Hurricane Katrina Live Thread, Part VIII

NOAA - NHC ^ | 29 August 2005 | NOAA - NHC

[NautiNurse]

Category 4 Hurricane Katrina is approaching landfall in Eastern Louisiana. At 4:00AM EDT the storm's center was about 90 miles south of New Orleans.

The following links are self-updating:

Public Advisory Currently published every 3 hours 5A, 8A, 11A, 2P, etc. ET
NHC Discussion Published every six hours 6A, 11A, 6P, 11P
Three Day Forecast Track
Five Day Forecast Track
Navy Storm Track
Katrina Track Forecast Archive Nice loop of each NHC forecast track for both three and five day
Forecast Models
Alternate Hurricane Models via Skeetobite
Bouy Data Louisiana/Mississippi
Buoy Data Florida

Lake Ponchartrain Real Time Water Level

Wind Speed Data

Images:

New Orleans/Baton Rouge Experimental Radar Subject to delays and outages - and well worth the wait

Mobile Long Range Radar Loop

New Orleans/Baton Rouge Radar

Ft. Polk, LA Long Range Radar Loop

Northwest Florida Long Range Radar

Storm Floater IR Loop
Storm Floater Still & Loop Options
Color Enhanced IR Loop

Other Resources:

Hurricane Wind Risk Very informative tables showing inland wind potential by hurricane strength and forward motion
Central Florida Hurricane Center
New Orleans Web Cams Loads of web cam sites here. The sites have been very slow due to high traffic
New Orleans Music Online Couldn't resist--love that jazz
Golden Triangle Weather Page Nice Beaumont weather site with lots of tracks and graphics
Hurricane City
Crown Weather Tropical Website Offers a variety of storm info, with some nice track graphics

Live streaming:

Cut and Paste:

http://www.wwltv.com/perl/common/video/wmPlayer.pl?title=beloint_khou&props=livenoad

Fully-linked version of the live feeds (just in case a few people don't want to first open up WMP to cut-and-paste) -

WWL-TV/DT New Orleans (WMP) - mms://beloint.wm.llnwd.net/beloint_wwltv
WVTM-TV/DT Birmingham (WMP) - mms://a1256.l1289835255.c12898.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/

1256/12898/v0001/reflector:35255
WDSU-TV/DT New Orleans (WMP) - http://mfile.akamai.com/12912/live/reflector:38202.asx
Hurricane City (Real Player) - http://hurricanecity.com/live.ram
ABCNews Now (Real Player) - http://reallive.stream.aol.com/ramgen/redundant/abc/now_hi.rm
WKRG-TV/DT

Mobile (WMP) - mms://wmbcast.mgeneral.speedera.net/wmbcast

.mgeneral/wmbcast_mgeneral_aug262005_1435_95518 WDSU-TV/DT New Orleans via WESH-TV/DT Orlando - http://mfile.akamai.com/12912/live/reflector:38843.asx

Hurricane Katrina Live Thread, Part VII
Hurricane Katrina Live Thread, Part VI
Hurricane Katrina Live Thread, Part V
Hurricane Katrina, Live Thread, Part IV
Hurricane Katrina Live Thread, Part III
Katrina Live Thread, Part II
Hurricane Katrina Live Thread, Part I
Tropical Storm 12

Category	Wind Speed	Barometric Pressure	Storm Surge	Damage Potential
Tropical Depression	< 39 mph < 34 kts			Minimal
Tropical Storm	39 - 73 mph 34 - 63 kts			Minimal
Hurricane 1 (Weak)	74 - 95 mph 64 - 82 kts	28.94" or more 980.02 mb or more	4.0' - 5.0' 1.2 m - 1.5 m	Minimal damage to vegetation
Hurricane 2 (Moderate)	96 - 110 mph 83 - 95 kts	28.50" - 28.93" 965.12 mb - 979.68 mb	6.0' - 8.0' 1.8 m - 2.4 m	Moderate damage to houses
Hurricane 3 (Strong)	111 - 130 mph 96 - 112 kts	27.91" - 28.49" 945.14 mb - 964.78 mb	9.0' - 12.0' 2.7 m - 3.7 m	Extensive damage to small buildings
Hurricane 4 (Very strong)	131 - 155 mph 113 - 135 kts	27.17" - 27.90" 920.08 mb - 944.80 mb	13.0' - 18.0' 3.9 m - 5.5 m	Extreme structural damage
Hurricane 5 (Devastating)	Greater than 155 mph Greater than 135 kts	Less than 27.17" Less than 920.08 mb	Greater than 18.0' Greater than 5.5m	Catastrophic building failures possible

[GovernmentShrinker]

That's why I said people who are grabbing survival supplies aren't really "looters". And I'm having trouble picturing anyone grabbing a stereo and swimming down the 10 foot deep street with it. If I saw anyone doing that, I'd assume s/he had sustained a head injury and wasn't thinking clearly. What does one do with a stereo that's been soaked through with muddy floodwater? And where would one take it under these circumstances?

