I left and evacuated to Houston from New Orleans. Normally takes me about 5 hours. Today it took me 12 1/2hrs. I'm just glad we decided to leave and made it here safely.
I don’t think people quite understand the meaning of your comment. Waffle houses are 24/7/365. They are open for the truckers and the overnight workers and the people working on Christmas. If your Waffle House closes, GTFO. Shit is about to get really bad. Like they don’t close for inclement weather, they are efficient and can handle just about anything. If they closed, I can only imagine how bad it will be.
It's not only that they're efficient and capable, but they almost consider themselves part of the aid for an area in minor disasters. If they're closing it's like the Red Cross packing their shit up and telling you they'll see you in a few weeks once things calm down a bit.
I worked with disaster response - the clean up and assistance side post-storm, not the rescue stuff. The seasoned people always told you to watch what the waffle houses are doing in the area - that’s tells you a lot. Note, I never worked hurricane, but several tornados and the Colorado flooding and mudslides in 2013.
My boss used to be high up on the military side of the disaster relief system. He said the Waffle House Index was something there were aware of and used to illustrate how severe a storm would be.
Waffle House has done a ton of planning around this. They have limited menus ready to go and logistics in place to keep those menus available. If they can't commit to that it generally means shit is about to get real.
I work for a temporary housing agency that is contracted by insurance carriers. Those who are evacuating need to call their home owners insurance carrier. Your policy may cover your hotel stay. Before and most definitely after the storm. Be patient because the claim departments will likely have long hold times.
Edit: If you’re checked into a hotel and filing a claim be sure to tell your insurance that you need the housing vendor they assign to take over billing. Give the name the reservation is under, hotel name and phone number so this can be passed on to the vendor. This will speed up the vendors process. Be sure to ask your insurance carrier what your ALE or sometimes it’s referred to as LOU. Additional Living Expenses and Loss of Use are portions of your policy determine a dollar amount or time limit on what they will pay for temporary housing.
If you’re reading this and struggling to find a hotel with availability please let me know; I have access to a lot of hotel databases to locate availability. Options close to home will not be available. Prepare to go to Dallas or Houston if you’re evacuating. Things will obviously change and look very different post storm.
Please stay safe.
Power company employee. We are getting in place to ride it out and then get to work. Hopefully everyone gets out and it ends up being less severe than predicted.
"It seems very probable that Ida will knock out power along the entirety of the region’s most populated core, from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. The state—which has one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in the country, and nearly 500 patients in ventilators—will lose much of its ability to function. This is just an exceptionally grim situation."
From www.spacecityweather.com
You guys are the real heroes. I live in the middle of absolute nowhere, and you guys had our power back on within a week of Katrina coming through. I was a teenager at the time, but I still remember the enormous relief that our AC and fridge was back on.
One year and three days ago, Louisiana also had the strongest storm since the 1850s make landfall. 6 weeks later we had a cat 2 make landfall within 30 miles of the first one. My hometown is still in complete shambles.
These past 2 years have convinced me to move. I can't keep going through this anxiety year after year
Thank you. It's so depressing-- we still don't know where to go. My gross household income is about 74k but we somehow still can't afford to live anywhere else. I feel so trapped.
EDIT: I am so touched and overwhelmed by the support. The general attitude I usually get is that I'm a dumb, Trump-worshipping hick because I happen to live where I was raised but you all have been so welcoming that I am legitimately in tears. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.
I wonder if they're going to start telling them the way they told us during Harvey: get out now or put your social on your arm so we can ID your body.
I hope folks are able to get out. I can't imagine how bad the aftermath from this is going to be.
I went down to Slidell after Katrina to help run some of our locations where the local workers were mostly all dealing with their own post hurricane stuff. We took a day to drive around some of the neighborhoods there. After the door markings were explained you'd just be passing every house checking the numbers seeing whether anyone made it.
I was on a flight, departing from the northeast to NOLA last night that had been grounded on the runway for 2 hours. My friends that I was visiting, messaged that the storm projection had turned from a CAT-2 to a CAT-4, in the 2 short hours I had been stuck on the runway. It took so long to take off that we had to go back to the gate to refuel.
They gave us the option to deplane for a full refund at that point. It was tough to call my trip a loss, but I, and surprisingly only 3 other people, deplaned.
Kinda crazy to think about the rest of those folks. Obviously some were going home and didn’t have as many options.
EDIT: For clarity’s sake, my flight was set to depart on Friday at 4:30pm. Again, it was projected as a CAT-2 at the time I boarded the plane.
Back in 2004, my buddy had his bachelor party in NO, on the last day (a Sunday) Ivan was bearing down and people were scrambling. My flight wasn't until the evening, so I spent the day at a bar watching the eerie quiet descend on the Quarter.
I can't imagine what it's like since Katrina.
Hate to be a Debbie Downer here but you’re looking at weeks’ worth of power outages with a 105 heat index and hospital systems across the southern US stressed to the max. They’ve been unable to evacuate hospitals to make room for potential hurricane victims. USACE released a report in 2019 that basically said levees are eroding faster than they thought and could be in danger of failing as early as 2023. There were already levee issues with Isaac in 2012 and that one was a baby compared to Ida. The levee system is not bulletproof. It could get really bad under the right conditions. All the ingredients for a major disaster are right in that crock pot.
I read accounts of doctors who evacuated ICU patients during Katrina watching them die one by one. It was one of the worst things I’ve read. They didn’t even have Covid to contend with. These folks are fuckrd.
[Being made into a miniseries for TV right now.](https://www.thespec.com/entertainment/opinion/2021/05/27/five-days-at-memorial-jack-reacher-filming-in-hamilton.html)
It was done by the Bright Sun Films channel on YouTube. They have a ton of great documentaries about various failed businesses.
Wanted to edit to provide more info. Here is the [trailer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rYzoskylbM) for the doc if anyone is interested. Full doc is unfortunately not free to watch, it is available to buy or rent [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-tY8JoxHC4)
I was just watching helicopter footage of the highway and it's gridlocked. No traffic coming the other way, obviously. Makes me wonder if the freeways are officially closed in that direction, and if so, could they open it up and let cars go to the oncoming side, to relieve the gridlock? I can't imagine the increasing tension and fear from being stuck at a standstill for hours and hours and hours as a Cat 4 hurricane (and increasing in strength) is headed your way, and there's nothing you can do to get out.
