Geoff Fox: My Permanent Record
Back when I was in school teachers would always scare me with stories of how my exploits would end up in my permanent record. I believe this is it! – Geoff Fox
I’ve been watching the water level in the New Orleans canals protected by levees. They’re still high. They have not begun to recede.
Gustav has come onshore in Louisiana. As of this moment the impact has been less than feared. That’s the best I could have possibly written, isn’t it?
Meanwhile, though the storm is pulling away, the danger is not done. I’ve been watching the water level in the New Orleans canals protected by levees. They’re still high. They have not begun to recede. As long as the water levels are high the pressure on the levees will remain high.
Here’s where you can see the water level yourself.
In a less enlightened time no one would have guessed a hurricane was close and aimed at the area around this sleepy outpost.
That’s the weather observation from Houma-Terrebonne, LA, as relayed by the Weather Service. Winds are light. The temperature is 93° and the dew point 62° under partly cloudy skies. It was an uncharacteristically beautiful evening at 7:00 PM CDT when this observation was taken.
In a less enlightened time no one would have guessed a hurricane was close and aimed at the area around this sleepy outpost. Hurricane Gustav is less than a day away. The time available before Houma will be cut off is much less.
It’s the last “ob” for a while. RMK LAST means they’re closing down. Houma doesn’t normally provide late night readings, but I doubt the airport tower will be open tomorrow. FlightAware.com shows a bunch of locally based aircraft leaving. A few big Sikorsky copters normally used to shuttle crews to oil rigs (the only entries I see on their flight logs) have gone to Pascagoula, MS.
It will be a long night on the Gulf.
Reporting from Houma, LA tonight is like being in Hiroshima to cover the end of World War II.
I just came downstairs. Helaine had the Weather Channel on. I’m not usually a TWC viewer but I know who Jim Cantore is. I sat next to him at a friend’s wedding. Tonight he’s in Houma, LA. Why? In my opinion, and it is only my opinion, live TV coverage from landfalling hurricanes contributes to the “I’ll ride it out” attitude that gets people killed.
I don’t want anyone hurt, but will it take a death or serious injury before reporters are no longer stationed where hurricanes strike, just because it produces great video?
Reporting from Houma, LA tonight is like being in Hiroshima to cover the end of World War II.
The damage in New Orleans was hurricane related, but it wasn’t the damage you expect in a hurricane. On the Mississippi coast structures were blown apart. In New Orleans most buildings were intact until they were flooded.
As I type this, Gustav is somewhere near the Cayman Islands, picking up strength and heading toward the Gulf of Mexico. The Gulf is warm. Gustav will strengthen some more.
For the past few days the official Hurricane Center Track has pushed Gustav toward the Louisiana coast sometime late Monday/early Tuesday. The latest center of the track would bring landfall west of the Mississippi over a swampy, sparsely populated area near Vermillion Bay. That would put New Orleans on the stronger side of the storm, but possibly far enough away to escape the worst. Katrina struck on the opposite side of New Orleans–actually on the Mississippi coast. For Katrina, New Orleans was on the weak side!
Monday’s a long way off. The track will certainly shift somewhat by then.
There is a misconception most people have about Katrina. I’m writing tonight to put that part of the Katrina saga in perspective. The damage in New Orleans was hurricane related, but it wasn’t the damage you expect in a hurricane. On the Mississippi coast structures were blown apart. In New Orleans most buildings were intact until they were flooded.
I’m not saying there wasn’t damage before the water–there most certainly was. But New Orleans wasn’t flattened by a hurricane. It didn’t receive strong and sustained hurricane force winds. It was not the ‘worst case scenario’ storm New Orleans had feared.
I wrote this as Katrina began to pull away Monday evening.
Katrina Comes Ashore 08/29/05 9:21 PM
New Orleans wasn’t totally laid to waste. There has been plenty of damage, and once we get out of the ‘fog of war’ we’ll find plenty more. The coasts of Alabama and Mississippi really took the brunt of Hurricane Katrina. That was more than expected.
