ARE WE READY?

[Pearl River]

CVW wrote

What's "only a Category Three" and "a weak Category Two"? May you explain what makes a Category Two or Category Three "only" or "weak"?

Isn't that what EWG and ROCK always keep refering to Katrina in New Orleans?

My dad for the first time in his life evacutated from Slidell. He wasn't going to do it, but I believe my mom, GOD rest her soul, sat on his shoulder and told him "Pete, get the heck outta here. It ain't worth it." If he would not have left, we wouldn't have him today.

Are we ready? Physically we are. Mentally? It's too exhaustive to even think about it now. But when the time comes, we'll be ready.

[Frank P]

I honestly believe if Katrina would have come in as a 175 mph Cat 5 with her very large size the entire peninsular of Biloxi would have been underwater... the surge would probably been in the 35-45 foot range, maybe even higher.. and this city would pretty much have been entirely wiped off the map, along with Ocean Springs, Gulfport, Long Beach, Pass and Bay St. Louis... The I-10 bridges at Pascagoula and Bay St. Louis would also have been wiped out...we are quite lucky from that perspective that she weakened to only a Cat 3...

Now the question at hand "am I ready for a storm"... I don't think so..... but I don't have much more to lose since Katrina took everything... what bothers me the most is what will happen if even a weak Cat 2 hits the areas... it will most likely destroy all the RVs and trailers... most of the evacuation centers are not really available nor prepared to house thousands of evacuees... so where will all the people go and eventually live???? Hell, where will I live??? I don't have a clue what I would do.... and I'm probably better off than most of the people in this area.... it took me months to get a FEMA trailer... if every there was a year for the MS/SE LA coast NOT to get a hit with a strong hurricane it certainly is this summer... I hope we don't even get a threat... but I seriously doubt that scenario pans out... one can hope though...

What's "only a Category Three" and "a weak Category Two"? May you explain what makes a Category Two or Category Three "only" or "weak"?

By the way, it's nice to see you back!

thanks, its good to be back...

what I meant by "only" is relative to the discussion at hand... "ONLY" a Cat 3 or "ONLY" a weak Cat 2 in comparision to "an extremely worse case END OF THE WORLD as we know it" 175 mph Cat 5... which in comparison to the saffer-simpson scale should be more in line with a Cat 6 or 7 if they rated them that high, which of course they don't... ONLY being a relative term in comparison to what could have been...

I think if this storm hit the area as your typical Cat 2 or Cat 3 with their expected worse case surge of 15-18 feet, then I and most of my neighbors would STILL HAVE THEIR HOUSES... a Cat 2 or a Cat 3 would NOT have done nearly the damage that Katrina did due to the fact that she did not have enough time to wind down that killer storm surge from the Cat 5 status, and of course her large size...

[Frank P]

I honestly believe if Katrina would have come in as a 175 mph Cat 5 with her very large size the entire peninsular of Biloxi would have been underwater... the surge would probably been in the 35-45 foot range, maybe even higher.. and this city would pretty much have been entirely wiped off the map, along with Ocean Springs, Gulfport, Long Beach, Pass and Bay St. Louis... The I-10 bridges at Pascagoula and Bay St. Louis would also have been wiped out...we are quite lucky from that perspective that she weakened to only a Cat 3...

Now the question at hand "am I ready for a storm"... I don't think so..... but I don't have much more to lose since Katrina took everything... what bothers me the most is what will happen if even a weak Cat 2 hits the areas... it will most likely destroy all the RVs and trailers... most of the evacuation centers are not really available nor prepared to house thousands of evacuees... so where will all the people go and eventually live???? Hell, where will I live??? I don't have a clue what I would do.... and I'm probably better off than most of the people in this area.... it took me months to get a FEMA trailer... if every there was a year for the MS/SE LA coast NOT to get a hit with a strong hurricane it certainly is this summer... I hope we don't even get a threat... but I seriously doubt that scenario pans out... one can hope though...

Hey Frank - good to see you on the board again... Hope all is heading in a positive direction for you and yours...

