Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Let’s finish the job.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

The choice is between normal and crazy.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

If you’re looking for someone who’s young and athletic, go watch a fucking movie.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickel?”

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / Black Jimmy Carter / This is the story of the hurricane

Reader Interactions

189Comments

  1. 1.

    hells littlest angel

    Sure it’s Obama’s Katrina. He just won’t disastrously fuck it up like Bush did his.

  3. 3.

    Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937

    New York != New Orleans

    Brownie’s been long gone, doing a heckava job somewhere else.

  4. 4.

    General Stuck

    Just checked out the latest stats on Irene, and it looks like it will be a very weak storm wind wise, and storm surge wise, with only the left side skirting the coast. And the left side of a Hurricane is always the weakest wind wise, and storm surge wise. But the folks in greater New England are going to get pounded with heavy rain.

  6. 6.

    Yutsano

    Of course it is DougJ. Haven’t all the other natural disaster responses been total Charlie Foxtrots so far? Oh wait…

  7. 7.

    gogol's wife

    Thanks for this thread, it’s going to calm me down considerably tonight. The people here have a calming effect on me for some reason.

  10. 10.

    lamh32

    Speaking of “Katrina”, I’ve been having an ongoing “discussion” (i.e. argument) elsewhere on another blog with this person who been screaming “bad optics” about POTUS being on vacation and not going back to DC earlier than today (if anyone didn’t know, the family is probably already on their way back from MV). This person I guess was trying to say that the optics of Bush, McCain & the cake during Katrina is a bigger deal than the fact that cake or no cake, Bush and his FEMA crew were NOT prepared and even after was not effective during Katrina.

    Anyway, I just wanted to share my response to that person:

    So are YOU saying that if Bush was in DC instead of the cake giving incident, then the criticism of Bush woulda been lesser? Hell no. FEMA was still shitty. If FEMA and the Bush admin had did a better job at disaster management and preparedness, then the optics of the cake wouldn’t mean squat.

    This WH unlike Bush has proven again and again that throught all of the disasters during this presidency, that FEMA under the Obama administration are getting things done a hell of a lot better…optics be damned.

    … about the optics, I’m more assured that the President, FEMA, and the administration are more concerned with getting stuff done, quickly and efficiently…PERIOD.
    As someone who has survived Katrina, I can tell you when you are sitting on a rooftop waiting to be rescued because of the levees that the federal government’s own “Army Core of Engineers” deemed “adequate” but, actually werent, optics don’t mean shit!

    I could care less if the POTUS stays or goes, but I damn sure care that FEMA and the government agency that need to respond quickly are ready and exactly where they need to be.

  11. 11.

    PurpleGirl

    It really isn’t fair to call it that. First, the storm hasn’t hit the tri-state area yet. Second, Bloomberg and other politicians have already begun to take actions to minimize the effects. In NYC, it really makes the most sense to hunker down and just stay indoors. Buy supplies and then curl up and wait. They’ve ordered Zone A residents to leave for “higher” ground, they’ve moved people out of hospitals in flood areas to better areas. The Health and Hospitals Corp. said they did tests on their backup generators to be sure they all worked and that they inventoried drugs and supplies. Hopefully, some of the newer super-tall buildings have been engineered to handle the winds (based on the after construction retro-fit of the Citicorp tower), so they should be able to withstand the winds. I’m not being blase here; NYC is doing things they haven’t done before (the first time ever they are closing the transit system). The administration is taking this storm very seriously. (I’m 59 and lived in NYC my whole life and haven’t seen this level of planning.)

  14. 14.

    Arclite

    Update. Forget it, a million people have already called this Obama’s Katrina?

    Dude, it wasn’t a million. Only a quarter million:

    About 243,000 results (0.17 seconds)

  15. 15.

    Yutsano

    Yeah lamh32, but is he gonna stop being blackety blackety black black black? That’s the real disaster for them.

  16. 16.

    Tom Hilton

    Who will be the first to call this Obama’s Katrina?

    I’m convinced that Cantor’s stand on disaster relief (none unless there are offsetting cuts) is less about ideology and more a desperate attempt to make this Obama’s Katrina (by hamstringing FEMA).