After the fact, I still agree with the decision to empty out New Orleans. Yes, some people will crawl out of the woodwork to say they rode it out and it wasn’t that bad. That’s not the point.
At this point the New Orleans hurricane damage from Katrina wasn’t that bad. The damage we all saw didn’t start until later Monday night long after the storm was over. It was as if the Katrina unfolded in slow motion.
Bad News For New Orleans, Out of Left Field 08/30/05 3:02 AM
Rick Sanchez was on the air, speaking by phone with someone from Tulane Hospital in New Orleans. The hospital’s spokesperson was talking about water – rising water.
The hospital had seen no real flooding while Hurricane Katrina passed by, but tonight, water had begun rushing in and it was rising at an alarming rate.
I could hear the fear in her voice as she described the water level rising an inch every five minutes. That’s a foot an hour. Already there was six feet of water outside the hospital. Soon, water would reach the level of their emergency generators on the second floor.
Sanchez was taken aback. I’m not sure he originally understood what she was saying. It was so unexpected – so out of context.
She said a levee keeping Lake Ponchartrain out of New Orleans had been breached. The cut in the levee was two blocks long and water was rushing in unimpeded. Even if there were pumps working, and she wasn’t sure there were, they wouldn’t be able to keep up with this deluge.
On CNN, Rick Sanchez kept asking questions, but it was obvious this woman wanted to get off the phone. Speaking to him wasn’t going to help her.
I heard terror in her voice.
The hospital had to get its patients out. Its patients were by and large critical. The only way to move them would be by helicopter and FEMA would be needed for that.
The other all news stations are in their usual reruns. I have no way of knowing if this is true. If it is, this is New Orleans’ worst fears are realized. Lake Ponchartrain could inundate the city.
Here’s my point. If Gustav gets strong (likely) and hits just west of New Orleans (possible) there will be a different type of damage in the Crescent City. New Orleans could just get blown over. Nothing FEMA or the Corps of Engineers has done would prevent this kind of destruction.
I’m not sure which scenario is worse–what happened in ’05 or what’s possible in a few days. They are not, unfortunately, mutually exclusive scenarios.
Radio is having trouble competing with TV in the one daypart radio has historically dominated. That’s good for TV, because AM drive is the one daypart that’s going to be difficult for the interactivity of computers to reach, and which has shown growth substantial viewing growth in the last two decades.
I start most weekdays late. Saturdays start even later.
In the shower six’ish, I turned on the radio. Garrison Keillor was just starting A Prairie Home Companion on Public Radio.
Helaine walked in to use the sink and wash her face. She couldn’t help but hear the radio blasting away. He’s not her favorite.
OK – that’s too kind.
She dislikes the show. There, I said it.
As I listened to some guy from Louisiana that Garrison was praising as if he was the second coming, I started to think about radio. These are tough times for radio.
It’s not just the competition from satellite services and iPods, it’s also TV. Does anyone listen to the radio at home except me?
I asked my friend Bob last week. He said he thinks the vast majority of his morning show’s audience (Bob & Sheri, heard across the US) is out of the home. Some are in cars, others at work. There are downloaders listening to podcasts, but that’s still a small minority.
Radio is having trouble competing with TV in the one daypart radio has historically dominated. That’s good for TV, because AM drive is the one daypart that’s going to be difficult for the interactivity of computers to compete in and which has shown substantial viewing growth in the last two decades.
My only in-house radio listening takes place in the shower. I have a Sony radio (using 3 c-cell batteries that last well over a year between replacements), mounted on a bracket on the shower’s side wall.
We have a clock radio next to the bed. It’s hardly used. When I turned on the family room receiver during last week’s poker game, it was the first time it had been on in months… maybe years. That radio is at least thirty years old. When it dies, it won’t be replaced.
It’s very difficult for sound to compete with sound and pictures. That’s probably a good thing for me.
I’m writing this while flying over Colorado. We’re at 37,000 feet.
