Very Alarming!!!

[Extremeweatherguy]

no, Boca Chris,

Cat 2 winds will destroy even a well built house. That is an upper F-1 tornado, approaching F2.

As for MS, I have to agree with the HRD maps in that most places only did get cat 2 winds, though some did get low end cat 3, and no areas came close to cat 4. That just illustrates how "just a 2 or just a marginal 3" can totally devastate an entire area from a wind vantagepoint alone.

I wish the HRD Katrina analysis would be given more publicity, as it would really serve as a wakeup call for the entire coastline that even winds below major hurricane force will bring destruction beyond comprehension

Ya know that is an excellent point. Eventhough a lot of hurricanes hit the United States we did not see a Upper Cat 3 to cat 5 winds last year.

though if you asked most of the U.S. population in a survey, most would probably tell you that Katrina had Cat. 4 or 5 winds at landfall (as that is what the media made it seem like), and would be shocked if you told them it was actually a Cat. 3. Also, most of the people would also think that New Orleans got at least Cat. 3 force winds, because there was so much hype about New Orleans and the damage. What really needs to be done is get better meteorological information to the newscasters to be reported to the american public. May be if they all had to go through a 1-2 week hurricane training program we would get more accurate info.

There is one thing about people that I noticed. People are really apt to listen to the media and totally believe what they say without question. Also sometimes when I try to explain things to people they just don't comprehend what I'm saying. I'm not saying all people but, most people. Most people think they have a good comprehension of weather/hurricanes but, compared to what I know it is very very little and compared to what a pro-met knows that is like comparing a marble to a tractor trailer.

Exactly. I can not stand all the times I hear people trust the media over what I try to tell them. The other day I even read something saying "Houston dodged a bullet with Rita, but Cat. 2 conditions were still felt across the region". I mean HELLO! We definitely DID NOT see Cat. 2 force winds in Houston from Rita, but I guess someone got that impression from the media or read something wrong and now they write it, publish it and suddenly more people get the same wrong idea. Then, when I go and try to tell people that we actually only had 60-65mph wind gusts and barely TS force sustained winds, people are either shocked or don't believe me. There was even one person I knew that thought they got Cat. 2 force winds in LUFKIN! lol! I couldn't win with that person either, they were SO SURE that they saw Cat. 2 force winds that I just had to stop arguing and let them win. It was not even worth the fight. They thought that just because the news stations had Rita as a Cat. 2 just SE of their area that it was still producing Cat. 2 force winds once it reached them. In reality, Rita missed Lufkin to the east and Lufkin only received TS force winds (from a weakening Rita).

[jasons2k]

I know how you feel. I have an uncle who just yesterday told me he's not worried because his house has survived 69 hurricanes since it was built in 1920. I had to explain that his house has seen marginal hurricane conditions twice, if that, since it was built. He thought I was crazy.

[Beam]

People really do need to realize that Katrina wasn't some insanely powerful, once-in-50-years goddess of a hurricane when it hit land.

The fact is, all of the horrific, hydrogen bomb-esque damage to the MS/AL coastal areas were caused by nothing more than strong Cat2 to moderate Cat3 winds. New Orleans only recieved Cat1 to weak Cat2 winds, too. If you'll recall, the afternoon after Katrina made landfall, everyone was going on about how the city dodged a bullet, only for the levees to fail shortly after. There was a time delay between Katrina's landfall, and the flooding of New Orleans. They're essentially two separate disasters, one a result of another. The levees weren't very strong, and the city was ill-prepared for any hurricane at all, regardless of strength. The "news" media conveniently forgot about this, as they seemed to do with the major wind damage to the east in Mississippi.

Instead, they chose to cover, almost exclusively, the crisis in New Orleans, and completely exaggerate the storm's intensity, demonizing it as some kind of superstorm. If you ask most people what category Katrina was at the time of landfall, most will say "Um, five... duh". Go ahead and try it! I'm not suggesting that Katrina wasn't powerful or devastating, because it most certainly was both of those things... but the media's sensationalist coverage of the situation seemed to skim over the fact that Katrina was a Category 3, and New Orleans did not experience the full-scale "Nightmare Scenario" as so many believe.

The point of this post is that, in my opinion, the Saffir-Simpson scale has become another set of media buzzwords, with the true meaning of the individual categories lost in the hype after last year's season, causing words like "Category Three" to lose their ominous tone to a lot of folks, I believe that if a campaign was set in motion to educate the public on Katrina's true level of power, many people would be very surprised, more cautious, and more open-minded about what they consider a 'threat', with the prospect of a Cat4-5 storm actually making it to land in that form a lot more fearsome.

[jasons2k]

Hey Beam, I think you're on target except for this statement:

"The fact is, all of the horrific, hydrogen bomb-esque damage to the MS/AL coastal areas were caused by nothing more than strong Cat2 to moderate Cat3 winds."

It wasn't the wind, it was the surge.

[Beam]

Combination of both, really. I was more or less talking about the windspeeds (which determines category), and how people are starting to get jaded to the idea of a non-major or Cat 3. But yes, storm surge makes ANY hurricane dangerous, just like the wind.

[Recurve]

...although you have Key Westers who have tired of leaving, though I hear there's an exodus out of Monroe Co. Florida....

People are leaving the Keys, there has been a net permanent resident population decline of around 10 percent I think. That's for a number of reasons, the two biggest being cost of living probably followed by hurricane threat. Many residents have now seen the worst damage in 40 years, and understand the misery that can come from flooding, even when it isn't an utterly devastating surge as on the NGC.

I'm a hundred miles up the road from key west, and pretty concerned myself, though much easier from here to get off the islands and onto the mainland when necessary.

[Extremeweatherguy]

I know how you feel. I have an uncle who just yesterday told me he's not worried because his house has survived 69 hurricanes since it was built in 1920. I had to explain that his house has seen marginal hurricane conditions twice, if that, since it was built. He thought I was crazy.

lol. Yes, I do not know many places that have gone through 69 hurricane eyewalls since 1920.

[george_r_1961]

Combination of both, really. I was more or less talking about the windspeeds (which determines category), and how people are starting to get jaded to the idea of a non-major or Cat 3. But yes, storm surge makes ANY hurricane dangerous, just like the wind.

What I saw in Waveland last week was a deadly combination of wind and surge. Further inland I saw significant structural damage with many buildings beyond repair. Never saw anything like that before ever