  17. 17.

    Jenny

    Fixxed News is already whining that Obama is doing tooooo much.

    Trapped in SC – August 26, 2011 | 4:34 pm ||Did anybody see Neil Cavuto? He was asking Homeland Security Napolitano were they (meaning the Obama administration) overreacting to the storm.

  18. 18.

    Tom Hilton

    btw, anyone here remember Agnes? That’s what I see as close to the worst-case scenario. I was just a kid then, but I do remember it shut down the whole area.

  20. 20.

    kindness

    I just talked to my brother who lives in NYC. He’s pissed that they’ve already announced that all public transit, including all the trains are being shut down tomorrow at 8. He had just gotten back from a beautiful calm sunny day at the beach & can’t figure when New Yorkers became such wusses as to freak out before it even starts raining. He did buy batteries, bottled water, a case of wine as his storm supplies.

  21. 21.

    Derf

    What I want to know is why did Obama wait so long to react to the Hurricane? Prolly cause he was too busy plannin his vacation an golfin an such. A REAL leader would have reacted to this disaster about to happen 2 weeks ago. You betcha!

    Don’t even get me started on his reaction to the Earthquake. A real leader would have been at the epicenter within hours clearin brush or whatever.

  24. 24.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    Didn’t “Travels with Charlie” start off in an east coast hurricane?

    Duh, the google is my friend:

    “He had a truck fitted with a custom camper-shell for his journey and planned on leaving after Labor Day from his home in Sag Harbor, Long Island, New York. Steinbeck delayed his trip slightly due to Hurricane Donna which made a direct hit on Long Island. Steinbeck’s exploits in saving his boat during the middle of the hurricane foreshadow his fearless, or even reckless, state of mind to dive into the unknown.”

  25. 25.

    Redshift

    In their infinite ability to avoid responsibility and treat anything bad during a Republican administration as something that “just happened,” wingnuts are completely incapable of grasping that “Bush’s Katrina” wasn’t because there was a bad storm, but because the preparation and response was such a colossal and deadly screwup.

    The real popcorn event to watch for is not their dubbing it yet another “Obama’s Katrina,” but their whining that the librul media are giving him a pass just because FEMA deals with it competently.

  29. 29.

    Redshift

    @Tom Hilton: Yeah, I remember it. I was just a kid, too, but I remember water coming through the wall of our basement, and afterward, driving across Chain Bridge and seeing water not very far below. (Normally it’s about 30 feet down to the river.)

  31. 31.

    Robin G.

    This one’s going to be seriously interesting. Hurricanes so rarely follow this track that it’s very difficult to predict just what the fallout will be. (Particularly with regards to storm surge, which is dependent on about six million factors and could turn out any number of ways.) This could be a huge overreaction, or it could be pretty awful, and we probably won’t know until it’s happening.

    As a side note, if there’s anyone out East who isn’t sure whether their homes suffered structural damage during the earthquake, I’m guessing they’ll know by the end of the weekend.

  32. 32.

    General Stuck

    When I lived on the MS gulf coast, when anyone talked about Hurricanes and what worried them most, almost everyone would say that a mega disaster it would be for New Orleans in a direct hit, simply because of it’s geography of being largely below sea level. and complete reliance on man made protection in levies and such, and it only took a glancing blow of a monster hurricane, to realize that disaster that was just waiting to happen.

    I don’t think there is anything comparable to that along the east coast, because every coastal city is at least a few feet above sea level, and able to drain

  33. 33.

    dmsilev

    @Jenny: That’s hilarious. I’ll bet Fox will segue seamlessly to complaining that the administration isn’t doing enough to help whatever place happens to get hit the hardest, and then move to promote Marie Antoinette’s Eric Cantor’s “no disaster relief unless we cut something else from the budget” stance.

  34. 34.

    Judas Escargot

    @Tom Hilton:

    I’m convinced that Cantor’s stand on disaster relief (none unless there are offsetting cuts) is less about ideology and more a desperate attempt to make this Obama’s Katrina (by hamstringing FEMA).

    I, too, had this exact same thought: Though (AFAIK) POTUS can order the Nat’l Guard and armed forces to provide relief if needed, without having to get Cantor’s permission.