On my way west, we were averaging a bit under 400 mph. With the wind at our back, Flight 265 is doing 570 mph! The pilot says we’ll be 20 minutes early to Midway.
Back at LAX, the gate agent called “boarding in five minutes.” I shut down my laptop and began to pack. My laptop had other ideas.
Without warning I was installing update 1 of 6!
Please, don’t turn me off until I’m done, my laptop screamed in big letters from a font I’d not chosen. No one asked me. If they had, I’d have said “later.”
I semi-closed the lid, slipping my finger between the keyboard and screen to keep any switches from killing the power. That’s the way I boarded the plane. Helaine and Stef, reading this, are glad they weren’t around. Another embarrassing Geeky Greg moment.
This flight is around half full. My rowmate, A middle-aged woman, is dozing in the aisle seat. I’m at the window. I chose the right side to see any prettiness associated with the sunset, which should soon be happening.
Our country is beautiful from this altitude. Yes, the sophisticated traveler takes the aisle seat to have easier bathroom access. He’s too cool to look out the window. I need the scenery.
We took off from Los Angeles and headed out to sea. After a few miles we turned north, paralleling the Pacific Coast toward Malibu. There was fog this morning. It covered the ocean near the shoreline, penetrating inland to the first foothills. Things must be slow on the PCH today.
Inland, a layer of haze made the ground a little less distinct. I could also use the “S” word – smog. There’s some of that too.
Already above 10,000 feet, we made a sweeping left 270 degree turn, finally heading east. A few minutes later I started seeing snow capped mountains. They weren’t far from LA.
Nearly all that’s between Los Angeles and Las Vegas is desolate. Sometimes you’ll pick out a road etched into the vast expanse of dirt. Cryptically, every once in a while a geometric pattern shows up. Are they housing tracts, surveyed but never developed? Way out in the desert, it’s easy to wonder why this land would be considered for anything.
I saw Lake Mead, but not nearby Las Vegas. The Grand Canyon appeared out my window, just a bit south of us. A few minutes later, I saw the bane of my last trip west. It was the gigantic Navajo Power Plant near Page, AZ. Close by was the Glenn Canyon Dam. Have I really been here enough times to start picking out landmarks from above?
I shot a few photos of Monument Valley, looking south from the Utah side. The plane wouldn’t be there long. We were heading toward Colorado.
There is plenty of snow out here. Originally, I thought what I saw was a light patch. Then I realized the trees and bushes poking through the snow was why it never looked solidly white. The slopes of the Western Rockies looked like chocolate cake with powdered sugar sprinkled on.
Below me now, the mountains have disappeared. It’s Kansas. It’s flat. As far as the eye can see, there are rectangular fields. Sometimes the fields are interrupted by perfectly round patches where an irrigation system rotating on wheels or tracks has made its presence known.
I’m not sure where the water comes from. So far, the vast majority of river beds I’ve seen have been dry.
I’m tired. I’ll be exhausted by Hartford. I’ll need the rest of the weekend to recuperate from my vacation.
Blogger’s addendum: When first published, this entry was full of typos and poorly formed English. That’s what happens when you write against time, trying to finish before the battery gives out. Writing offline without a spell checker didn’t help either! It’s mostly fixed now
I so enjoy LA. Of course, I don’t deal with its weaknesses and frailties on a daily basis.
There were a few stops for me to make today. First, I headed into Old Hollywood to visit my secretive friend. He has an office at small, older, studio complex. These are really more akin to office parks with various independent vendors, usually selling their services to each other.
This is as good a time as any to say how useful my GPS has been. I programmed all the addresses I’d need when I was in Connecticut, then threw it in my bag. I have used it with confidence.
Yes, it tried to have me drive into construction barriers, but for the most part it’s been my faithful friend. It is much more sophisticated than it seemed at first glance. Learning how it works was time well spent.
I left The Valley on the Hollywood Freeway, turned onto Santa Monica and then into a gated driveway. This was “The Lot,” formerly Goldwyn Studios.
