#20 Postby Steve » Wed Feb 15, 2006 5:34 pm
>>"Mayfield said New Orleans felt category three winds from the storm."
Definitely did. There was fairly severe wind damage across SE LA and MS even though that is overshadowed in MS by the Gulf surge and LA by the surge and flooding. I had a giant Pecan Tree fall on my house, signs and roofs were ripped to shreds, glass was broken all over and gas station canopies were in tatters. It might be that some of those Cat 3 winds here were in gusts, but they were in the area. I drove Tuesday night down to Slidell where many streets were impassable due to extreme amounts of fallen trees, power lines and light polls. But the best example is about 40 miles away in southern Pearl River County, MS (Picayune, Nicholson and such) where there are just acres and acres of downed trees.
>>Do you mean that 2006 won't have as many storms as 2005 when you say that, Steve?
My personal opinion is that it would be unlikely to see that many storms. But I'm talking more about landfall intensity and impacts. In the sworn testimony of Secretary Chertoff today, much data was discussed about how Katrina alone dwarfs damage caused by Andrew and the 4 2004 FL hits in scope of landmass affected (greater than Great Britain), number of homes destroyed (11 times and 6 times more) and other such things. 2 Katrina-level hits in 2006, even if they didn't hit New Orleans, would more than dwarf the damage in 2005 which was beyond a record year. Let's hope no other major metro areas see the type of pasting we got last year, but if they do, the $$ tallies will rise. Still, I'm thinking 2006 will be active and probably not a recurvature year, but I won't be able to judge until late Spring and certainly we won't know for sure until October or November how bad things were.
Steve
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