Gustav Prowling Near Florida

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Tropical Storm GUSTAV is formed near Haiti.

Supposed to be a hurriane tomorrow or Wednesday, then move between Cuba and South Florida.

 

[R. Richard]

Tropical Storm GUSTAV is formed near Haiti.

Supposed to be a hurriane tomorrow or Wednesday, then move between Cuba and South Florida.

Sounds bad. IIRC, the strait between Florida and Cuba is only about 90 miles wide. Thats not a lot of width for a hurricane. Batten down the hatches, South Florida people!

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

RICHARD

This bad boy isnt forecast to pass over much land twixt now and whenever. The skinny arm of Haiti is about the largest land mass in the path, and its very slender.

 

[sr71plt]

I predict a hurricane in the Mid Atlantic region for this weekend/early next week. I'll be cruising to Bermuda, and every time I go anywhere near the Atlantic coast for a vacation, there's a hurricane nearby.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Your luck is holding steady!

 

[Weird Harold]

Some Graphics to keep track of what you're talking about:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/storm_graphics/AT07/refresh/AL0708W5_sm2+gif/203213W_sm.gif
http://icons-pe.wunderground.com/data/images/at200807_5day.gif
http://icons-pe.wunderground.com/data/images/at200807_model.gif


It looks like the initial projections are for a more westerly course and that run down the center of Cuba looks more hopeful than accurate, to me. That long over land should keep it down to tropical Storm levels, but it will also squirt it out into the warm water of the Gulf and let it build strength while giving everyone from Brownsville to Miami ulcers.

 

[SeaCat]

It's already giing some people down here Ulcers. According to some of the people in work it's time to hide the food, break out the guns and send the women and children to someplace like Dulluth.

I went out and bought another bottle of Tequila.

Cat

 

[R. Richard]

It's already giing some people down here Ulcers. According to some of the people in work it's time to hide the food, break out the guns and send the women and children to someplace like Dulluth.

I went out and bought another bottle of Tequila.

Cat

A guy I knew was stranded in Cabo San Lucas at the South end of Baja California when a hurricane threatened. He asked the Mexican handyman, "What do you do to prepare for a hurricane?" The Mexican thought for a few moments and he said, "Senor, we get drunk."

 

[AvoidingRealWork]

A guy I knew was stranded in Cabo San Lucas at the South end of Baja California when a hurricane threatened. He asked the Mexican handyman, "What do you do to prepare for a hurricane?" The Mexican thought for a few moments and he said, "Senor, we get drunk."

I think I'd like to go that way: bashed about by a hurricane from which there is no escape, with about 8 shots of mescal in me. Singing lusty songs arm-in-arm with mis amigos as the roof is lifted off and a flying 2x4 hits me before I even know it's coming.

 

[SeaCat]

I think I'd like to go that way: bashed about by a hurricane from which there is no escape, with about 8 shots of mescal in me. Singing lusty songs arm-in-arm with mis amigos as the roof is lifted off and a flying 2x4 hits me before I even know it's coming.

Now don't get me wrong. I have prepared. I just get so tired of the doom sayers. According to some it's the end of the world.

My view on this is, if you haven't prepared by now and you have lived here for more than a year then it's on your own head.

Cat

 

[shereads]

I predict a hurricane in the Mid Atlantic region for this weekend/early next week. I'll be cruising to Bermuda, and every time I go anywhere near the Atlantic coast for a vacation, there's a hurricane nearby.

Winter, good. Summer, bad.

 

[Elianna]

I predict a hurricane in the Mid Atlantic region for this weekend/early next week. I'll be cruising to Bermuda, and every time I go anywhere near the Atlantic coast for a vacation, there's a hurricane nearby.

Cruising. In a hurricane?

*turns green*

Of course anything having to do with a boat on the ocean gives me the same result. Add hurricane to it and I'd turn not just slightly green... ugh... it makes me sick to even think about it.