It’s funny how a studio really does have a distinctive look, no matter what its size. I’ve been to a few, though briefly. When busy, you’re walking through a movie factory. When they’re not, and this one wasn’t, they are lonely.
Make no mistake, this is an industry town. When you see all the movies and TV shows being promoted, you realize it’s for more than the audience at home.
I’m sure these writers (photo – left) thought I was a company security man, taking photos of them. I passed a number of picket sites including one at NBC on W. Alameda in Burbank.
Burbank was where I headed next. I was going to see David Kulka. Dave… everyone else now seems to call him David… and I met in 1968. It’s a very unusual story.
He and I were BCBDXers. That means we listened to AM radio, trying to find more distant and difficult catches. Dave and I belonged to the same radio club.
Oh – we lived an entire continent apart. He lived in Marin County, just north of San Francisco and I lived in Queens.
Somehow we began corresponding and decided to go to a radio convention together. He was 15. I was 18. We were both leaving home for the first time.
We met in Los Angeles. Within the first hour, jaywalking tickets for both of us outside the Roosevelt Hotel! It was my fault 100%.
This was an amazing adventure, going from LA to Riverside and finally the San Francisco Bay Area and Dave’s house in Greenbrae. His family made me welcome in a way they probably never appreciated. That was huge.
He was a great guy, but 40 years ago the coast-to-coast distance was a lot more daunting. We fell out of touch.
The Internet changes everything. That how Dave and I got back together.
Dave’s house is on a small street that looks like it should be quiet. But this is Burbank. There’s a lot of business being conducted, even on a residential looking street like this. That includes Dave’s company.
In a small building behind the house sits an electronic workshop. It is the product of extreme organization – bright, neat, eat-off-the-floor clean. There were four people working when I arrived. They were mainly fixing audio equipment.
At first glance, this is old equipment. The circuits were hand wired with discrete components decades ago. There are dials and meters. It’s very analog. I worked with some of this equipment in radio 30+ years ago.
The bottom line is, this stuff outperforms much that’s digital. Maybe more importantly, some of it is built in as integral pieces in pre-existing studios and needs to be replaced as-is.
We left the shop and headed to the house. That’s when I saw the first turtle.
Dave’s wife Cholada collects turtles. In a small pond out back is a colony… pack… gaggle… whatever you call a group of turtles. There were at least a dozen, in and out of the water. None of them were in much of a rush to go anywhere.
Oh, there’s one more living thing in the yard. It’s a tortoise. He’s fourteen years old, nearly 100 pounds and lives in a heated doghouse. Pretty standard stuff really.
Dave and I sat and talked. Our lives have taken such different paths. There was so much to learn.
This was such a good idea. I’m glad I went. A case can be made that contacting people you haven’t seen in decades is wrong. No! At least not in this case.
Our conversation reminded me of so many things we had done. The summer of ’68 was intense. So much was going on in my world and the real world. You really should have been there.
Flying to LA was reasonably uneventful, though the last thirty minutes felt more like driving down the Cross Bronx Expressway than LAX Approach. We lumbered through a series of ugly looking cloud layers. Imagine flying slower and lower than you think a 737 should for thirty full minutes.
It’s been raining on and off in LA. It’s not ‘shut down the city’ rain, just some showers with temperatures in the fifties. It’s actually quite pleasant, though the roads here scare me when wet.
Got my rental car with no problem, hooked up the GPS and was on my way. I know most of the route, but the GPS adds a layer of confidence.
It took about 25 minutes to get to my friend’s home – the ‘secret’ location in the San Fernando Valley where I’ll spend the next few days. My friend, his wife and 20-something son, live in a beautiful and large home a few seconds outside the Sherman Oaks business district.
For dinner, we walked to “Fukyo,” a local sushi restaurant. I love sushi and now I love it even more! The food was incredibly tasty and with a spicy kick that snuck up seconds after you took your bite.
This is a long day. My commute to California started at home around 9:30 AM. It was after 6:00 PM PST before I got here.