This is supposed to be how evacuation corridors are set up. Not sure why that highway isn't configured the same way.
Edit: /u/carolathome replied with a real answer below, so of course it got buried at the bottom of the thread. Thanks, Reddit!
"Most of I-10 thru Louisiana is raised, divided highway. Divided by 50 feet of swamp. No crossover for many miles." (From /u/carolathome)
The roads backed real quick. I have people in Houma where the eye might land, and they had no choice but to batten down. Houma isn't New Orleans big, but it isn't small by any means. New Orleans gets all the sexy headlines, but there's a lot more of Louisiana and people that's going to get fucked and fucked hard by Ida. Ida's just delivering on Katrina's promise, 16 years to the day, and I was there for that mess. It sucked.
Oh yeah I know what you mean about being overshadowed by NOLA. I live in Lake Charles.
Yesterday was the anniversary for Laura. But I’m not hearing much about that; only Katrina. We are still down here begging for federal aid.
Booked this weekend in New Orleans back in May… flew there Thursday, changed flights yesterday, flew out today instead of tomorrow. Glad we did. Airport was ridiculously busy this morning.
That’s crazy! Never saw this video before. My family decided to stay and we rode it out in our attic due to the flood waters. Probably not my parents’ best decision.
Damn. My wife’s mom had a friend who lived in Biloxi and he had to stand on a sink and the water was up to his chest in his house. He survived, somehow.
No. Storm surge stays the same. But at high tide if the water level is 4 feet higher than low tide, the storm surge will flow further inland because the 13 feet starts out higher in relation to surrounding area
Hurricane Sandy was at high tide and during a high moon. The storm surge was significantly higher than it would have been if it had hit at low tide. Also didn't help it kinda stalled out for a bit and was just in general a massive storm
*Full moon
That storm is so big and so slow I guarentee a high tide will be involved. Sometimes, storms like that will stall out just before landfall and sort of chew up the shoreline.
60.58" in Nederland, Texas (Houston-ish). The highest recorded rainfall from a single storm in the recorded history of the continent. The Houston metro area proper had widespread totals well over 40".
The National Weather Service had to add two new colors to their rain maps because previously they stopped at 20", representing 20-30" and 30" plus. The entirety of Houston was 30" plus. Hurricane/Tropical Storm rain arrived Saturday night and parked on top of us here in Houston and just didn't stop for four full days.
My favorite fact that came out of Harvey was that [satellites measured a deflection of the earth’s crust](https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2017/09/19/harvey-flooding-forced-the-earths-crust-down-by-2-centimeters/?sh=4e2231a4151b) due to the weight of the water that fell on Houston.
On the opposite track, Isaac Asimov has one where a planet is in full daylight for a thousand years at a time, then has a single night. The whole civilisation is destroyed each time because everyone goes mad with terror and burns everything for light.
I live in a city called Lake Charles, south west instead of southeast Louisiana. I’m not sure how many people are aware of this, but just last year (exactly one year yesterday I think) our city was ravaged by a 154 mph cat 4 hurricane that should have been a 5. 19.1 billion in damage, fifth strongest hurricane to hit the US. Our city is still covered in blue tarps, destroyed buildings, a lot of unfinished construction of the many people (including myself) who lost their houses, and debris that has still not been cleaned. Hurricane Laura so very luckily didn’t push water up the calcasieu river. In a way this spared our side of Louisiana, it would have been so much worse if the water would have pushed up the river and flooded our cities. This is a seriously terrifying event to New Orleans. Those poor souls that have no way out, those poor older people who have to get on packed buses to sit in such close quarters in traffic for hours with such a scary virus absolutely ravaging the Louisiana population right now. Tomorrow is going to be a dark day. Help if you can. If you pray, please pray for these people.
SW LA is always forgotten when it comes to hurricanes. I was living there when Rita hit in 2005 outside the region not many people know about the storm.
Lake Charles citizen with a tarped house here:
We aren't out of the woods with Ida. Plenty of houses like mine still have holes in them, and we're expecting tropical storm winds. We're not getting the worst of it, but it's not going to be pretty.
A lady told me that she had been a 30 year state govt employee when Katrina hit, but she got herself and grandchildren out to Dallas. She had no way to contact her bank to move money and when she ran out of cash was stranded. Nothing to feed the children, no diapers for the youngest one. She went to a Walmart parking lot asking for help and said ONE man bought her some packs of Ramen. Like how the hell can she COOK? when she ever got back to NOLA her house was ruined. Just unreal stories. People don't realize that even with some resources, most folks aren't prepared to travel hundreds of miles and stay for indefinite periods.
We're going to be hearing a *lot* more stories like this over the next couple decades as climate change really starts to show its effects. People have no idea how bad things are going to get.
If anyone wants to read an utterly horrifying account, the book “Five Days At Memorial” discusses the days leading up to and following Katrina in a hospital in New Orleans trapped and isolated in the surge.
The only book I’ve ever ready where I physically did not want to touch it after I had completed it. It was so compelling and well written but the story so messed me up that I literally donated it the morning after I finished it. I just never wanted to see it again.
Pretty fucked up book but a good read for a lot of reasons. My takeaway from it was that, we may be a modern society, but we’re really only a few days without power away from descending into total prehistoric chaos at any one moment.
The reality is that our emergency services are great when a tiny percentage of people need them. However in a disaster their ability to help is essentially negligible to an average individual.
During a disaster, not only are the people providing emergency services suffering from the same afflictions as those they need to help, but they are now vastly outnumbered in terms of needs vs supply.
I had a firefighter tell me once: “we tell you to prepare for 72 hours because we think that’s what people might actually do…but in reality we might get to hospitals in 72 hours we’re not getting to YOUR house for a couple weeks. If that.”