    Have fun trying to impeach Obama for ordering Guardsmen to put down sandbags, get the old people to higher ground, distribute MREs, etc.

  35. 35.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    Have had several bands of rain here so far and some gusty winds (I am in Eastern NC) right now we are in a particularly heavy rain band. I am filling up both bath tubs with water. I have six oil lamps filled with oil, enough food, charcoal etc., to last weeks let alone days and have prepared as best I can (moved all the birdhouses, patio furniture, container plants etc). Just got to hunker down now until the eye hits us tomorrow at about 8am. I am watching the local news coverage because TWC and MSNBC keeps telling me how awful it is going to be for NY. Ugghhhh From my understanding of our local weather team the storm surge is going to be worse than the winds, that is what worries me cause I really could not handle another Floyd. Will keep updating so long as I have power.

  38. 38.

    PurpleGirl

    @kindness: No, it’s noon on Saturday that they will start shutting the system down. A train that is on the tracks will continue its route till it gets to the terminal or other designated location.

    Does your brother really want to be stuck in a subway tunnel while it’s flooding? Or on a bus that can’t get through a flooded intersection? Depending on the storm surge, lower Manhattan’s subway tunnels could fill up with water, with no place to go.

  39. 39.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @General Stuck: I hope you’re right, Gen., but the models I’ve seen say it’ll still be a cat 1 when it reaches NYC, and the storm surge is likely to be worse than the winds, esp. at high tides. They’re saying it might not be the major disaster they thought yesterday, but there are still a lot of “ifs” involved. And cat 1 winds are nothing to sneeze at, no matter how many times Anderson Cooper stands in the wind on camera.

  41. 41.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @PurpleGirl: Bloomberg said the concern was that subway cars might not stay on the tracks if they’re above ground during a constant heavy wind. Who wants to be stuck in a subway car when it gets blown over?

  42. 42.

    Jenny

    @Tom Hilton:

    I’m convinced that Cantor’s stand on disaster relief (none unless there are offsetting cuts) is less about ideology and more a desperate attempt to make this Obama’s Katrina (by hamstringing FEMA).

    Disagree. Republicans couldn’t care less about the deficit when they hold the white house. In fact, they loved deficits when St. Ronnie was sleeping in the oval office.

  43. 43.

    General Stuck

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred):

    What I saw, was it weakening to a tropical storm but I haven’t seen the storm surge forecast. But anyone on barrier islands needs to hi tail it out of there. Storm surge prediction is not as advanced as otherwise predicting what hurricanes will do. Especially at high tide.

  46. 46.

    RandyH

    Ahhhh c’mon. Obama’s Katrina? Doubt it. Although this will be an awful mess, the government agencies and power companies, etc will perform well this time – because we have competent people running things now.

    Some people will be disappointed but that’s what happens when a hurricane barrels down on 65 million people in one day. They are going to be on their own for a while (in some cases a week or so) but they will get their power turned back on, etc eventually.

    Good luck to those of us on the east coast who decided to stick it out. I wouldn’t do it but I wish you well.

    Buy enough bottled water and Pop-Tarts or granola bars/energy bars, etc to last a week. Can’t go wrong.

  47. 47.

    Violet

    As we learned with Ike, the category of the hurricane doesn’t tell the whole story. Hurricane Irene is massive, and certainly one of the largest ever for its location this far north. The larger the hurricane, the worse the storm surge. That is the real problem.

    People weren’t that worried because Ike was “only a weak Cat 2”, but they didn’t take the size of the hurricane into account. Those people who stayed on Bolivar peninsula were killed by storm surge. 24 bodies still have never been found.

    Hurricanes wobble as they approach landfall and wobbles can’t really be predicted. A wobble to the east is what spared New Orleans from a direct hit from Katrina (not that it mattered in the end because of what happened with the flooding). A last minute wobble in either direction by Irene can mean the difference between damage and major damage. There isn’t really a way to predict which way she’ll wobble at landfall. The models aren’t quite that good yet.

  48. 48.

    fasteddie9318

    Somewhat OT, but as much as I hate flipping over to CNN for news coverage, Al Sharpton hosting a show is a channel changer for me. Am I in the wrong on this?