If you’re not in TV, you probably don’t know who Don Fitzpatrick is. If you are in TV, but haven’t been in long enough, you don’t know what he once was and the power he held.
Don died over the weekend in Louisiana. He was from there originally and moved back a few years ago. He will be most remembered for his years in San Francisco.
I first heard about Don right after I got into TV news. He was a headhunter of broadcast talent. He, or someone working for him, would comb the country, making videotapes of every on-the-air reporter and anchor they could see. That was then, and still is, a stunningly daunting undertaking.
Don’s company back in San Francisco, Don Fitzpatrick and Associates, kept those tapes cross referenced in an intricate filing system.
If you were a news director, looking for a reporter or anchor, you could go to San Francisco and look at everyone in a hurry. And, those you were looking at never had to know. It was cleaner that way.
Back in those days Don’s biggest client was probably the CBS owned stations. If Don had your tape, and if you were liked, he had the power to get you moved along. He was a giant in that way.
There was another side to Don. He was one of the first computer publishers. I want to say Internet, but he really was here before the original DARPA Internet became the World Wide Web we know today.
In the early 80s, his daily “Rumorville” was a must read… at least for the few of us who had accounts on “The Source.” There was little interconnection between the many networked services, like CompuServe and Prodigy and The Source.
Rumorville was fearless. Fitzpatrick would often print what his name implied – rumors. More often than not, they were true. Often they concerned powerful people in lofty positions.
Most of the Rumorville subscribers were news directors and other managers. As an on-the-air person, I was an exception.
I remember Don having trouble accomplishing some bit of computer minutiae. I sent off an email with some tips. This was nearly 20 years ago. I expected everyone using a computer then to be a geek. Don was not.
More important than knowing their inner workings, he was able to see the power of interconnected computers to pass timely info back-and-forth. Again, we’re talking about the early 80s!
As time went on, and the face of broadcasting changed, Don’s business seemed to become more marginalized. Finally, he was out of the talent aircheck business.
Later, Rumorville became ShopTalk, a daily newsletter. It, unfortunately, became a lot more mainstream and fact based. I miss the days when it was freewheeling. I missed the juicy rumors.
I met Don twice. The first time was in Charlotte, NC. I was there giving demos for a weather graphics company at the Radio TV News Directors Association convention. Don tapped me on the shoulder and introduced himself.
I looked and saw a rumpled guy in an poorly fitting sport coat and vaguely matching pants. I had expected to meet a slickly packaged giant. Instead, he was a real person.
Don and I traded emails a few times a year. Though we seldom chatted, I kept his screen name on my Instant Messenger friends list. I’ve watched him sign on at all hours of the day and night.
It’s sad to hear he’s died. He and I were separated by just a year in age – though he seemed so much more worldly and mature, early in my career. I knew he had health concerns, though nothing this serious.
He was one of a kind. He was a trail blazer. He was a king maker. He will be missed – certainly by me.
Possibly you remember how in January, Helaine, Steffie and I were scheduled to fly to LA from Hartford for a cruise? Though we left ourselves more than a full day of leeway, a major snowstorm was coming.
I called Southwest, and after some cajoling and pleading, our reservations were changed without charge. I wrote about it when it happened, calling the entry Southwest – May I Kiss You On The Lips?.
I’ll complain when things are bad, so I should compliment when they’re good. I did, by writing a letter to Southwest (as much as I love them, they’re very email un-friendly).
Today, I got my reply from Customer Relations (read it here) and a copy of the note Colleen Barrett, Southwest’s president, sent to the people who helped me (read it here). Do you think that note will help the next folks in my situation?
Damn right it will.
Just as important, the note from Southwest’s Kaye Kelly to me said, “I, of course, did back flips when I read how Patty and Linda were able to “bend the rules” and change your itinerary as you requested.”
Amazing! At Southwest, employees get rewarded for bending the rules to help a customer. This customer couldn’t be more pleased to let you know.