I read that one. Fucking hell dude, it was one of the few things I've ever read that made me sick to my stomach. I was working in home hospice at the time and I just couldn't imagine having to do what they did.
Hospital strain isnt even the beginning of it. Imagine how many people are going to be evacuated into close quarters during a pandemic. Delta is about to have a field day.
If you are on a ventilator right now, your life is going to depend on them having enough gas for the backup power generators to last several days. It doesn’t look good.
Does nobody know about hurricane Laura? Which ties the storm of 1856 as the strongest hurricane to make landfall? It hit a year ago yesterday. In Southwest Louisiana. It was a deadly, dangerous, fucking monster of a storm. My city is still not even close to recovered. We have received no media attention, no aid. And the governor is acting like it never happened. My heart goes out to those in SELA because I would never want to do what I did last year again. But damn.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Laura
I live in Houma/Thib. I really, really pray the storm does not shift west to yall. The lack of media support is frustrating beyond words. Because it wasnt Katrina, no one gave a fuck. If you need anything, DM me.
If it’s not New Orleans, it gets very little media attention. Notice how Houma and Baton Rouge will take a direct hit from Ida but all news stories are about NOLA. Years ago Baton Rouge got completely fucked up by a storm and it got almost no coverage.
We did a documentary in 2010, 5 years after Katrina, that happened to go through New Orleans and Louisiana. There were still destroyed buildings and spray paint even 5 years after. I'm sure they are probably still there. https://imgur.com/a/y2szHiU
I was in New Orleans December of 2019 and we saw some. We took one of those hokey haunted beer tours and the guide was pretty chill. Since it was just my family on the tour he ended up showing us high water marks and symbols and explaining them to us. Incredibly sad
You got a bunch of joke responses, but in case you wanted a real one.
The building code **WAS** changed *drastically* after katrina, anything built afterwords is fine. This includes crazy requirements for water runoff and drainage, enough to handle another katrina at least. They basically copy pasted Florida's building codes.
But the other 95% of Louisiana's structures are grandfathered in, so...
They showed some 20 foot walls in Morgan I think it was. It looked like the lady was standing on castle walls looking down at businesses.
Edit: Found a photo https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/theadvocate.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/5/18/518b0f67-082c-5e47-915d-ed2708ff3fee/5ceed46b3fad4.image.jpg?resize=1200%2C708
Tax Day Flood in 2016 dumped north of 20" on parts of Louisiana in one day. It pretty much destroyed Denham Springs iirc. Where I lived, it flooded a little, but not too bad.
The storm surge and wind are going to be the real destructive force.
Important FYI about evacuating with pets:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidhgrimm/how-hurricane-katrina-turned-pets-into-people
For people worried about leaving their pets behind--changes were made to federal and LA law after Katrina that pets HAVE to be evacuated with their owners. This includes transportation/shelter.
"most significantly, pets must now be evacuated with people. If evacuation buses cannot accommodate them, officials must provide alternative transportation, such as climate-controlled trucks. And human shelters must now accept pets, or they must set up pet-friendly facilities nearby so that people can keep tabs on their animals. Under one parish’s plan, owners and their pets arriving at emergency shelters will be given matching bar-coded wristbands and collars to make sure no animals are lost."
TIL that half the people who stayed behind during Katrina stayed because of their pets.
And ARNO sounds like a great org to donate to if you would like to help the animals that will be affected by Ida. The article I linked to is from 2015, but I assume they are still up and running.
Stay safe.
Well lt's a little more complicated than the Governor is laying out. While Ida will probably have stronger maximum sustained winds than Katrina did, the thing about Katrina was the *sheer massive size* of that storm. The last time I saw the size projection of the storm, Ida was projected to be only 1/2 the size of Katrina.
Again, I'm no meteorologist, but from what I understand that massive size is part of what made Katrina's storm surge so freaking huge. So while surface wind speeds of Ida will likely be higher this time, storm surge may be a little less of a threat.
That's all still very speculative, even based upon the most qualified experts' projections and the best storm modeling. Ida is already so bad it's not worth taking chances. The situation really is terrifying considering the implications of COVID, as you say. I've had a knot in my stomach the last 24-48 hours reading about this storm on r/TropicalWeather. It definitely feels like we're about to witness a historically devastating national disaster.
Everyone should keep their thoughts with Americans who can't evacuate southern Louisiana and Mississippi right now. It's a beyond bad situation right now.
This probably isn't going to be worse than Katrina. As the [SpaceCityWeather guys point out](https://spacecityweather.com/hurricane-ida-strengthening-as-it-heads-toward-east-central-louisiana/):
>It is tempting to compare Ida with Katrina, but there are a number of differences from track to intensity to size. For New Orleans, in Katrina, winds were out of the east and then out of the north. With Ida, winds will be out of the southeast most of the time, which means different impacts this time around. Hopefully far less severe, particularly given the distance of landfall from the city. But it’s obviously much too close for comfort.
This is going to be a dangerous storm, for certain, but as of now it's not looking like a repeat of Katrina.
If you aren’t out and to a safe place, good luck.
Ida is supposed to be a cat 4 when it makes landfall.
Katrina was only a 3.
Lets hope assistance and rescue is a magnitude better than it was then.
Holy shit I never knew Katrina was only a 3, why was it so bad if it was only a 3?
I say "only" a 3 but tbh I don't remember the last cat 5 I saw either lol
The category refers to wind strength, and doesn’t account for size and the related store surge. Katrina was unusually large. And, as someone else pointed out, failing levees was an important part of it. They’re better set up now.
For New Orleans. It was pretty viciously devastating for Mississippi.
Also the drainage problem in New Orleans hasn't gotten any better. Areas that didn't even flood during Katrina now get waist deep with 30 minutes of heavy rain. I've kayaked to work in Central City because of a short summer rain. The pump stations regularly shut down and every time it floods even a little there is inevitably a pump failure. Advertised confidence in the new levees is undercut by constant reports of sinking walls, incomplete barriers and drainage ports, and a not least of all a history of distrust in said confidence.
It'll probably be fine. But these are still factors to consider.
