tornado thing is regular, by the bye.) i'm not noting any adverse conditions outside my window.

 

 

They were saying on the news that while it's still bad, a lot of the worst case scenarios predicted aren't anywhere close to happening, especially historic storm surges. 

[JGP]

There was also a course change while a few hours out from landfall that saw a lot of the more heavily populated areas spared.

[Ormond]

By wind speed this was the strongest hurricane to hit Louisiana since the 19th century, but NOT the strongest to hit the entire USA.

And if one had been paying attention to the Weather Channel one would know that although this was expected to be very bad, it was always known that it would not be the worst ever because it was moving rather quickly. Part of how damaging a hurricane is involves how long the eyewall stays over a particular area, and Laura has been moving fast enough that it hasn't been as devastating as a slower moving storm might have been. (The flip side of that is that higher wind speeds and power outages will extend further inland.)

That said, one will still have to wait for a while to see just how much damage happened right along the coast. 

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Ormond said:

And if one had been paying attention to the Weather Channel one would know that although this was expected to be very bad, it was always known that it would not be the worst ever because it was moving rather quickly. Part of how damaging a hurricane is involves how long the eyewall stays over a particular area, and Laura has been moving fast enough that it hasn't been as devastating as a slower moving storm might have been. (The flip side of that is that higher wind speeds and power outages will extend further inland.)

The speed at which the storm was moving was something I had paid attention to, but what really surprised me was earlier this morning I read a report saying that, at least briefly, after Laura made landfall that it only decreased in intensity down to a Category 2 hurricane as it began to move inland.

Obviously, it wouldn't be able to sustain hurricane status for long as it traveled further inland, but just the fact that it was still able to retain cohesion over land blew my mind.

[JGP]

57 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

The speed at which the storm was moving was something I had paid attention to, but what really surprised me was earlier this morning I read a report saying that, at least briefly, after Laura made landfall that it only decreased in intensity down to a Category 2 hurricane as it began to move inland.

Obviously, it wouldn't be able to sustain hurricane status for long as it traveled further inland, but just the fact that it was still able to retain cohesion over land blew my mind.

Some of the stuff I was watching last night before bed [I can't recall, NBC maybe] had an expert on and he was talking about how much water was inland from point of landfall [swamps, etc] and how that would contribute to the endurance and slower decay of Laura's strength.  

1st death was reported a while ago though. A 14 year old girl killed by a tree.

[Quijote Light]

32 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

Some of the stuff I was watching last night before bed [I can't recall, NBC maybe] had an expert on and he was talking about how much water was inland from point of landfall [swamps, etc] and how that would contribute to the endurance and slower decay of Laura's strength.  

1st death was reported a while ago though. A 14 year old girl killed by a tree.

I’m certain that you didn’t mean anything by it, but at least twenty people were killed on the island of Hispaniola. 

[JGP]

16 minutes ago, Quijote Light said:

I’m certain that you didn’t mean anything by it, but at least twenty people were killed on the island of Hispaniola. 

Ugh.

As Ormond pointed out above, I'm guilty of repeating whatever I'm watching reading in this case-- I don't know much about crazy weather phenomena, and I didn't really start following this until earlier yesterday.

Sincere apologies. 

[Quijote Light]

20 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

Ugh.

As Ormond pointed out above, I'm guilty of repeating whatever I'm watching reading in this case-- I don't know much about crazy weather phenomena, and I didn't really start following this until earlier yesterday.

Sincere apologies. 

None necessary. Like I said, I was certain that nothing was meant by it. Often times the reporting on what happens before landfall on the continental US is poor at best. 

[A True Kaniggit]

I'm far enough north that it weakened a good bit by the time it hit here. Didn't affect me much beyond a few branches I had to clean out of the yard.

A couple friends down in Lake Charles were hit pretty hard. They're still without power, and have been sleeping in their truck.

[.H.]

Yeah, we just had a little water get wind-driven in the house and lost a cosmetic shutter.

My wife's cousins live in Lake Charles though, one, who is due to have their first child in five weeks, had a lot of damage to their house.  Roof ripped off, ceiling collapsed, the house might well be completely done for from what I saw.

[Fragile Bird]

On 8/27/2020 at 11:12 AM, JEORDHl said:

Ugh.

Hey, Jeordhi, can you change the title to this thread to Hurricane Laura and Other Disasters? Or Hurricanes and Fires and 2020? With five storms in the Atlantic and the Gulf and the west coast on fire from Mexico to BC, I thought we could re-cycle this thread instead of opening a new one.

[JGP]

Okie.

[Fragile Bird]

I guess I should say something now, right? 

I was very worried about our board members in New Orleans because the original projections for Sally were seeing Sally’s eye sitting right on top of the city. And it’s moving very slowly so a huge amount of rain is falling. Pensacola Florida has already been hit with 24 inches of rain. Sally’s moved right, so Alabama and northern Florida are getting hit hard instead. That almost sounds political, doesn’t it?

On the bright side of things, the hurricane has been downgraded from a two to a one. 

[A True Kaniggit]

Lake Charles is still wrecked from Laura, and FEMA (and by extension the country) has completely failed this city.

A friend's friend from there is staying with me for the next week, and some of these photos/stories are horrifying.

 

[Fragile Bird]

11 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Lake Charles is still wrecked from Laura, and FEMA (and by extension the country) has completely failed this city.

A friend's friend from there is staying with me for the next week, and some of these photos/stories are horrifying.

 

I thought I heard FEMA has now left Lake Charles. If true, how is that possible? And didn’t Trump grab disaster money to build his wall?