Back when Hurricane Katrina was threatening the Gulf Coast, I did my best to get Ruth Meisel out. The day she drove to safety up north was the last time she saw her home, until yesterday.
With her two adult children in tow, Ruth Meisel returned to New Orleans to see what could be salvaged and tie up loose ends. She will be among the tens, maybe hundreds of thousands, who will leave their homes and move elsewhere.
New Orleans is being abandoned, wholesale.
I asked her son, my friend, Farrell to type some of his thoughts so I could put them here in the blog. I’ll sprinkle a few of his photos here, though the best way to see them is in this slideshow.
It’s nice… no, it’s amazing to see Ruth smiling.
Here’s my read. She could be distressed with what she’s about to see, or she could be happy to see she raised her children right, and they are accompanying and supporting her. She chose the latter.
My mother knew from earlier reports and a prior visit by my sister, that things didn’t look so good. She’s been very optimistic and hopeful, looking forward and giving us much encouragement. My mother’s house survived the storm on the outside, but the inside looked and smelled awful and was a total disaster. Entering the front door we were greeted by a living room chair that wasn’t there when my mother left in August. That gives you an idea of how we were greeted.
From the marks on the wall it looks like 4-5 feet of water made it into the house. From the ‘bunny suits’ the Meisel’s wore, you can assume it wasn’t spring water.
Nearly everything was ruined.
One of the things that struck Farrell when we spoke on the phone was the proliferation of signs advertising Katrina related services. There are also markings, scrawled on homes with spray paint.
One of the city’s synagogues, Beth Israel, an Orthodox house of worship…Also one of the city’s oldest, which used to be in the historic uptown area until the late 1960s. Also on Canal Blvd, note the watermarks. Reportedly, the head Rabbi fled town, leaving the Torah scrolls to flood and be rescued from religious volunteers. The Rabbi has since been fired. My sister spotted prayer books and prayer shawls on the ground in front of the now-deserted synagogue….a sin in the Jewish religion.Here’s how Farrell ended his note, and I’ll leave it pretty much intact:
In our many conversations with New Orleanians and Jeffersonians, one hears a great deal of anger leveled at Government. I could only find one person with a nice thing to say about President Bush. I asked why? The waitress at the seafood restaurant said it was the Louisiana Governor’s fault for not letting Bush send FEMA and the troops in. I then asked, out of curiosity, did she know that Bush was on a fundraising trip in California for three days before he did a “fly-over”, VP Cheney was buying a vacation house and the Secretary of State was shopping in Manhattan, while her home state, Alabama, was flooded. The waitress hadn’t heard that.
A newspaper stand owner or manager clearly vented his anger towards Bush, but didn’t spare either the local, regional and state governments, but felt, the US Government let Louisiana down.
Most of the Greater New Orleans area, (Orleans and neighboring parishes), as it’s known, with some 1 million people once living there, don’t have electricity, a home, assistance from FEMA, insurance companies, and they feel forgotten just three months after the hurricane and floods.. As is the case with crises the world over, once the cameras leave, the sense of urgency goes with the camera crews.
The stores and shops that are open are operating for limited hours due to two factors: limited shoppers and limited staff.
It’s quite unusual to be driving in one part of the area, say neighboring Metairie, where the shops and malls have reopened, only to continue on Interstate 10 to downtown New Orleans, and pass through darkness because whole areas have no power.
There were some signs of life downtown and in the French Quarter. The beautiful St. Charles Avenue historic areas seemed to be untouched and lit, yet, just a few blocks away, one would have thought we could have been in a war zone.
Rumors of price gouging exist. Household stores are reportedly charging double for goods consumers can buy in the middle of the state or in Mississippi for less. Gasoline is 30 cents a gallon more expensive than in the center of Mississippi or Louisiana reportedly.
Residents feel abandoned now. From the newspaper shop owner to restaurateur, residents don’t feel the city of N.O. census will approach even half of it’s close to 461,000 registered residents.