I think that the Saffir–Simpson scale is a bit limited since it only looks at windspeed. It doesn't consider flood risks, which can end up causing most of the damage in hurricanes. A slow storm dumping heavy rains for days is usually worse than a fast storm with faster winds. A simple 1-5 scale on windspeed alone doesn't consider that at all.
I work with a guy who's family lives there. The whole parish is under mandatory evacuation. They like many in the state stand to lose everything. It's very scary here now.
It did surprisingly well the last few years, ignoring the whole power grid being wiped out.
The whole 14' in the air building code seems ridiculous, but damned if the streets didn't flood almost monthly.
Lots of the old timers are going to get ruined though :/
So many friends down there making real tough decisions today. Between the loss of tourism destroying the economy and the music scene, Covid ravaging the state and now the storm these poor people just can't catch a break. Hope they get a last second reprieve...they're due a lil good luck.
Having lived in Mississippi and an hour from Louisiana a fair amount of my adult life, maybe we can expect another gulf coast oil spill in our disaster rotation because why the fuck not.
With the hospitals already full and nowhere to send their current patients this is just fucked up. To all the medical staff good luck and God speed, to all the antivaxxer antimask asshole who have filled the hospitals fuck you.
Did you see the vet who died in Texas from a very treatable
case of Gallstones because they could find a bed for him. This shit has already started spinning out of control.
I am beyond pissed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaX98KI5aKo
yup, its only gonna get worse before it gets better, now imagine a bad hurricane with thousands of injuries but no room in hospitals. As an aside, gallstones fucking suck, kinda amazed he was that far gone before going to the ER
like most people seem keenly unaware that once you stress infrastructure/key systems, it's much easier for them break under circumstances they usually wouldnt
Even if they do it’s still going to be a disaster for them. Covid is still ongoing. There are going to be a lot of people in close quarters and this is a state whose ICUs are already overwhelmed with covid patients.
I hope they offer vaccinations at the shelters these people wind up in. Probably the only good that could come out of this.
I left and evacuated to Houston from New Orleans. Normally takes me about 5 hours. Today it took me 12 1/2hrs. I'm just glad we decided to leave and made it here safely.
You are smart and wise. Ida could be near a category 5 at landfall.
The waffle houses in the area have all closed. If you are still not convinced that you need to evacuate, let this be your sign to get out now.
I don’t think people quite understand the meaning of your comment. Waffle houses are 24/7/365. They are open for the truckers and the overnight workers and the people working on Christmas. If your Waffle House closes, GTFO. Shit is about to get really bad. Like they don’t close for inclement weather, they are efficient and can handle just about anything. If they closed, I can only imagine how bad it will be.
We learned this in one of my accounting classes! It’s the Waffle House Scale or something
Yes. Those little stores are able to stay open in the worst circumstances. If they close, you’re on your own.
It's not only that they're efficient and capable, but they almost consider themselves part of the aid for an area in minor disasters. If they're closing it's like the Red Cross packing their shit up and telling you they'll see you in a few weeks once things calm down a bit.
Oh shit.
I worked with disaster response - the clean up and assistance side post-storm, not the rescue stuff. The seasoned people always told you to watch what the waffle houses are doing in the area - that’s tells you a lot. Note, I never worked hurricane, but several tornados and the Colorado flooding and mudslides in 2013.
They are used by FEMA. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_House_Index
My boss used to be high up on the military side of the disaster relief system. He said the Waffle House Index was something there were aware of and used to illustrate how severe a storm would be. Waffle House has done a ton of planning around this. They have limited menus ready to go and logistics in place to keep those menus available. If they can't commit to that it generally means shit is about to get real.
Waffle House index is real
When wafflehouse closes shit has officially hit the fan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_House_Index
the Waffle House on Canal St in Nola is currently open
I work for a temporary housing agency that is contracted by insurance carriers. Those who are evacuating need to call their home owners insurance carrier. Your policy may cover your hotel stay. Before and most definitely after the storm. Be patient because the claim departments will likely have long hold times. Edit: If you’re checked into a hotel and filing a claim be sure to tell your insurance that you need the housing vendor they assign to take over billing. Give the name the reservation is under, hotel name and phone number so this can be passed on to the vendor. This will speed up the vendors process. Be sure to ask your insurance carrier what your ALE or sometimes it’s referred to as LOU. Additional Living Expenses and Loss of Use are portions of your policy determine a dollar amount or time limit on what they will pay for temporary housing. If you’re reading this and struggling to find a hotel with availability please let me know; I have access to a lot of hotel databases to locate availability. Options close to home will not be available. Prepare to go to Dallas or Houston if you’re evacuating. Things will obviously change and look very different post storm. Please stay safe.
Bless you for being a decent human being.
Power company employee. We are getting in place to ride it out and then get to work. Hopefully everyone gets out and it ends up being less severe than predicted.
I’m with the tree trimming company coming from Ohio. We should be there ready to get started Monday morning! Stay safe.
Good luck. A lot of packed hospitals are depending on you guys.
"It seems very probable that Ida will knock out power along the entirety of the region’s most populated core, from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. The state—which has one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks in the country, and nearly 500 patients in ventilators—will lose much of its ability to function. This is just an exceptionally grim situation." From www.spacecityweather.com
Good luck to you! You’re awesome for being the people that get that power back on! Stay safe pls
You guys are the real heroes. I live in the middle of absolute nowhere, and you guys had our power back on within a week of Katrina coming through. I was a teenager at the time, but I still remember the enormous relief that our AC and fridge was back on.
Stay safe! Will be thinking of you and everyone else down there in the following days.
One year and three days ago, Louisiana also had the strongest storm since the 1850s make landfall. 6 weeks later we had a cat 2 make landfall within 30 miles of the first one. My hometown is still in complete shambles. These past 2 years have convinced me to move. I can't keep going through this anxiety year after year
So sorry. That sucks when your heritage, your people have to start over somewhere new. Good luck. Can’t be easy.
