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.

Lafitte and Jean-Lafitte are also sounding dreadful. This is where the levee broke or was overtopped (now reading conflicting messages about this). There are apparently about 200 people in this area alone.

Attempts to make rescues have been hampered because the bridge to the area was hit by one of the many ships that have become loose of moorings taking it out.

Similar story to LaPlace with calls for help.

yup :(

The force of the wind is just incredible:
www.theguardian.com/world/video/2021/aug/30/locked-off-camera-shows-devastating-power-of-hurricane-ida-video

Looking at them on the map Lafitte is more easterly than I'd anticipated. It doesn't look easy to access either.

Yeah LaPlace because it appears away from the brunt of the coast isn't the obvious place for problems. I think thats possibly why theres so many calls for help there as more people might have thought they could ride it out. It definitely seems to have got an unlucky hit, being just the strongest side of the eyewall and getting the double whammy of storm surge from Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi reversal. It was in the worst spot possible.

I agree. Lafitte and Jean-Lafitte look obviously vulnerable. LaPlace, less so.

People evacuated to LaPlace

Tropical storm now.

CrowdSource Rescue @cs_rescue
Talked to fellow good samaritan w/ a boat at Lafitte location. His uncle's house was 13 ft off ground, had 1 ft of storm surge inside still.

Positioning trailers and dropping zodiac in the water shortly.

Ride to Lafitte should take ~30min, depending on debris or power lines

(Thats about the height of a double decker bus underwater)

That's crazy.

Louisiana hospitals were already struggling due to covid.

Just watching CNN and there are flooding warnings as far north as Cincinnati, that's practically Canada. Crazy huge storm.

What time will sunrise be?

That made me jump Oubliette. Terrifying.

11:40 our time MrSlant

No that's wrong, 12:40. Forgot about bst. Oops.

Well the good news appears to be that the water in LaPlace has more or less subsided - they can't get in by boat apparently now because its too shallow. The problem is that whilst its now possible to get there by land, the roads are so covered by debris its going to take some time for rescue crews to get in. This still could take some time as a result. And they have to hope that most people managed to get to somewhere safe in the flooding.

That is good news! Though it sounds like it complicates things rather.

Part of a thread about the size of storm surges.
Dr Joanne Williams @jowilliamsuk
But exploring the gauges, there are some that are much higher. 17feet at Black Bay! That's over 5 metres! And it's not a dodgy looking single-data-point spike, this is a clear rise and fall.

Apparently the storm surge at Grand Island perhaps wasn't as bad as previously feared and looks to have been closer to 5ft.

OYBBK, rescue teams are now in LaPlace apparently, having got their within the last hour and are checking first on people known to have been in need of medical attention or trapped in attics and then they are going to start going door to door.

Where do you get all your info from Red? I want to geek out over the stats but it's not my normal area of the internet (ask me anything you like about Icelandic vulcanology!).

Twitter.

My account is in part set up for hurricanes after many years of interest - so lots of local news reports and weather channel reports (and reporters). I also use the search facility. First I started with simply Ida and got a fair idea of where was badly hit/a place of concern. Then I seatch by place name of those areas, and its a question of sifting through for reputable accounts or trends. Known storm chasers are a good bet, as are broadcasters, aid agencies, public bodies and scientists.

You gradually get a fair idea of whats going on as much as you can - from whats publically available at least.

Just knowing how to use twitter as well as you can really is half the battle.

(My twitter account is fairly well set up for weather, news and politics generally - I also follow lots of iceland volcano related accounts).

I'm yet to see much in the way of daylight reports. Reporters are trying to get to LaPlace atm, so I'm sure it won't be too long - but the road is closed and communications aren't reliable atm due to the outages.

I think it will be a couple of hours yet before we start to see much more information.

twitter.com/CBSThisMorning/status/1432309784057876484
CBS this morning giving a basic over view about the situation.

Lafitte-area levees overtopped, not damaged, local official says

The levees in the area of Lafitte, 20 miles south of New Orleans, did not breach as Hurricane Ida hit overnight despite earlier reports, the Jefferson Parish president said.

Cynthia Lee Sheng told the "TODAY" show Monday the levees were overtopped, but did not fail. It was earlier reported by the National Weather Service that the levees in the area may have breached, putting over 200 people in "imminent danger.”

"There was no structural failure of the levees, it's just that the water was higher than the levee that was built," Sheng said.

Source NBC News.

In some ways I think the levees being overtopped is almost scarier than them failing because it just shows the sheer monsterous nature of the hurricane, and that makes me doubt how effective other levees would be if they got a direct hit in the future. LaPlace highlights how just being in the wrong spot isn't planned for fully.

Lafitte and Jean-Lafitte still under a considerable amount of water and can only be accessed by boat (in contrast to LaPlace)

Some tweets with photos of how bad the roads - this is the I-10 the biggest highway in the area (main road between New Orleans and Baton Rogue - LaPlace is midway along it):

twitter.com/La_DOTD/status/1432329930549960704
From Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development.

twitter.com/LAStatePolice/status/1432326004962381830
Louisa State Police

Lower Jefferson where water rescues are ongoing for the Laffite area
twitter.com/paytonmalonewx/status/1432336394832293894
Via reporter for local tv station WWL-TV (@WWLTV is a good follow for news on aftermath reports)

Does anyone else watch live US news on YouTube, (I do this with any major event, especially foreign language news) its always interesting to see what and how things are being reported.

twitter.com/TBLwx803/status/1432347208154759171
LaPlace flooding - video.

twitter.com/dejoniquetv/status/1432348929316753415
Similar still photo at same location (I believe its the I-10 intersection)

twitter.com/search?q=laplace&src=typed_query&f=live
Water on I-10 at exit 209 in Laplace (care of Louisana Transport Department).

twitter.com/mikeremaley1/status/1432349609813233668
Structural damage in LaPlace