  49. 49.

    gogol's wife

    @Litlebritdifrnt:

    Good luck. You sound way more prepared than I am, but I’m in New England so hope I can get by on PB&J for a while. Keep us posted! I always enjoy your comments.

  50. 50.

    J. Michael Neal

    I set up a business checking account this afternoon, and submitted my Certificate of Assumed name to a legal newspaper in Hennepin County to publish. That will make the existence of Melancholy Donkey Press official.

    I suppose that means I should get to work writing . . .

  52. 52.

    fasteddie9318

    Also too, I’m awaiting the inevitable appearance of Michael Brown to comment on how the Obama administration is fucking things up, because that’s how CNN rolls.

  54. 54.

    Redshift

    @Stooleo: Yeah, sadly it is. All these bastards are surrounded by human shields who have the least say of anyone over what they’re doing.

    Now, wishing for some structural flaw that causes his place to get flooded and none around it, that I can get behind…

  55. 55.

    PurpleGirl

    @arguingwithsignposts: Yes, on the elevated lines, the train cars could be blown off. But the tunnels could flood too. Hell, there have been plain, regular thunder/rain storms where the tunnels in Queens flooded and they had evacuate all the people to the surface. And there are no extra buses or drivers to add to the schedule.

  56. 56.

    lamh32

    I only 34, but the Hurricane that I have personal vivid memories of are: Katrina of course, Rita, Andrew.

    My family last lived in NOLA for generations though, before Katrina, the 2 hurricane that caused the most damage was Betsy and Camille.

    So the 3 worst: Katrina, Betsy and Camille….all ladies…lol

  57. 57.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The deal is, under Dem presidents, FEMA functions as an emergency management agency, staffed by professionals.

    Under Rethug Presidents, head of FEMA is a patronage position, and all the appointees are cronies of various Rethug poohbahs who more likely than not have no emergency management experience at all. To include demonstrating an ability to manage their own personal much smaller emergencies, like accidentally knocking over a cup of coffee.

    One of the reasons Clinton won Florida in ’92 was the shitty response of HW’s FEMA to Hurricane Andrew. FEMA had been gutted in the 80’s by the minions of the shitty movie star into an agency preparing to fight a nuclear war and ignoring actual natural disasters that were far more likely to happen even if you’ve got a guy you have to hold back from pushing The Button.

    I have much higher confidence in Obama’s FEMA than any FEMA under a Rethug administration, because they simply do not believe in government working in any way, and commence to prove it when they’re in charge.

  58. 58.

    General Stuck

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    Don’t get me wrong, this will be a dangerous storm, but not as dangerous as if it made a direct hit on a more westerly course, where landfall would mean the upper right quadrant of the storm makes landfall, that is where most of the catastrophic damage is done.

    They are predicting up to 15 inches of rain for NE, I think, and that is dangerous enough to cause all kinds of misery.

  60. 60.

    JWL

    “Disagree with Obama’s policies, and you’re little better than a Tea Bagger, willing to blame the President for all ills, including natural disasters”.

  61. 61.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @gogol’s wife: There are times in life when being a hoarder is a good thing :) DH is borrowing the small generator that his band has and is bringing that home tonight. Our discussion earlier was how it could only power a couple of things Me: “I will just be happy if I can power my freezer” Him: “I was thinking more of the TV and an A/C unit” we shall have to see whether the freezer or the TV + A/C unit wins out should we lose power. We are early into this right now, who knows what will happen come tomorrow.

  63. 63.

    RandyH

    If you are on the east coast and have a pickup truck and a good chainsaw, you could make yourself a small fortune in the coming weeks. Just drive around looking for downed trees and offer the homeowner a price to dispose of it. Then give them a receipt for the cash sale and they should be able to get reimbursed by their insurance company.

    Big money to be made because all of the tree service companies will be too busy dealing with their power company and city contracts to deal with regular homeowners who need fallen trees removed. And those fallen trees will be EVERYWHERE. Record rainfall + hurricane = dead fallen trees everywhere.