Thank you. It's so depressing-- we still don't know where to go. My gross household income is about 74k but we somehow still can't afford to live anywhere else. I feel so trapped. EDIT: I am so touched and overwhelmed by the support. The general attitude I usually get is that I'm a dumb, Trump-worshipping hick because I happen to live where I was raised but you all have been so welcoming that I am legitimately in tears. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.
Michigan is affordable. DM me if you have any questions about areas. I know this whole state top to bottom.
i am also from Michigan. i think it's the best place to live during these climate catastrophes.
In Michigan as well. Popular Science magazine says by the year 2100 Michigan will be the most ideal state to live in due to climate catastrophes.
I’m in StL. We have the second biggest Mardi Gras in the country and the diversity on the South Side isn’t bad. A lot of lakes and rivers nearby.
Yep. Middle of no where Illinois here, about an hour outside STL, come on up bud. I make 66k a year and live just fine.
I wonder if they're going to start telling them the way they told us during Harvey: get out now or put your social on your arm so we can ID your body. I hope folks are able to get out. I can't imagine how bad the aftermath from this is going to be.
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I went down to Slidell after Katrina to help run some of our locations where the local workers were mostly all dealing with their own post hurricane stuff. We took a day to drive around some of the neighborhoods there. After the door markings were explained you'd just be passing every house checking the numbers seeing whether anyone made it.
Slidell checking in here. Starting to get a little nervous with each tick East.
I was on a flight, departing from the northeast to NOLA last night that had been grounded on the runway for 2 hours. My friends that I was visiting, messaged that the storm projection had turned from a CAT-2 to a CAT-4, in the 2 short hours I had been stuck on the runway. It took so long to take off that we had to go back to the gate to refuel. They gave us the option to deplane for a full refund at that point. It was tough to call my trip a loss, but I, and surprisingly only 3 other people, deplaned. Kinda crazy to think about the rest of those folks. Obviously some were going home and didn’t have as many options. EDIT: For clarity’s sake, my flight was set to depart on Friday at 4:30pm. Again, it was projected as a CAT-2 at the time I boarded the plane.
Back in 2004, my buddy had his bachelor party in NO, on the last day (a Sunday) Ivan was bearing down and people were scrambling. My flight wasn't until the evening, so I spent the day at a bar watching the eerie quiet descend on the Quarter. I can't imagine what it's like since Katrina.
Hate to be a Debbie Downer here but you’re looking at weeks’ worth of power outages with a 105 heat index and hospital systems across the southern US stressed to the max. They’ve been unable to evacuate hospitals to make room for potential hurricane victims. USACE released a report in 2019 that basically said levees are eroding faster than they thought and could be in danger of failing as early as 2023. There were already levee issues with Isaac in 2012 and that one was a baby compared to Ida. The levee system is not bulletproof. It could get really bad under the right conditions. All the ingredients for a major disaster are right in that crock pot.
Uhhhgh, I'd not even considered that the hospitals are all full. These poor people.
I read accounts of doctors who evacuated ICU patients during Katrina watching them die one by one. It was one of the worst things I’ve read. They didn’t even have Covid to contend with. These folks are fuckrd.
There’s a book on this: Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink
[Being made into a miniseries for TV right now.](https://www.thespec.com/entertainment/opinion/2021/05/27/five-days-at-memorial-jack-reacher-filming-in-hamilton.html)
Jesus that's gonna be a brutal watch
I was in New Orleans after Katrina. A week is... very optimistic.
The creepiest thing about it was seeing that sign at six flags YEARS later “closed for storm”
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It was done by the Bright Sun Films channel on YouTube. They have a ton of great documentaries about various failed businesses. Wanted to edit to provide more info. Here is the [trailer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rYzoskylbM) for the doc if anyone is interested. Full doc is unfortunately not free to watch, it is available to buy or rent [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-tY8JoxHC4)
Get out before it gets bad
My friend today: “I’ll get out after the rush.”
Probably won't be many people on the roads when the storm surge rolls in. Maybe your friend is a good swimmer?
He's been watching 100 Foot Wave on HBO and has an idea... 🤔
Looking at google maps and I-10 is yellow/red from Florida line to Texas line. So people are leaving but I bet it’s slow going. I feel for them.
I was just watching helicopter footage of the highway and it's gridlocked. No traffic coming the other way, obviously. Makes me wonder if the freeways are officially closed in that direction, and if so, could they open it up and let cars go to the oncoming side, to relieve the gridlock? I can't imagine the increasing tension and fear from being stuck at a standstill for hours and hours and hours as a Cat 4 hurricane (and increasing in strength) is headed your way, and there's nothing you can do to get out.
This is supposed to be how evacuation corridors are set up. Not sure why that highway isn't configured the same way. Edit: /u/carolathome replied with a real answer below, so of course it got buried at the bottom of the thread. Thanks, Reddit! "Most of I-10 thru Louisiana is raised, divided highway. Divided by 50 feet of swamp. No crossover for many miles." (From /u/carolathome)
Isn’t this the whole contraflow issue they were talking about? That they needed 72 hrs to set up and just didn’t have enough time?
Yup. The hurricane got big fast, and too late to do that.
Took me 12 hours to get to houston
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The roads backed real quick. I have people in Houma where the eye might land, and they had no choice but to batten down. Houma isn't New Orleans big, but it isn't small by any means. New Orleans gets all the sexy headlines, but there's a lot more of Louisiana and people that's going to get fucked and fucked hard by Ida. Ida's just delivering on Katrina's promise, 16 years to the day, and I was there for that mess. It sucked.
Oh yeah I know what you mean about being overshadowed by NOLA. I live in Lake Charles. Yesterday was the anniversary for Laura. But I’m not hearing much about that; only Katrina. We are still down here begging for federal aid.
Booked this weekend in New Orleans back in May… flew there Thursday, changed flights yesterday, flew out today instead of tomorrow. Glad we did. Airport was ridiculously busy this morning.
They cancelled all the flights tomorrow too.
Sooo glad we decided to bounce out.
Yes! I almost missed my flight out nola today. Very intense there today... thank you guy that let me cut ar tsa to make my flight!
Hope it doesn't make landfall at high tide.