Hope your vacation isn't ruined.

 

[shereads]

According to some it's the end of the world.

So was Hurricane Frank - was it Frank? - a montrous thing the size of the entire state of Florida, that was predicted to plow us all under like ripe mulch. I impaled my arm on a nail trying to prepare for Frank, and then it skipped us altogether.

It's insane to be ticked off about NOT being hit by a hurricane, but exhaustion and a tetanus shot can do that to a person. Later, we come to our senses and know how lucky we were to have dodged the bullet. Being overprepared for a non-event is a lot more fun than the alternative. (Not that anything can prepare you completely, as Floridians know.)

Good luck, SeaCat and everyone else in the Zone.

Weather sucks.

 

[Weird Harold]

My view on this is, if you haven't prepared by now and you have lived here for more than a year then it's on your own head.

I'm a little more critical than you: If you've lived in Florida for more than two weeks and Fay didn't wake you up and at least make you think about what you need to do to become prepared, you're a fucking idiot who deserves to get picked up by the wind and tossed out to sea.

 

[sr71plt]

Winter, good. Summer, bad.

Cruising Australia and New Zealand in the winter. This one's an anniversary present, which pretty much determined the timing.

 

[shereads]

Cruising Australia and New Zealand in the winter. This one's an anniversary present, which pretty much determined the timing.

Happy anniversary, then, and have a safe trip.

 

[sr71plt]

Happy anniversary, then, and have a safe trip.

Thanks. I can use the vacation.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

GUSTAV is a hurricane the 2nd day of his life, not good.

 

[freshface]

It's already giing some people down here Ulcers. According to some of the people in work it's time to hide the food, break out the guns and send the women and children to someplace like Dulluth.

I went out and bought another bottle of Tequila.

Cat

Didn't they do this last week for Fay? You just finished with that one, so I would think that the food is still hidden, the guns are still out, and the women and children aren't back from Dulluth yet. What am I missing?

 

[freshface]

I predict a hurricane in the Mid Atlantic region for this weekend/early next week. I'll be cruising to Bermuda, and every time I go anywhere near the Atlantic coast for a vacation, there's a hurricane nearby.

So, um, sr, I hate to ask this, but have you noticed Tropical Storm Hanna heading toward Bermuda? The latest track shows it reaching hurricane strength Sunday morning. The track past three days is still wide open, but here's hoping you're not cruising in its path.

 

[sr71plt]

So, um, sr, I hate to ask this, but have you noticed Tropical Storm Hanna heading toward Bermuda? The latest track shows it reaching hurricane strength Sunday morning. The track past three days is still wide open, but here's hoping you're not cruising in its path.

Last I saw was that it was heading toward Cape Canaveral. Bermuda's up off the DelMarVa coast. But, yes, the CNN weatherman was saying that Hanna was nothing to worry about yet, and my response was "Yeah, right."

We're enjoying the remnants of Fay in Central Virginia now--which is quite welcome, as we'd gone six weeks without rain.

 

[redpaint]

First cruise I ever took we where cased all around by Huricane Wilma. Stepson is to fly to tampa in the morning. to leave sat on his frist cruise. Its not really that bad on a cruise ship they know where the stroms are and keep you away from they. you may not go where you thought you where going but they try to take you somewhere just as nice.

I just heard oin the new its heading towrds NEW ORLEANS

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080828/ap_on_re_us/gustav_s_threat
A
s Gustav nears, Gulf Coast puts faith in planning

By BECKY BOHRER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 19 minutes ago

NEW ORLEANS - With Gustav approaching hurricane strength and showing no signs of veering off a track to slam into the Gulf Coast, authorities across the region began laying the groundwork Thursday to get the sick, elderly and poor away from the shoreline.

The first batch of 700 buses that could ferry residents inland were being sent to a staging area near New Orleans, and officials in Mississippi were trying to decide when to move Katrina-battered residents along the coast who were still living in temporary homes, including trailers vulnerable to high wind.