Employers are looking for employees. Potential employees are looking for housing, assistance from FEMA and the insurance companies, and those are the few, who have returned.
The Times-Picayune reported today that the New Orleans Mayor, Ray Nagin, rumored to be in Washington on business, actually wasn’t there on business, but took his family on vacation to Jamaica. While I’m sure he’s deserving of a break, there are several hundred thousand to one million people, who’d love to take that break, if only they could get some help from the various government agencies so they could get on with their lives and rebuild. And I haven’t even begun to discuss the levee system.
As I write this at 2am Central Standard Time, I was trying to think, after only two days here, how could I best describe what I have seen and heard? The word that comes to mind is “abyss.”
New Orleans, which had once been described as the “city that care forgot,” from an old Mardi Gras tale, has become the bottomless gulf or pit. There are only a handful of truly unique cities in the U.S. with some history and character. When tourists think of those cities, New Orleans had always been in the same company with San Francisco, Boston, New York, Savannah, and perhaps one or two other cities or towns.
It would not be an exaggeration to suggest, if there is no sense of urgency, New Orleans could drop off that list in my lifetime.
Please, look at the pictures. It is so sad… so tragic.
I usually take a casual look at the maps from the Storm Prediction Center. In this day of weather specialization, these guys watch for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes.
In the past I have been critical of their work in the Northeast where severe weather responds to different stimuli than in the Plains. They do a good job in giving people like me a ‘heads up.’ We’re much better off with them, than without them. More flexibility in issuing watches here would be helpful.
I’ve watched with great interest over the past few days as they’ve posted a high risk outlook for severe weather over a large area. ‘High risk’ and ‘large area’ are rare and usually mutually exclusive.
ZCZC SPCPWOSPC ALL WOUS40 KWNS 151652 ARZ000-ILZ000-INZ000-KYZ000-MOZ000-MSZ000-OHZ000-TNZ000-160045- PUBLIC SEVERE WEATHER OUTLOOK NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK 1052 AM CST TUE NOV 15 2005 VALID 151652Z - 160045Z ...OUTBREAK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS EXPECTED OVER PARTS OF THE OHIO...TENNESSEE AND LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEYS LATER TODAY AND TONIGHT. THE NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER IN NORMAN OK IS FORECASTING THE DEVELOPMENT OF A FEW STRONG...LONG-TRACK TORNADOES OVER PARTS OF THE OHIO...TENNESSEE AND LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEYS LATER TODAY AND TONIGHT. THE AREAS MOST LIKELY TO EXPERIENCE THIS ACTIVITY INCLUDE CENTRAL AND EASTERN ARKANSAS SOUTHERN AND EASTERN ILLINOIS MUCH OF INDIANA WESTERN AND CENTRAL KENTUCKY SOUTHEAST MISSOURI NORTHERN AND CENTRAL MISSISSIPPI WESTERN OHIO WESTERN AND MIDDLE TENNESSEE SURROUNDING THE HIGH RISK AREA...THERE IS A MODERATE RISK OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS FROM SOUTHERN LOWER MICHIGAN INTO LOUISIANA...SOUTHERN MISSISSIPPI AND WESTERN ALABAMA A WIDESPREAD AREA OF SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS...INCLUDING SOME WITH LONG-TRACK TORNADOES AND VERY DAMAGING WIND...WILL AFFECT A LARGE PART OF THE EAST CENTRAL U.S. LATER TODAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY MORNING.
The operative words are “strong” and “long track.” That’s the recipe for disaster.
So far, there’s been one report of 65+ knot wind in Southwest Missouri. The day is young.
This weather system gets to us in Connecticut tomorrow. To quote Dorothy, “We’re not in Kansas anymore.” There will probably be storms, just not as intense or with as much damage.
Meanwhile, if I were in the bullseye on the SPC map, I’d be sweating bullets today. Someone’s going to get hurt, or worse.
My friend Farrell’s mom, Ruth, has been interviewed again about her escape from New Orleans.