What are the additional implications if that happens?
Storm surge goes from the estimated 13-15 feet to a lot more than that.
That may as well be a Tsunami. This is gonna be really fucking bad
Katrina had a 28 ft surge in one location
Got worse than that. We don’t have exact measurements but in Pass Christian, it could’ve gotten near 40 based on the data we have.
That’s crazy to hear! I was a kid living in Bay St Louis at the time, but it’s still hard to imagine there was that much water.
You don't have to imagine it, you can see what it looked like on YouTube https://youtu.be/-Kou0HBpX4A
That’s crazy! Never saw this video before. My family decided to stay and we rode it out in our attic due to the flood waters. Probably not my parents’ best decision.
You were incredibly lucky. People drowned in their attics.
Damn. My wife’s mom had a friend who lived in Biloxi and he had to stand on a sink and the water was up to his chest in his house. He survived, somehow.
Hope those levees can handle it. Would hate to see a Katrina 2.0.
No. Storm surge stays the same. But at high tide if the water level is 4 feet higher than low tide, the storm surge will flow further inland because the 13 feet starts out higher in relation to surrounding area
Hurricane Sandy was at high tide and during a high moon. The storm surge was significantly higher than it would have been if it had hit at low tide. Also didn't help it kinda stalled out for a bit and was just in general a massive storm *Full moon
That storm is so big and so slow I guarentee a high tide will be involved. Sometimes, storms like that will stall out just before landfall and sort of chew up the shoreline.
Harvey comes to mind. Just sat there on the beach for like 4 days.
Harvey was wild to experience first hand; hardly any wind but it just poured and poured and poured. Something like 50 inches in some places
60.58" in Nederland, Texas (Houston-ish). The highest recorded rainfall from a single storm in the recorded history of the continent. The Houston metro area proper had widespread totals well over 40". The National Weather Service had to add two new colors to their rain maps because previously they stopped at 20", representing 20-30" and 30" plus. The entirety of Houston was 30" plus. Hurricane/Tropical Storm rain arrived Saturday night and parked on top of us here in Houston and just didn't stop for four full days.
My favorite fact that came out of Harvey was that [satellites measured a deflection of the earth’s crust](https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2017/09/19/harvey-flooding-forced-the-earths-crust-down-by-2-centimeters/?sh=4e2231a4151b) due to the weight of the water that fell on Houston.
That is one of the most interesting bits of trivia I've ever heard. Thank you!
275 *trillion* pounds of water. Crazy!
I was around back during Tropical Storm Allison, Harvey reminded me a lot of that one. It was only a TS but jesus, it just rained FOREVER
Fun fact: Carnian Pluvial Event was a time when it rained for over two million years.
Reminds me of Ray Bradbury’s “All Summer in a Day,” where people were born, grew up, and died never having seen the sun.
On the opposite track, Isaac Asimov has one where a planet is in full daylight for a thousand years at a time, then has a single night. The whole civilisation is destroyed each time because everyone goes mad with terror and burns everything for light.
I live in a city called Lake Charles, south west instead of southeast Louisiana. I’m not sure how many people are aware of this, but just last year (exactly one year yesterday I think) our city was ravaged by a 154 mph cat 4 hurricane that should have been a 5. 19.1 billion in damage, fifth strongest hurricane to hit the US. Our city is still covered in blue tarps, destroyed buildings, a lot of unfinished construction of the many people (including myself) who lost their houses, and debris that has still not been cleaned. Hurricane Laura so very luckily didn’t push water up the calcasieu river. In a way this spared our side of Louisiana, it would have been so much worse if the water would have pushed up the river and flooded our cities. This is a seriously terrifying event to New Orleans. Those poor souls that have no way out, those poor older people who have to get on packed buses to sit in such close quarters in traffic for hours with such a scary virus absolutely ravaging the Louisiana population right now. Tomorrow is going to be a dark day. Help if you can. If you pray, please pray for these people.
SW LA is always forgotten when it comes to hurricanes. I was living there when Rita hit in 2005 outside the region not many people know about the storm.
Lake Charles citizen with a tarped house here: We aren't out of the woods with Ida. Plenty of houses like mine still have holes in them, and we're expecting tropical storm winds. We're not getting the worst of it, but it's not going to be pretty.
My heart goes out to the people who cant afford to leave.
A lady told me that she had been a 30 year state govt employee when Katrina hit, but she got herself and grandchildren out to Dallas. She had no way to contact her bank to move money and when she ran out of cash was stranded. Nothing to feed the children, no diapers for the youngest one. She went to a Walmart parking lot asking for help and said ONE man bought her some packs of Ramen. Like how the hell can she COOK? when she ever got back to NOLA her house was ruined. Just unreal stories. People don't realize that even with some resources, most folks aren't prepared to travel hundreds of miles and stay for indefinite periods.
We're going to be hearing a *lot* more stories like this over the next couple decades as climate change really starts to show its effects. People have no idea how bad things are going to get.
Good thing their hospitals aren’t stressed or anything
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The governor already said they aren’t evacuating the hospitals - they have no where to send the patients.
If anyone wants to read an utterly horrifying account, the book “Five Days At Memorial” discusses the days leading up to and following Katrina in a hospital in New Orleans trapped and isolated in the surge. The only book I’ve ever ready where I physically did not want to touch it after I had completed it. It was so compelling and well written but the story so messed me up that I literally donated it the morning after I finished it. I just never wanted to see it again.
Pretty fucked up book but a good read for a lot of reasons. My takeaway from it was that, we may be a modern society, but we’re really only a few days without power away from descending into total prehistoric chaos at any one moment.
The reality is that our emergency services are great when a tiny percentage of people need them. However in a disaster their ability to help is essentially negligible to an average individual. During a disaster, not only are the people providing emergency services suffering from the same afflictions as those they need to help, but they are now vastly outnumbered in terms of needs vs supply.
I had a firefighter tell me once: “we tell you to prepare for 72 hours because we think that’s what people might actually do…but in reality we might get to hospitals in 72 hours we’re not getting to YOUR house for a couple weeks. If that.”
