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| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- |
| New Orleans avoids the worst, Gustav comes in to the west, Cat-2 |
| 2008-09-01 |
| Live TV reports also suggest little if any serious wind damage in New Orleans -- overhyped cries of "OMG!! DAMAGED TRAFFIC LIGHTS!!" notwithstanding. And although there are reports of some water coming over the Industrial Canal, the Arms Corps believes the wall itself will hold. Of course, we thought New Orleans had "dodged a bullet" with Katrina at first, too. So, cross your fingers. But if the levees fail, it will be because they (again) failed to live up to Army Corps promises, not because of Gustav's strength and location. The Weather Channel is predicting 6 to 9 feet of storm surge, peaking in the next couple of hours. That will be enhanced in some of the canals. But the levee system should be able to withstand a surge like this. With regard to the statement that Gustav is "turning out to be far less than what was previously forecast," that's not really fair, IMHO; "previously feared" would be more accurate. The official forecast in recent days has consistently called for something less than a worst-case catastrophe, but it was way too close for comfort, and there were plausible alternative scenarios whereby Gustav would be a calamity. The contemporaneous plausibility of these calamitous scenarios is not retroactively invalidated by the fact that, thankfully, a different scenario has occurred -- indeed, a scenario more friendly to New Orleans than anyone dared hope Saturday night, when Gustav was a 150 mph monster that seemed destined to get stronger. It is crucial that blogospheric and journalistic snark not take hold here. We must not use 20/20 hindsight to dismiss Gustav as having been naught but hype. There are, and will continue to be, plentiful examples of ridiculous media overhype, and those are deeply unfortunate. But the media always misbehaves, and not just with regard to weather. Cable news is buffoonish. This should surprise no one. What matters, though, is this: the forecasts were not "hype," and the evacuations were not "hype." Gustav had the legitimate potential to be far worse than this, and decisions had to be made at a time when we could not depend on the more favorable scenario that has instead occurred. Brendan Loy - WeatherNerd blog - has had the best coverage of this. And he is right - the forecast allowed for far worse, and we were fortunate that this slid further west and weakened. Of course if you;re in Houma, you're getting a dead center hit by a Cat-2 hurricane, so location makes all the difference when you consider who is "lucky". |
| Posted by:OldSpook |
| #1 Oil falls |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2008-09-01 13:43 |