IF that 35' to 45' surge would have come to pass, you on Binachi and me on Lafayette would be no more, I do believe. I'm at 19.5' here, and we took ~3 feet in the house. Another 20+ feet is unimaginable.

My history is just like yours - stayed through every storm since Betsy. No doubt now, I'll never stay for another. Dem days is behind me!!

Hi Ixolib, my home town and good neighbor to the east.... next time you drive to the mall check out my cool FEMA trailer with the multi-level deck on the west side... it was built from all the boardwalk debris that came up from the beach and pummeled the houses in my neighborhood... I have a couple of American flags proudly on display in my yard

I'm doing fine...but living on the coast now is so much different than it used to be.......regardless I still love living on the beach and will rebuild ASAP.... you know, until people come down her and see all this first hand they won't ever understand what we are really going through...

and we would both be gonners if Katrina came in at 175 mph, along with about 100,000 others... hell, I might not have made it if I didn't get off the beach late Sunday afternoon... it might have been the best decision I've made it a while...

Oh this was a lessons learned for this boy... I've change my mind about a lot of things relative to how I will respond to future hurricanes in this area... as I'm sure most of the MS coast has.... and if they don't, expect them to be the next round of victims from the next major..

the day before the storm WLOX's Mike Reader was saying this storm would be like Betsy with a 13-18 foot storm surge for the Biloxi area.. too bad this didn't come to fruition, at least for me.... and I was banking on this to happen... I had, according to the Katrina Impact Assessment, a 25.72 feet storm surge.. ... from what I can gather based on water lines in the gutted remaining homes, this is pretty close... somewhere between 25 and 27 feet for sure... this is INSANE!!!!

[MiamiensisWx]

thanks, its good to be back...

what I meant by "only" is relative to the discussion at hand... "ONLY" a Cat 3 or "ONLY" a weak Cat 2 in comparision to "an extremely worse case END OF THE WORLD as we know it" 175 mph Cat 5... which in comparison to the saffer-simpson scale should be more in line with a Cat 6 or 7 if they rated them that high, which of course they don't... ONLY being a relative term in comparison to what could have been...

I think if this storm hit the area as your typical Cat 2 or Cat 3 with their expected worse case surge of 15-18 feet, then I and most of my neighbors would STILL HAVE THEIR HOUSES... a Cat 2 or a Cat 3 would NOT have done nearly the damage that Katrina did due to the fact that she did not have enough time to wind down that killer storm surge from the Cat 5 status, and of course her large size...

Thanks for the confirmation.

[Frank P]

No problem, I should have explained what I meant... Cat 3s are quite the serious storm... on a side note I was at Kennedy Space Center all last week... now days everywhere I go I now analyze in my mind what would have Katrina's surge done to that area... I'm not sure of what their slosh models indicate but if a Katrina type storm surge hits the Cape Canaveral and KSC areas it would in all likelyhood be very similar to the levels of destruction noted on the MS coast... boy that area is really really low.... everyone there was telling me how lucky they were to dodge all the bullets from the 2004 season, the Vechicle Assembly Building, where they stack the shuttle on the External Tank and attached the two solid rocket motors had over one acre of metal panels blow off from 75-80 mphs winds during the 2004 season.. Imagine what 130 plus winds will do!!!... and can't believe what they've seen coming out of the Katrina devastated areas..... get a Katrina like storm making a direct hit from the east, sort of an Andrew type track but only at a higher latitude, and the space program would be shut down for a very long time... my opinion of course... the guys now at now at the Cape and KSC take hurricanes quite seriously I might add... primarily mostly because of Andrew, and of course Katrina.... no telling what this season will bring....