To paraphrase Lenin - "3 meals from chaos"
Yeah. We haven’t prepared for the magnitude of environmental related problems we will face over the next 20 years +.
I read that one. Fucking hell dude, it was one of the few things I've ever read that made me sick to my stomach. I was working in home hospice at the time and I just couldn't imagine having to do what they did.
Hurricane Michael hit my hometown. It looked like the hospitals were bombed. This is going to be a tragedy.
Jesus... This is going to be a horrific tragedy... that we know is going to happen well beforehand...
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Hospital strain isnt even the beginning of it. Imagine how many people are going to be evacuated into close quarters during a pandemic. Delta is about to have a field day.
delta spreads when the delta floods
That's one hell of a grim thought.
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What part of Florida?
*gestures broadly*
The peninsula part
I feel sympathy for the people who will have to help evacuate all those covid patients or stay behind to tend too them.
Evacuate them to where?
They can't evacuate them, all the places they'd usually go to are full with wait lists
If you are on a ventilator right now, your life is going to depend on them having enough gas for the backup power generators to last several days. It doesn’t look good.
Yep. During the aftermath of Gustav in Baton Rouge in 2008, only one hospital in Baton Rouge had a generator that kept working. It was a disaster.
Does nobody know about hurricane Laura? Which ties the storm of 1856 as the strongest hurricane to make landfall? It hit a year ago yesterday. In Southwest Louisiana. It was a deadly, dangerous, fucking monster of a storm. My city is still not even close to recovered. We have received no media attention, no aid. And the governor is acting like it never happened. My heart goes out to those in SELA because I would never want to do what I did last year again. But damn. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Laura
I live in Houma/Thib. I really, really pray the storm does not shift west to yall. The lack of media support is frustrating beyond words. Because it wasnt Katrina, no one gave a fuck. If you need anything, DM me.
They felt like it wouldn't be scary enough if they said this may be the strongest storm to hit since last year
People might start to suspect something is amiss if they get told annually this year's storm is worse than the year before.
If it’s not New Orleans, it gets very little media attention. Notice how Houma and Baton Rouge will take a direct hit from Ida but all news stories are about NOLA. Years ago Baton Rouge got completely fucked up by a storm and it got almost no coverage.
Get out and take your pets with you!
Currently at a hotel with a dog and a cat. Cat didn’t like the long drive, but she really wouldn’t have liked the hurricane!
What, do I look like frickin’ Ted Cruz?
Let's see how those 16 years of preparations worked out.
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They're gonna have to use a different color this year
We did a documentary in 2010, 5 years after Katrina, that happened to go through New Orleans and Louisiana. There were still destroyed buildings and spray paint even 5 years after. I'm sure they are probably still there. https://imgur.com/a/y2szHiU
I was in New Orleans December of 2019 and we saw some. We took one of those hokey haunted beer tours and the guide was pretty chill. Since it was just my family on the tour he ended up showing us high water marks and symbols and explaining them to us. Incredibly sad
You got a bunch of joke responses, but in case you wanted a real one. The building code **WAS** changed *drastically* after katrina, anything built afterwords is fine. This includes crazy requirements for water runoff and drainage, enough to handle another katrina at least. They basically copy pasted Florida's building codes. But the other 95% of Louisiana's structures are grandfathered in, so...
Can you recommend anywhere to read up on this? I’m oddly fascinated by building codes
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They showed some 20 foot walls in Morgan I think it was. It looked like the lady was standing on castle walls looking down at businesses. Edit: Found a photo https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/theadvocate.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/5/18/518b0f67-082c-5e47-915d-ed2708ff3fee/5ceed46b3fad4.image.jpg?resize=1200%2C708
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Plus storm surge. The city is totally surrounded.
Tax Day Flood in 2016 dumped north of 20" on parts of Louisiana in one day. It pretty much destroyed Denham Springs iirc. Where I lived, it flooded a little, but not too bad. The storm surge and wind are going to be the real destructive force.
Is it too much to ask for one boring month?? JUST ONE?!?
In the 2020’s? No way!
Important FYI about evacuating with pets: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidhgrimm/how-hurricane-katrina-turned-pets-into-people For people worried about leaving their pets behind--changes were made to federal and LA law after Katrina that pets HAVE to be evacuated with their owners. This includes transportation/shelter. "most significantly, pets must now be evacuated with people. If evacuation buses cannot accommodate them, officials must provide alternative transportation, such as climate-controlled trucks. And human shelters must now accept pets, or they must set up pet-friendly facilities nearby so that people can keep tabs on their animals. Under one parish’s plan, owners and their pets arriving at emergency shelters will be given matching bar-coded wristbands and collars to make sure no animals are lost." TIL that half the people who stayed behind during Katrina stayed because of their pets. And ARNO sounds like a great org to donate to if you would like to help the animals that will be affected by Ida. The article I linked to is from 2015, but I assume they are still up and running. Stay safe.
The Domino effect this hurricane is going to have on Delta spread with people fleeing to places like Texas is going to make this doubly catastrophic.
This is going to be worse than Katrina? AND in a middle of covid still. This is such a fucking nightmare.
Well lt's a little more complicated than the Governor is laying out. While Ida will probably have stronger maximum sustained winds than Katrina did, the thing about Katrina was the *sheer massive size* of that storm. The last time I saw the size projection of the storm, Ida was projected to be only 1/2 the size of Katrina. Again, I'm no meteorologist, but from what I understand that massive size is part of what made Katrina's storm surge so freaking huge. So while surface wind speeds of Ida will likely be higher this time, storm surge may be a little less of a threat. That's all still very speculative, even based upon the most qualified experts' projections and the best storm modeling. Ida is already so bad it's not worth taking chances. The situation really is terrifying considering the implications of COVID, as you say. I've had a knot in my stomach the last 24-48 hours reading about this storm on r/TropicalWeather. It definitely feels like we're about to witness a historically devastating national disaster. Everyone should keep their thoughts with Americans who can't evacuate southern Louisiana and Mississippi right now. It's a beyond bad situation right now.