Every time she tells the story, I become a bigger hero. It’s now the “Legend of Geoff Fox.”
Seriously, this was a call anyone with info would make to the parent of a close friend. I am glad Ruth escaped New Orleans unscathed. I’m glad she listened to her family and friends, because I know in her heart she very much wanted to stay.
The story from the Valley Gazette continues at the jump.
I woke up to see live pictures of a levee breach in New Orleans. I did not expect this.
Hurricane Rita is well out in the Gulf. Though New Orleans is under a Tropical Storm Warning, the winds have been out of the East, but only around 20 mph. Obviously, I underestimated how precarious the situation still is.
I don’t mean to diminish the pain and suffering of those there, but is this now a significant setback? These homes are already destroyed. They’ve been underwater before.
It certainly does point to how much thinking will have to take place before New Orleans is rebuilt… if it is rebuilt.
Speaking of precarious; we’re going to find out a little more about whether our nation’s finances are secure or precarious. The potential for damage in Texas is just as great, maybe greater, than New Orleans.
Though Galveston could flood, those waters would naturally recede. I’m just as, or more, concerned with the type of damage that took place on the Mississippi and Alabama coasts from Katrina.
It’s possible, no… it’s probable we’ll see houses and industrial facilities leveled – again. Where are we going to come up with all this money?
The best view of this storm is radar, again. The eye is clearly visible on the long range scan out of Lake Charles, LA. Later, as the storm gets a little closer, I’ll start probing it with the Doppler capabilities of the radar to try and get a better feel for the wind speeds within.
HOWEVER…RESEARCH SUGGESTS THERE IS A LAG IN THE ATMOSPHERIC RESPONSE. NEVERTHERLESS…RITA IS EXPECTED TO MAKE LANDFALL AS CATEGORY 3 OR…A LITTLE LESS LIKELY…CATEGORY 4 INTENSITY.
A lot of ‘ifs’ in that discussion. Nothing to do now but hope and pray.
How Long Can You Maintain Perfection? That’s a valid question in the world of hurricanes – certainly a question that was asked yesterday about Hurricane Rita and answered today.
When I told some people Rita wouldn’t continue to strengthen and would most likely diminish, some seemed disappointed. I don’t think they wanted people hurt or displaced, we’re just conditioned to see superlatives become more superlative.
Everything in a hurricane has to be functioning perfectly for a storm to get to 175 mph¹, as Rita did last night. If any one or two parameters change, even in a small way, the storm reacts.
No storm stays at Category 5 for long. It is a fact of life.
Meanwhile, a Category 4 or even 3 storm can do a tremendous amount of damage. Don’t fixate on what happened in New Orleans. New Orleans is a special case. Galveston could get flooding (which would quickly recede) and wind. Think the kind of damage that happened in Mississippi and Alabama.
More of a mind boggle is what could happen in Houston. The effect of hurricanes on tall structures has been thought about, but we haven’t seen too many real world examples.
If (and this is a big if) Hurricane Rita goes inland and comes close to Houston, a brand new set of problems will arise. There are lots of tall buildings. One is 75 stories tall! The wind there will be much stronger than at ground level.
I’m not saying these tall buildings will be blown over, but there would most certainly be exterior damage and the possibility of interior damage if/when the windows are blown out and the wind is funneled between the floors.
There is also concern for the ‘wind tunnel’ effect as winds get shunted into the canyons between the buildings of a city. I just don’t know how the calculations get made – though I assume they have.
I know enough to know Houston, inland as it is, is very vulnerable.
Today’s official forecast looks farther to the right… farther north… closer to the Louisiana border for landfall.
There continues to be nothing good about this storm.
¹ – Even while saying Hurricane Rita had attained top winds of 175 mph, the Hurricane Center implied they might be higher. After saying, in very technical jargon, how they came up with the wind speed and what data they didn’t have to work with they ended with: “THE PRESSURE-WIND RELATIONSHIP FOR AN 897 MB PRESSURE IS 160 KT.” 160 knots translates to 184 mph.