[MiamiensisWx]

No problem, I should have explain what I mean... Cat 3s are quite the serious storm... on a side note I was at Kennedy Space Center all last week... now days everywhere I go I now analyze in my mind what would have Katrina's surge done to that area... I'm not sure of what their slosh models indicate but if a Katrina type storm surge hits the Cape Canaveral and KSC areas it would in all likelyhood be very similar to the levels of destruction noted on the MS coast... boy that area is really really low.... everyone there was telling me how lucky they have been to dodge all the bullets from the 2004 season, the Vechicle Assembly Building, where they stack the shuttle on the External Tank and attached the solid had over one acre of metal panels blow off from 75-80 mphs winds during the 2004 season.. Imagine what 130 plus winds will do!!!... and can't believe what they've seen coming out of the Katrina devastated areas..... get a Katrina like storm making a direct hit from the east, sort of an Andrew type track but only at a higher latitude, and the space program would be shut down for a very long time... my opinion of course... the guys now at now at the Cape and KSC take hurricanes quite seriously I might add... primarily mostly because of Andrew, and of course Katrina.... no telling what this season will bring....

Yeah... the Cape Canaveral area would be in trouble if a Category Two or Category Three made landfall in that area while paralleling the coast like David from 1979.

[f5]

No problem, I should have explain what I mean... Cat 3s are quite the serious storm... on a side note I was at Kennedy Space Center all last week... now days everywhere I go I now analyze in my mind what would have Katrina's surge done to that area... I'm not sure of what their slosh models indicate but if a Katrina type storm surge hits the Cape Canaveral and KSC areas it would in all likelyhood be very similar to the levels of destruction noted on the MS coast... boy that area is really really low.... everyone there was telling me how lucky they have been to dodge all the bullets from the 2004 season, the Vechicle Assembly Building, where they stack the shuttle on the External Tank and attached the solid had over one acre of metal panels blow off from 75-80 mphs winds during the 2004 season.. Imagine what 130 plus winds will do!!!... and can't believe what they've seen coming out of the Katrina devastated areas..... get a Katrina like storm making a direct hit from the east, sort of an Andrew type track but only at a higher latitude, and the space program would be shut down for a very long time... my opinion of course... the guys now at now at the Cape and KSC take hurricanes quite seriously I might add... primarily mostly because of Andrew, and of course Katrina.... no telling what this season will bring....

Yeah... the Cape Canaveral area would be in trouble if a Category Two or Category Three made landfall in that area while paralleling the coast like David from 1979.

they thought Floyd would do just that

[ROCK]

CVW wrote

What's "only a Category Three" and "a weak Category Two"? May you explain what makes a Category Two or Category Three "only" or "weak"?

Isn't that what EWG and ROCK always keep refering to Katrina in New Orleans?

My dad for the first time in his life evacutated from Slidell. He wasn't going to do it, but I believe my mom, GOD rest her soul, sat on his shoulder and told him "Pete, get the heck outta here. It ain't worth it." If he would not have left, we wouldn't have him today.

Are we ready? Physically we are. Mentally? It's too exhaustive to even think about it now. But when the time comes, we'll be ready.

Did I miss something here? I don't ever recall me posting Kat was a "weak 2 or 3."

[Ixolib]

Hi Ixolib, my home town and good neighbor to the east.... next time you drive to the mall check out my cool FEMA trailer with the multi-level deck on the west side... it was built from all the boardwalk debris that came up from the beach and pummeled the houses in my neighborhood... I have a couple of American flags proudly on display in my yard

I'm doing fine...but living on the coast now is so much different than it used to be.......regardless I still love living on the beach and will rebuild ASAP.... you know, until people come down her and see all this first hand they won't ever understand what we are really going through...

and we would both be gonners if Katrina came in at 175 mph, along with about 100,000 others... hell, I might not have made it if I didn't get off the beach late Sunday afternoon... it might have been the best decision I've made it a while...

Oh this was a lessons learned for this boy... I've change my mind about a lot of things relative to how I will respond to future hurricanes in this area... as I'm sure most of the MS coast has.... and if they don't, expect them to be the next round of victims from the next major..

the day before the storm WLOX's Mike Reader was saying this storm would be like Betsy with a 13-18 foot storm surge for the Biloxi area.. too bad this didn't come to fruition, at least for me.... and I was banking on this to happen... I had, according to the Katrina Impact Assessment, a 25.72 feet storm surge.. ... from what I can gather based on water lines in the gutted remaining homes, this is pretty close... somewhere between 25 and 27 feet for sure... this is INSANE!!!!