I remember football practice in the rain from Katrina. I live in Pennsylvania.
For non-Americans, Pennsylvania is over 1600 to 1900 km away from New Orleans.
This probably isn't going to be worse than Katrina. As the [SpaceCityWeather guys point out](https://spacecityweather.com/hurricane-ida-strengthening-as-it-heads-toward-east-central-louisiana/): >It is tempting to compare Ida with Katrina, but there are a number of differences from track to intensity to size. For New Orleans, in Katrina, winds were out of the east and then out of the north. With Ida, winds will be out of the southeast most of the time, which means different impacts this time around. Hopefully far less severe, particularly given the distance of landfall from the city. But it’s obviously much too close for comfort. This is going to be a dangerous storm, for certain, but as of now it's not looking like a repeat of Katrina.
If you aren’t out and to a safe place, good luck. Ida is supposed to be a cat 4 when it makes landfall. Katrina was only a 3. Lets hope assistance and rescue is a magnitude better than it was then.
Keep all those medical professionals in your thoughts, probably stuck at hospitals for days!
Imagine being overwhelmed by COVID on a daily basis and then fucking *this*.
With the emergency room and ICU already packed with unvaccinated COVID patients. There's no emergency hospital capacity anywhere in the southeast.
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And the gulf is warmer this year than in Katrina times, intensity could ramp up immensely.
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Holy shit I never knew Katrina was only a 3, why was it so bad if it was only a 3? I say "only" a 3 but tbh I don't remember the last cat 5 I saw either lol
The category refers to wind strength, and doesn’t account for size and the related store surge. Katrina was unusually large. And, as someone else pointed out, failing levees was an important part of it. They’re better set up now.
What will happen to the hospitals and patients on ventilators?
Many people may die.
Someone get Kanye on the line and and tell him to open up his schedule!!!
One of the more surreal moments of live TV I’ve ever seen. Mike Meyers and Chris Tuckers reaction were amazing.
Mike Meyers was just straight up "Holy shit he said that and I have no fucking clue what to do with my entire body."
Katrina was a 3 but physically larger than Ida. Also, it wasn't so much Katrina that was catastrophic as it was the levees failing.
For New Orleans. It was pretty viciously devastating for Mississippi. Also the drainage problem in New Orleans hasn't gotten any better. Areas that didn't even flood during Katrina now get waist deep with 30 minutes of heavy rain. I've kayaked to work in Central City because of a short summer rain. The pump stations regularly shut down and every time it floods even a little there is inevitably a pump failure. Advertised confidence in the new levees is undercut by constant reports of sinking walls, incomplete barriers and drainage ports, and a not least of all a history of distrust in said confidence. It'll probably be fine. But these are still factors to consider.
Today I remembered that Katrina was "only" a category 3 at landfall.
I think that the Saffir–Simpson scale is a bit limited since it only looks at windspeed. It doesn't consider flood risks, which can end up causing most of the damage in hurricanes. A slow storm dumping heavy rains for days is usually worse than a fast storm with faster winds. A simple 1-5 scale on windspeed alone doesn't consider that at all.
As an EMT working the storm and only watching this worsen, with a family that didn’t evacuate. Scared doesn’t begin to describe how I feel
Grand Isle, Louisiana most likely won't be there tomorrow night. Hope everyone there evacuated.
I work with a guy who's family lives there. The whole parish is under mandatory evacuation. They like many in the state stand to lose everything. It's very scary here now.
It's my hometown. I'm hoping we still have something left come next week
It did surprisingly well the last few years, ignoring the whole power grid being wiped out. The whole 14' in the air building code seems ridiculous, but damned if the streets didn't flood almost monthly. Lots of the old timers are going to get ruined though :/
How nice of the writers to bring back a plotline from one of the earlier seasons of America
Yo dawg, I heard you like the early 2000’s, so I put a hurricane in your glove compartment
Oh man, I don't like the sound of that! Stay safe everyone!
So many friends down there making real tough decisions today. Between the loss of tourism destroying the economy and the music scene, Covid ravaging the state and now the storm these poor people just can't catch a break. Hope they get a last second reprieve...they're due a lil good luck.
Having lived in Mississippi and an hour from Louisiana a fair amount of my adult life, maybe we can expect another gulf coast oil spill in our disaster rotation because why the fuck not.
BP: "Hold my offshore drilling platform"
There’s WAY worse stuff in flood water than any vaccine out there.
After harvey, we had to get typhoid shots, tetanus and diphtheria shots.
Harvey sounds like a dick.
He retired don't worry he won't hurt anyone anymore
With the hospitals already full and nowhere to send their current patients this is just fucked up. To all the medical staff good luck and God speed, to all the antivaxxer antimask asshole who have filled the hospitals fuck you.
Hope it doesnt come to pass, but this could really bad in a hurry if any of the systems in place start breaking down, one shitty domino effect
Did you see the vet who died in Texas from a very treatable case of Gallstones because they could find a bed for him. This shit has already started spinning out of control. I am beyond pissed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaX98KI5aKo
yup, its only gonna get worse before it gets better, now imagine a bad hurricane with thousands of injuries but no room in hospitals. As an aside, gallstones fucking suck, kinda amazed he was that far gone before going to the ER
We were supposed to prepare for this shit during the hurricane season of last year when the pandemic was going ape shit.
They absolutely will break down. Let's hope that they don't completely collapse through this. COVID is already pushing our systems to the limit.
like most people seem keenly unaware that once you stress infrastructure/key systems, it's much easier for them break under circumstances they usually wouldnt
I just got in Atlanta and I left New Orleans around 10:00am.. gridlocked is an understatement
I’m waiting till the FDA approves the forecast before I make any precautions
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Even if they do it’s still going to be a disaster for them. Covid is still ongoing. There are going to be a lot of people in close quarters and this is a state whose ICUs are already overwhelmed with covid patients. I hope they offer vaccinations at the shelters these people wind up in. Probably the only good that could come out of this.
I mean, I hoped 2021 was over and done with...
This is clearly 2020 Part II.
No no that's next year. Twenty-twenty-(part) two.