Category: Weather

Categories
Weather Writing

Storm surges

Luckily Gustav calmed down before landfall, because I don’t think the New Orleans levees would have held if the surge was 18 feet as originally predicted.

It’s important, now, for Nagin et al to let people back into the city as soon as possible. If the city management continues to keep the citizens out, but let the business owners in, the next time the city officials call for an evacuation, people are going to say, “No”. Frankly, I wouldn’t blame them.

Gustav is still not through giving, though. We in St. Louis are getting tropical depression warnings, as we expect the storm to drop 8 inches, or more, on us on Friday.

In the meantime…how about that Atlantic, eh? If McCain and Obama continue their practice to discontinue campaigning every time we get hit with a hurricane, this may be the quietest presidential race, ever.

But then there’s Sarah. I could wish that we would spend more time on issues important to women, than one specific woman and her family challenges. This election is too important to continue to get distracted by the Palin sideshow.

PS Can you tell I’m half way through my book edits, and feeling more than a wee bit irritable?

Categories
Weather

Thinking of our neighbors in Cuba

There’s no denying that Gustav will be hitting Louisiana, and probably Texas, hard, next week. However, right at this moment, Gustav is really slamming Cuba.

According to Dr. Jeff Masters at Weather Underground, Cuba will be hit with category 4 Hurricane winds, and with a storm surge of 18 to 23 feet.

With the US-based embargo of Cuba, it’s hard for countries to help Cuba. I don’t care for our embargo, and it’s past time to establish relations with a country with whom we’ve shared so much history. I’d like to think we would extend a helping hand to the Cubans, and they’d accept it. But that would mean dropping all the macho posturings with both countries.

All I can say is, as we worry about the impact of Gustav on the US (and rightfully so), spare a thought for our neighbors to the south.

Categories
Weather

Fill your tanks now

Fill your gas tanks now, because Gustav is coming to town.

According to Dr. Jeff Masters at Wunderground, Haiti is going to get hammered, and no matter what computer model wins out in the end, the oil and gas production in the Gulf Coast is going to get disrupted.

The especially worrisome part of Gustav is that a couple of the more reliable models show Gustav hitting between Houston and New Orleans as a strong, category 3+ hurricane. Just a guestimate at this time, we’ll probably know more in a couple of days. There’s also a chance it could go as far south as Mexico, though I think we’re better planning on it hitting the US.

Categories
Weather

Hot Days

We’ve been lucky this summer and had relatively mild weather. However, this week our luck has run out, as we contemplate heat index readings over 115 degrees (46 celsius).

Stay cool.

Categories
Weather

Thankfully, Homeland Security is not interested in Missouri

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

From MarketWatch, in light of today’s Hurricane Dolly landfall along the Texas/Mexican border:

As Hurricane Dolly bears down on the Texas Rio Grande Valley, the chairman of the Texas Border Coalition (TBC) today protested construction of the border wall by the Department of Homeland Security during the hurricane season and urged the government to refocus its efforts on rebuilding the levees that should protect the people of the Valley.

“It is unbelievably foolish for the government to be attempting to destroy and rebuild the Rio Grande River levees in the middle of hurricane season,” said Eagle Pass Mayor and TBC Chairman Chad Foster. “The footings of the levees are being destroyed in the construction process so that the Department of Homeland Security can erect 18-foot concrete walls in their place. It is incredibly short-sighted that the government would open the levees at the same time that the danger is highest for devastating floods in the middle of hurricane season.”

Illegal immigration is a big thing here in Missouri, for some unknown reason. Like the folks in Texas, we are also more at risk for floods than the possibility that some terrorist will cross over the border between Mexico and the US.

Dolly is set to hit directly on the border between the US and Mexico, at the mouth of the Rio Grande. Along the Rio Grande are the colonias, including Cameron Park outside of Brownsville, considered the poorest community in the US. The people there make an average of $4,000, annually. Most live in shacks without electricity and running water, on land sold by shady developers who promised these hard working people a decent community with all the utilities, took their money, and then skipped town.

What’s sadder, is this is the community that now President Bush wouldn’t visit, or even acknowledge, when he was governor of Texas.

Ignored then. Ignored now.