Hurricane Katrina

[thegarehanman]

Sometime tonight, hurricane Katrina, the fourth largest hurricane in record to hit the US, is going to make landfall. It's projected to hit New Orleans dead on. The worst case scenario estimates 50,000 dead in New Orleans alone. I am living in Baton Rouge, at LSU. They say I should get winds up to about 60 or 70 mph, so I should be fine. However, my home and many of my friends homes are in Slidell, which is about 30 miles from New Orleans. The rest of my family evacuated to Texas. Realistically, I don't think I will have a house for my family to come home to on Tuesday. Please keep all of those on the gulf coast in your hearts and in your prayers.

[jamesj]

Sometime tonight, hurricane Katrina, the fourth largest hurricane in record to hit the US, is going to make landfall. It's projected to hit New Orleans dead on. The worst case scenario estimates 50,000 dead in New Orleans alone. I am living in Baton Rouge, at LSU. They say I should get winds up to about 60 or 70 mph, so I should be fine. However, my home and many of my friends homes are in Slidell, which is about 30 miles from New Orleans. The rest of my family evacuated to Texas. Realistically, I don't think I will have a house for my family to come home to on Tuesday. Please keep all of those on the gulf coast in your hearts and in your prayers.

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I was 3 when Camile hit, we left as she came in..... never been back. I'm saying a prayer for you all. I have bad a feeling were going to lose New Orleans..... for a little while anyway (till they pump it back out) It actually looks like the worst in history at the moment. Bigger and as strong as Andrew, Camile was a little stronger, but smaller. This one is a monster, and If the Levy breaks.......Good luck and watch out for the snakes seeking higher ground, I heard they actually killed quite a few people too.

[jmrentis]

Oh man Russ, I hope nothing bad happens to you or anyone over there, thats some scary stuff man. Mother nature is amazing and frightening at the same time, if it looks like stuffs going to get to hairy around there I would get out, as long as it is still safe to. Is school going to continue? I would hope they give you some time off considering it sounds like there will be a number of loses and people without homes. I'm praying for you brother! Sit down with the crucible and make a prayer to the nature guitar god! Please keep us updated with the status often as possible and be careful. Best of luck everyone, I'll be watching and praying for you! Jason

[Setch]

I hope your folks come through OK, and still have a home to return to when the worst is past. Same to all out there, stay safe.

[TenderSurrender]

I hope your folks come through OK, and still have a home to return to when the worst is past.  Same to all out there, stay safe.

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+ 1

I hpoe you guys will be ok out there, people over the pond do seem to be very strong people whenever anything happens, and im sure with the great determination you people show, you will get through this!

Take care dude

~~ Slain Angel ~~

[westhemann]

Good luck and watch out for the snakes seeking higher ground, I heard they actually killed quite a few people too.

you are talking nightmare stuff there for me...snakes are the one thing in this world i am scared to death of...i would rather have a nuke go off 20 miles from my house and watch the shockwave envelop me than get bitten by a water mocassin...

i don't know why...it's irrational...but i can't even see a chicken snake in the yard without shooting it full of .22 holes

[thegarehanman]

i don't know why...it's irrational...but i can't even see a chicken snake in the yard without shooting it full of .22 holes

...proving that you are, most definitely, a texan.

Well, I just woke up. I'm watching the news and they say they can't really give any exact estimates right now because only about half of the hurricane has passed over St. Tammany Parish, my home. They estimate a storm surge of 20-25 feet for St. Tammany. I don't know what the situation with New Orleans is either. I guess they just don't know yet. When there's a storm surge, the roads get covered in mud, so that's why it's hard for them to actually get ground zero to make these assesments. I'm fine though. The full storm hasn't entirely passed by Baton Rouge, but all we're getting is heavy wind(up to about 60mph, with even higher gusts) and rain. The part of a hurricane you need to worry about is that storm surge, but I didn't get that here. I doubt I have much of a house left in Slidell though. On the brightside, all of my guitars are with me at LSU. Not much of a brightside I guess, but you take what you can get.

[bigdguitars]

good luck hope all is well with everyone.

[GodBlessTexas]

We said prayers for everyone in the storms path yesterday at church. I don't watch TV, so I had no idea that Katrina had strengthened after hitting Florida. Good luck, and God be with you all who find yourself in the storm's path. We're keeping you in our prayers.

Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

[haggardguy]

I'm not a religious person by any means, but I do pray for the safety of everyone who is endangered by this hurricane and I hope you're friends and family along with everybody elses are safe.

[thegarehanman]

The news channels around here are insane. They have shown only about 20 sec. of footage from my home town. It's a large town and apparently it was one of the towns most effected by the storm. I have heard some horrible things about what has happened, but can not confirm anything. I've heard that our mall was demolished, a bowling alley about half a mile from my house is in shambles, several developments were flooded to the roofs, and a gas station blew up. In the footage I did see, I saw a hotel which no longer had a roof and some cars that had been custom modified by 50 year old pine trees. The police and national guard have closed my parish(what you guys refer to as a "county") indefinitely. No one is allowed to enter until they make the roads passable and fix the downed power lines as well as establish a reliable police force. I fear the worst has happened to my house. Do you know what's funny about it? My biggest fear is that my tools are ruined! I'm more concerned about my stupid tools than my house. Well, I had to vent. I have a lot of friends from my home town on campus with me. We spent the better part of today watching TV, hoping to see more footage of our town. I nearly decked a friend's mom because she said nothing bad could happen to our town and that I didn't know what I was talking about because she's twice my age. Ignorance is bliss until the veil's pulled from over your eyes. I had to vent, my appologies.

peace,

russ

Edited August 30, 2005 by thegarehanman

[jmrentis]

I know this sounds crazy but so far so good, as in you and your family and friends are safe and ok, although as far as your friends mom she might not be for long! Thats terrible news about your town, it seems unlike tornados hurricanes don't seem to skip houses or anything they just blow through everything, I would try to keep hope that your house is there, maybe in need of some serious repair but there. Do you guys have a cellar or basement under your house? I'm pretty sure I remember you saying that your shop was in the garage, well at least you had your guitars with you because if you lost all your guitars and tools then that would be terrible, although tools can cost thousands. Well try to keep in high spirits man if possible and keep us updated on the situation. Good luck Russ and everyone out there, I wish you all the best! Jason

[thegarehanman]

Hurricanes do typically spread out the damage fairly evenly in localized areas. What I mean to say is, most of the area on (for instance) the west side of the eyewall(the worst place to be, and where my town was) will recieve equal wind damage and water damage will be dependent on how high your house is above sea level(mine's 20...which is actually fairly good for my area). However, the most destructive parts of hurricanes are actually the tornadoes they spawn. Hurricanes typically spawn tons of Tornadoes right around the eyewall area. So....you get the best of all types of dissasters. There was wind damage(from the hurricane), water damage(from the storm surge), and fire damage(from broken gas mains) to east New Orleans. I was able to see that on the TV.

[jmrentis]

Wow that doesn't sound very good, it's very funny that you mentioned the height above sea level as I had written it in my post then erased it before I posted because I wasn't sure if you would know how high your house was, funny that you included the answer to the question I was going to ask. I didn't know that about the tornadoes, geez like you need those in the middle of a hurricane! I can see how they happen being the system is like a giant tornado, quick question I don't know if it will make sense or if anyone will know but do the tornadoes caused by hurricanes revolve in the opposite direction than the hurricane's rotation? It seems that it would because of the direction of the hurricane wind and if you had any wind in the opposite direction then it could spin off in the opposite way, I don't know just something that popped in my head. They probably are random though. Well later Russ, keep up with the updates, and I hope your house is there, it sounds like it is safer from storm surge than some but like you said that is only a portion of the danger. Good luck man! Jason

[thegarehanman]

For all I know, my house could've been 8' underwater. The weather channels have not covered that area much at all. I just found out that the twinspan(a very large bridge connecting the northshore of lake pontchartrain to the south shore) was destroyed. It was two, two lane bridges(and one shoulder on each) made entirely from concrete. I think they were 2 or 3 miles long. That's a serious problem, because that was one of only 2 ways to get to new orleans from the north shore. Now, it would take 2 hours to get there(from slidell), as opposed to 30 minutes with the twinspan. And as for the tornadoes, I really have no clue which direction they spin. I couldn't even guess at that one.

