Hurricane Ida

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

She is one scary beast. It looks like Louisianna is in for a really bad time on the anniversary of Katrina.

At the moment she is cat 4, still explosively deepening with no signs of an eyewall replacement cycle. Radar is showing an area of sustained winds of over 140 mph, though officially they are still 130mph.

Seems there's some maintenance issues with the hurricane hunter planes, so it could be a few hours before another fly through is done. An astonishingly bad time to not have that data.

Its worrying.

We used to live in Florida so I have a particular interest in hurricanes,but agree we've not heard that much about this one. Hope it's not as bad as it seems.

On another note, lovely to hear from you @Ohyoubadbadkitten soon be time for snow watch!

Its been a bit of a while since I've been on this part of mn Tokyo :)

I cant believe people are trying to evacuate now.

Shes undergoing EWRC at a terrible time - just expands the windfield at this point.

The worst thing about this is that people don't understand how difficult it is to leave new Orleans or Louisiana, we used to live there and we evacuated for a storm before we came back to the uk.

You can leave New Orleans with a full tank of gas and you can run out of gas and will have only driven 20 miles. There is 1 highway out of New Orleans which is the i10, you can be in bumper to bumper traffic and move 4 inches in 1 hour.

All the gas stations are empty between NO and Alabama and the nearest 'safe' hotels in Tennessee and Alabama are booked up or charging $400 a night. Which the poorest people who are just evacuating now cannot afford.

You can't take your pets to the public shelters so people will stay to be with their cat or dog.

storm surge camera on Grand Isle.

Apparently this is that camera.

I was just about to ask if you knew how far off the ground the camera was. That doesn't look good at all.

That camera footage is terrifying.

Camera keeps going under water now.
I really really hope everyone is off Grand Isle.

I read its 7ft up.

That is bad.

How is that camera still working?

There is so little coverage on the TV. I've every channel here and it's all on Afghanistan and Biden today. I do hope everyone is OK. I hate these storms, I hate seeing people suffering.

There's coverage on CNN for anyone who can get it. You can get it on a computer (I'm watching on a TV). It's in with the other news, but there's quite a lot of coverage interspersed with Afghanistan and the repatriation of the dead military.

This will probably sound very ignorant and I don't mean it that way at all, I'm just trying to understand the situation. If these areas consistently see very big storms like this then how come the government don't put more money in to the area to help protect people? Especially the poorer people who probably don't have the means available to escape.

@minniemouse31 politics essentially. The local areas have jurisdiction over money and resources so unless that state declares a state of emergency the federal government can't allocate emergency funds and other things take priority in ' normal times' schools etc. It's such a shit system

The authorities said that they didn't have time to implement contraflow on the highway and advise evacuation. I do understand that the geography makes it particularly difficult to evacuate the entire population of New Orleans at short notice. But surely the combined brains of the US authorities, given several decades notice that a situation like this was inevitable, could produce a faster contraflow solution. And to have designated free shelters in each direction to be picked according to storm path.
www.newsweek.com/new-orleans-mayor-says-hurricane-ida-moving-too-fast-order-evacuation-1624056

Minnie since katrina there have actually been billions apparently spent in that area to improve flood defences etc. It's just not simple - and a lot of people don't want to accept that some places are in the process of becoming uninhabitable due to climate change. It's too massive for people to grasp.

The footage was on replay when I went back to it so it must finally have been submerged. :(

I do hope everyone is OK. I hate these storms, I hate seeing people suffering

I hate to see people suffering and I hate that it those that are already suffering that are hurt the most.
But I am in complete awe of the storms, the might of nature, the inability of the Human race to even predict let alone mitigate, in a world where mankind feels superior these events show that we are as vulnerable as the dinosaurs. I'm not being callous, close family live in an area that is exposed to the brutality of nature (not the US) and I send my prayers to the individuals that are experiencing it.

Our friends in New Orleans have said they got axes for the attic after Katrina because people drowned due to there being no escape from the water onto the roof. I really hope they don't have to use them

The BBC reporter in the US just described New Orleans, in the context of it being in fear of Ida, as an 'otherwise carefree city', which given the fall-out of Katrina, other storms, lasting poverty, climate change and Covid-19, I found a bit naive.

I think that BBC reporter must be confusing everyday life in Nww Orleans with Mardi Gras.

It looks as though New Orleans is going to escape the worst thankfully. Ida has jigged left. Still a lot in her way along the coast though. I think she will hit Baton Rouge as a Cat 2.

I think the CNN reporter who has been in Houma all day to show what the eye of the storm is like will be disappointed, it looks to have shifted completely (unless the radar is having a moment).