  64. 64.

    dmsilev

    @Litlebritdifrnt: If the generator can only power a couple of things, my advice would be to leave it on the freezer for most of the time, but then switch over to the TV when you want/need to watch it. If you don’t open the freezer door while it’s unplugged, most units will stay cold for an hour or two without a problem.

  65. 65.

    different church-lady

    This can’t be Obama’s Katrina: Obama has already acknowledged the seriousness of the situation.

  66. 66.

    cat48

    I’m near Charleston SC & we’ve had light rain all day & occasional gusts of wind. Just received a weather alert that said some of the feeder arms are starting to move over our area now with winds up to 60mph & heavy rain & expect flash floods cause high tide at 6:30. If my radar map is accurate, the eye of Irene is 166 miles from Charleston now so we just have the feeder bands to contend with.

    Hurricane Floyd didn’t make a direct hit here, but the winds were really a lot worse than Irene. We had tree branches & pinecones everywhere. Irene is no Floyd, so far, which is a good thing. Also, too, can’t believe the power is still on.

  68. 68.

    JC

    Why do all the posters here always step on Anne Laurie’s posts?

    Here she is, pointing to an awesome snark cartoon, saying the same point Doug is saying.

    But, Doug doesn’t even say “To add on to Laurie’s point below”. No, nothing like that, he simply posts willy-nilly, as flights of fancy take him, never bothering to read the site he has been posting on for a year! :)

    Poor Anne Laurie – the price you get for being – accurately – quick on the trigger!

  69. 69.

    lamh32

    Welp, since Irene led to the postponement of the dedication ceremony of the MLK Memorial Sunday, I figured I’d share Maya Angelou’s poem with yous guys:

    Maya Angelou’s Abundant Hope

    The Martin Luther King Memorial was scheduled to be dedicated on August 28, exactly 48 years after Dr.King’s historic March on Washington. The event on the National Mall has been postponed because of Hurricane Irene, but many of the of the celebrations are going on as planned, including today’s Women Who Dare to Dream luncheon, which honored the women of the Civil Rights movement whose legacy of strength and dignity continues to inspire hope. Dr Maya Angelou shared this poem she had written for Sunday’s dedication at the luncheon, where guests also paid special tribute to Coretta Scott King.


    “Reverend Martin Luther King”
    © 2011 by Maya Angelou

    “The great soul
    Flew from the Creator
    Bearing manna of hope
    For his country
    Starving severely from an absence of compassion.

    Martin Luther King

    The Great Spirit,
    Came from the Creator
    Proffering a sparkling fountain of fair play
    To his country
    Parched and deformed by hate.

    The whole man came forth
    With a brain of gentle wisdom
    To persuade quiet
    Upon the loud misery of the mob.

    A whole man stood out
    With a mellifluous voice
    To bind the joints of cruelty.

    A whole man came
    In the midst of a murderous nightmare
    Surrounded by demons of war
    He dared to dream peace and serenity…”

    Check out the rest of the poem at the link.

  72. 72.

    The Dangerman

    Oh, please, Katrina was Obama’s Katrina; a real President would have invented time travel, gone back in time, and saved New Orleans.

    WWII? Obama’s fault.

  74. 74.

    realbtl

    No No No. You have to think like a true R. Katrina is Obama’s Katrina just like the deficit is his, the recession is his, the housing crash is his, TARP is his. History won’t rewrite itself folks.

    ETA Damn Dangerman, great minds etc.

  75. 75.

    Violet

    @The Dangerman:
    Rush Limbaugh was already blaming Obama for the problems with the economy and stock market drop before the election in 2008. I remember him saying it. I think my jaw actually dropped. I mean, the guy hadn’t even been elected yet.

  76. 76.

    Josie

    @Litlebritdifrnt: Here’s hoping that everything goes well for you. I know how hard it is to sit and wait for the storm. It sounds as though you are well prepared, and having the generator is good. My biggest complaint after a storm is when the electricity is out and I can’t fix a cup of hot coffee in the morning. It’s funny the little things that bug us. Stay safe.

  77. 77.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @The Dangerman:

    It’s pretty much how Clinton was seen at the grassy knoll, seen swimming near the USS Maine, observed leaving Ford’s Theater in 1865, and egging on the crowd in Prague at one of the defenestrations.