Insane is a good descriptor!! I figured y'all ended up with the boardwalk on your slab. Kinda sad to think of all the work the county put into that thing - in fact JUST got it finished - for it to end up like it did. But, I'm glad to see you're putting it to good use!! And I can't wait to see your home go back up. Hopefully, you'll still have some of your "blue shutter paint" left to remind us of the good old days!!

You are so right about the reality of the situation here vs. seeing it on the news or reading about it on a wx board. There simply is no comparison. And of course, it's not just the "seeing" but, more importantly, it is "living" (and re-living) it every day too. No doubt, life on this coast is nowhere near to what it was pre-K. To this day, I am STILL spending about 12 hours a day (with a few S2K breaks thrown in) rebuilding the house - it is the ONLY thing I do now-a-days, 7 days a week. Lowes of D'Iberville has become my new best friend - and me theirs for all the $$$ I've spent there since August.

As for my readiness, my plan is to just pack up and go. No boarding, no sandbags, just hit the road. The way I figure it, the only one who wins if I board the windows is the insurance company. In fact, had I not boarded for Katrina, I would have ended up much better off with the settlement. As it turned out, they didn't pay for ANYTHING below 4 feet since there was no wind/rain intrusion into the home. All the damage was from the surge, and with no flood insurance, I was left holding the bag...

Thankfully, we "only" (man, that sounds weird!!) got about 22 feet here. 27 would have put us in the attic (or beyond)

Insane, no doubt...

[cajungal]

I went to New Orleans to a friend's wedding yesterday. The damage was just unbelievable. 6 months after Katrina, much of New Orleans still looks like a bomb hit it. It will be years before the city recovers. Some areas still did not have power. I know New Orleans is in no shape to bear the brunt of another cane for many years to come. Even a tropical storm would be very bad news. Many live in FEMA trailors and even a strong thunderstorm would push these around like toys. If anyone want's to see pictures of the damage, go to communitywebshots.com under cajungal106. It is in the album Chad and Crystal's wedding. I only got to take 4 photos. We were in a hurry to get to the wedding. I would of took more if I had more time. The damage just blew my mind.

[skysummit]

I went to New Orleans to a friend's wedding yesterday. The damage was just unbelievable. 6 months after Katrina, much of New Orleans still looks like a bomb hit it. It will be years before the city recovers. Some areas still did not have power. I know New Orleans is in no shape to bear the brunt of another cane for many years to come. Even a tropical storm would be very bad news. Many live in FEMA trailors and even a strong thunderstorm would push these around like toys. If anyone want's to see pictures of the damage, go to communitywebshots.com under cajungal106. It is in the album Chad and Crystal's wedding. I only got to take 4 photos. We were in a hurry to get to the wedding. I would of took more if I had more time. The damage just blew my mind.

Which area you went to cg? I'm there once or twice a week and it still blows me away. About 80% of the area east of the I-10/Chef Menteur exchange is out of power still.

[cajungal]

Skysummit, the wedding was at Southern Oaks Plantation on Haynes Blvd. It is going towards New Orleans East. Very bad damage in that neighborhood. The area that we took pictures was near one of the levee breaks. We went off of Loyola Ave. to inspect the damage. As well as off of Robert E. Lee. Some of that area was further damaged when a tornado hit there about 2 weeks ago.

[skysummit]

Skysummit, the wedding was at Southern Oaks Plantation on Haynes Blvd. It is going towards New Orleans East. Very bad damage in that neighborhood. The area that we took pictures was near one of the levee breaks. We went off of Loyola Ave. to inspect the damage. As well as off of Robert E. Lee. Some of that area was further damaged when a tornado hit there about 2 weeks ago.

Hey...that's where my wife and I got married! Yea, the damage is still very bad in that area.