The preliminary planning for a potential evacuation is part of a massive outline drafted after Hurricane Katrina slammed ashore three years ago, flooding 80 percent of New Orleans and stranding thousands who couldn't get out in time. As the region prepared to mark the storm's anniversary Friday, officials said they were confident those blueprints made them ready for Gustav.

"There are a lot of things that are different between now and what we faced in 2005 when Katrina came ashore," said U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who flew to Louisiana to meet with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Gov. Bobby Jindal. "We've had three years to put together a plan that never existed before."

With Gustav still several days away, authorities cautioned that no plans were set in stone, and had not yet called for residents to leave. Projections showed the storm arriving early next week as a Category 3 storm, with winds of 111 mph or greater, anywhere from the Florida Panhandle to eastern Texas. But forecasts are extremely tentative several days out, and the storm could change course.

Governors in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas pre-declared states of emergency in an attempt to build a foundation for federal assistance. Batteries, bottled water, and other storm supplies were selling briskly. Roughly 3,000 National Guard troops were on standby in Louisiana, and another 5,000 were readying in Texas. Hotels in the region reported being booked solid by coastal residents planning ahead.

"We're almost sold out," said Sheila Harris, the administrative assistant at the Comfort Inn in Tupelo, Miss, which is about 300 miles inland from the Mississippi coast. She said most of the 83 rooms at the hotel had been booked by New Orleans and southern Mississippi residents.

Many residents found themselves repeating the same things they did in the days before Katrina. The New Orleans Saints were set to play the Miami Dolphins in the team's final NFL preseason game Thursday night; the Saints played their final game of the 2005 preseason just three days before Katrina. Running back Deuce McAllister, who was planning to shore up his suburban home, found it a little weird to be preparing for a possible storm again.

"It's out of our hands," said McAllister. "We'll just have to wait and see what happens."

The city was expected to announce later Thursday whether officials would go ahead with events to mark the Katrina anniversary. Among the events that have been planned are a jazz funeral to bury remains of unidentified Katrina victims and a candlelight vigil at Jackson Square.

If a Category 3 or stronger hurricane threatens, New Orleans plans to institute a mandatory evacuation order. Depending on the churn of this system, the call could come with a slow-moving Category 2, the city's emergency preparedness director, Jerry Sneed, said.

Nagin said in interviews Wednesday that the clock on an evacuation would start three days, or 72 hours, from an anticipated landfall.

Unlike Katrina, there will be no massive shelter at the Superdome, a plan designed to encourage residents to leave.

Residents who need help — the elderly, disabled, those without their own transportation — would be moved out by buses, bound for shelters in other Louisiana cities such as Alexandria, Shreveport and Monroe, and Amtrak trains headed to Jackson, Miss., officials have said. Others are expected to leave on their own by vehicle.

The city said it is prepared to move 30,000 residents; estimates put the city's current population between 310,000 to 340,000 people. There were about 454,000 here before Katrina hit.

Though officials urged residents to prepare by securing their homes, finding valuables and locating personal documents, some were taking a wait-and-see attitude. In Alabama, many tourists and residents were taking a wait-and-see attitude, and were more focused on the upcoming Labor Day weekend.

"We plan to sit in a bar and watch the whole thing," joked Greg Lee, a tourist from Clarksville, Tenn. He was grocery shopping with family members, stocking up on cold beverages and planning to stay through the holiday at their beach house at Fort Morgan, down a beach road from Gulf Shores.

Hurricane-seasoned officials also were hoping for the chance forecasts were wrong. Joey Durel, president of Lafayette's city and parish governments, said officials in that south-central Louisiana community may begin handing out sandbags to residents as early as Friday — but hoped they wouldn't need them.

"We're glad to see we're in the (forecast) path because they never get it right this far out," Durel said. "I say that slightly tongue in cheek, but it's true."

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

REDPAINT

You must have sea-legs.