Edited August 30, 2005 by thegarehanman

[jmrentis]

Too bad you couldn't of had you parents set up a live web cam on the computer in the house somewhere so you could see what was happening, of course it would have to be somewhere away from a window. But I bet all power would be lost anyways so it would only be up for a short while probably. I just wish there was some way to know these things. I had a the same exact thing happen to me except with fire, there was a HUGE fire here in san diego and hundreds of homes were lost, and the moring it started my apartment was completely surrounded in fire, I lived in lakeside at the time and if you see a map of what burned you would be surprised that my apartment did not burn down, but we were one of the first to be evacuated and one of the last to be let back in, I spent like 4 or 5 days at friends. And all the while I had no idea if it was there or not, the maps they would show had my apartment on the edge some said it was gone others said not, and each day there would be a flare up in that area and would burn even closer. It was some crazy stuff, the sky was an armageddon orange every day, it was hard to see and you had no idea of what time it was other than by a clock, and it was snowing ash for weeks. But all my family and most of my friends houses were still standing, although most were evacuated. So I can relate a little bit, but the fire isn't nearly as bad as that storm although there were lost lives and so many houses lost, but this storm is so huge I can't even imagine the damage it will cause overall. Well good luck man, I'm hoping your house is there and keep giving us updates like this, I'm sure your channels are getting more and better reports than most. Later. Jason

[Scott Rosenberger]

Local News Blog

[thegarehanman]

Yeah, I already know about NOLA. I can't completely trust it though. Some people may exagerate, others might not give the whole story. I really won't be completely confident until I can see photos or video really. So far, no more news. Then again, I just woke up. I'll keep you guys updated if anything else comes up.

[thegarehanman]

Here's a video I found:

http://media.swagit.com/s/wbrz/The_Advocat...9.high.asx.html

I saw a shot of an area near slidell just a few minutes ago. However, the station didn't have the footage online. One development known as Eden Isles had water up to the roofs and there was a debret feild covering a few houses and there were boats on top of the debree.

[bigdguitars]

Gosh this is so bad. I have talked to some businesses who operate down there and people are saying its worse than what is being reported. I hope everyone is ok. Its unreal trying to piece together who is covering what.

[Southpa]

Gawd, I've had that Tragically Hip song , "New Orleans is Sinking", running around in my head for a couple days now, as well as Led Zep's "When the Levee Breaks". 80% of the city is under water and Lake Ponchartrain is still filling up the bowl. Sorry, I don't pray, but I hope that everyone affected will be able to get their lives back in order. Lets also hope that the gulf states will be prepared for the next onslaught. Although there really isn't much you can do when dealing with forces of nature of this magnitude.

Edited August 30, 2005 by Southpa

[bigdguitars]

So I have been reading all day online I get home and the national media is doing a really bad job of covering all of this.

IF you are looking for info go to drudge and follow the links to the local news channels there.

Its getting really bad out there and it seems that the national media is not getting it.

[sepultura999]

Don't know what national media you are watching, but here in Toronto they showed a few shots from the air and interviewed a few people wandering the street. In the next few hours or tonight or tomorrow we're supposed to get hit, though it won't be as bad of course. I heard that part of the wall that blocks out the water gave way, which doesn't surprise me. Hopefully there is no next time, but after the clean up and during the rebuild I hope they follow through and make the wall more durable and build it higher.

I was watching this show on Discovery a few months ago about all these Scientists talking about some volcano which is eroding in Western Africa, and in the next century half of it will fall into the ocean causing a massive tsunami on the Eastern coast of North America which would hit in roughly 22 hours. It apparently would be so huge that it would hit New York, New Orleans and a bunch of other cities. If I find an article or webpage on that I'll post it. Dunno why this made me think of it lol.

I don't pray but I hope everyone is okay down there in The United States and everything goes well.

-Jamie

Edited August 30, 2005 by sepultura999

[haggardguy]

Ya, I jsut heard that we're supposed to get hit tonight or tomorrow too though nowhere near as bad, I haven't heard too mch about what happened but I heard it was bad.

[westhemann]

was watching this show on Discovery a few months ago about all these Scientists talking about some volcano which is eroding in Western Africa, and in the next century half of it will fall into the ocean causing a massive tsunami on the Eastern coast of North America which would hit in roughly 22 hours. It apparently would be so huge that it would hit New York, New Orleans and a bunch of other cities. If I find an article or webpage on that I'll post it. Dunno why this made me think of it lol.

please do post a link if you find it.i am very interested