[BenLurkin]

I'll join that FReeper in giving praise to God.

So that makes two of us at least.

[Gone GF]

Has anybody heard anything out of Thibodaux or Covington, La.? My parents live in the first (they are in NY this week) and I have other relatives in Covington.

[conservative in nyc]

See responses 3424, 3439, 3441 and 3468, among others, for information about Biloxi and Gulfport.


You can also try their newspaper and ABC affiliate for news. Someone else in another reponse posted a link to Southern Mississippi bloggers, but I don't have it.

[ctdonath2]

It saw him. It just didn't care.

[Types_with_Fist]

Yeah... me too. The fact that details are slow getting out from there is a very bad sign.

[CindyDawg]

You don't think they rationalize to justify they are stealing? Interesting. I never thought of a looter have a conscience.

[Diddle E. Squat]

Good map, I'm going to repost it and provide some references for those not familiar with the area.

For those who look closely, you'll see a faint blue line that is the Industrial Canal running north/south on the east side of New Orleans. Starts under the name "Seabrook", runs just west of the name "Gentilly" and joins the Mississippi River just south of the 'N' in "New Orleans". Running east/west just north of "Gentilly" from Lake Borgne in the east to the Industrial Canal is the Intercoastal Waterway. These 2 canals divide the city into 3 sections, each of which have their own levee system. So basically the NO area north of the Mississippi River is 3 bowls.

To the west of the Industrial Canal is the biggest, containing downtown New Orleans and further west Metarie and Kenner. So far it appears that none of the levees were overtopped, and the flooding is mainly rainwater confined to the lowest spots.

The smallest bowl is to the southeast, containing Arabi and Chalmette. The Miss. River rose high enough to overtop the levee, and so far it appears that this bowl filled to as much as 12' deep. This is the area where the water to the rooftop shots are from, and apparently where several casualties are. This area may have gotten the catastrophic storm surge flooding that was feared for the rest of the city. It was closer to the eye and full surge force than downtown.

Haven't heard much from the northeast bowl, but there were earlier some reports that an area of the levee along Lake Pontchartrain was (at least briefly) overtopped.

Other points of reference: Jefferson Parish is the area on the south side of the Miss. River from NO. Slidell is across the lake in the northest corner of the map. The hurricane made landfall several miles east of Slidell, just to the east of the map's edge, which is roughly the MS/LA border. Covington is just north of the map, where the causeway bridge reaches the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain(the green line.)

[SunnySide]

wind, rain probably some tornado action for the whole state of TN. The whole state will be covered by this system, so Tennessians better gear up.

[RobFromGa]

Man they will have a hard time to do an evac next time, unless the storm is tracking due west AND is a 5.

They can just show them pictures of what this storm did to people 30 miles away. And that's with the drop to Cat 4 at the last minute. New Orleans could have been a disaster...

[Moose4]

Yeah, but if I added that in, the tagline wouldn't fit. :)

}:-)4

[nascarnation]

Obviously this was an unsafe vehicle design.
Call Ralph Nader & Joan Claybrook & Brian O'Neil and a good class action law firm.
Any good minivan should be able to withstand a crash like that with no injury.

[kx9088]

I swear yesterday right before her outer bands touched the shoreline, she had a perfect circle for an eye and she looked like a friggin' buzz saw. Gave me chills down my spine.

[Dog Gone]

Would these bodies if just dead be floating this quick?

That's a fair question. But I don't know that embalmed corpses float any better than fresh ones.

As usual after a disaster, hard facts are in short supply.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Me too...loss of property is sad, but the fact that most people got out early enough to avoid death from the storm. WE should feel thankful that we have the technology to know where the storms are coming in and the means for large parts of the people affected had a chance to get to a safer location.

[Marysecretary]

Well, prayer sure helped!

[Abigail Adams]

Saying they may be able to get some copters up soon to get a first look around.

[conservative in nyc]

FOX News' Steve Harrigan is in Gulfport, too.

[No Blue States]

"We praise and give thanks to the Lord who spared the lives of many in this storm."

Who's "WE". Got a midget in your pocket? ;o)

I will be his "we".

[CindyDawg]

Make that three for we.