  78. 78.

    Tom Hilton

    @lamh32: I was in both Betsy and Camille (in Mississippi at the time). As of the early ’80s, Agnes was the third most expensive weather-related disaster (after those two), and I was in NJ for that one. Rounding out the top 4 was the drought in California…yup, I was there for that too.

  79. 79.

    arguingwithsignposts

    Since Irene is going to hit NC pretty hard, this might be a good time to bring out David Sedaris’ brother “The Rooster‘s” advice:

    When a hurricane damaged my father’s house, my brother rushed over with a gas grill, three coolers of beer, and an enormous Fuck-It Bucket – a plastic pail filled with jawbreakers and bite-size candy bars. (“When shit brings you down, just say ‘fuck it,’ and eat yourself some motherfucking candy.”)

    Here’s the Sedaris story about The Rooster: You Can’t Kill The Rooster. (not for the faint of heart)

  82. 82.

    Martin

    Ok, let’s treat it like Obama’s Katrina and compare death tolls at the end as a gauge of competence.

    Let’s call Libya Obama’s Iraq, while we’re at it.

  83. 83.

    Jenny

    Speaking about Irene being Obama’s katrina, remember all the isolationists who were screaming Libya would be Obama’s Iraq. Some idiot from The Nation went on MSNBC and called it Obama’s Iran-Contra.

    I laugh and simultaneously weep for the need of so many to project their personal issues onto Obama.

  84. 84.

    Violet

    @Litlebritdifrnt:
    Stay safe! We were without power for two weeks after Ike. The a/c would have been welcome, that’s for sure. It was really hot after the freak cool front moved out.

    We lost a lot of food from the freezer. If you can afford to run the generator all the time, go for the freezer, but at some point you might have to go back to work and then who runs it during the day? That’s the problem we ran into. Plus, gas is hard to find. Eat what you can out of it and then decide what’s the most important to you at the time.

    Best of luck. Keep us posted as long as you can.

  85. 85.

    Calouste

    @Tom Hilton:

    Tom, do you mind telling us where you are now, and updating us on your travel plans on a regular basis so we can take precautions?

  86. 86.

    Roger Moore

    @lamh32:

    Obama administration held training exercise for NYC hurricane

    Which the wingnuts will read as proof that the hurricane is Obama’s fault. See, they planned to destroy NYC with a hurricane, and now that planning is coming to fruition.

  87. 87.

    RandyH

    Something to think about if you want to escape the east coast…

    The airlines may be cancelling all scheduled flights in and out but they have to evacuate all of their aircraft before the hurricane hits. They will be flying un-scheduled flights to other hubs of theirs in the west. Give them a call. They may be able to set you up with a cheap weekend in Phoenix or Minneapolis or San Francisco or something because they’ll bring all of the planes and crews back on un-scheduled Monday flights as well before they start their schedule back up again.

  89. 89.

    JC

    @Tom Hilton:

    Hey, where are you living now?

    Where are planning to be, say the next three years?

    I would like to plan my next moves to avoid your locations – nothing personal! :)

    EDIT: I see I’m not alone in making preparations. BJ’ers, when we aren’t frothing at the mouth, we are practical folks…

  90. 90.

    kindness

    @PurpleGirl:

    Does your brother really want to be stuck in a subway tunnel while it’s flooding? Or on a bus that can’t get through a flooded intersection? Depending on the storm surge, lower Manhattan’s subway tunnels could fill up with water, with no place to go.

    No but he’s lived there for 30 years now & he hasn’t seen people acting like this before. You have to admit it’s a little unusual for them…And honestly, when was the last time the subways were flooded? His gripe was less the subways & more the railroads & buses.

  92. 92.

    Dennis SGMM

    @Roger Moore:
    Maybe. The true wingnuts will accuse Obama of ordering the military to use HAARP to gin up the hurricane so that he could look good responding to it.

  93. 93.

    Tom Hilton

    @JC: Heh. Bay Area generally since 1976, San Francisco since 1990. But I hasten to point out that we’ve had only one 7.0 earthquake in the whole time I’ve been living here. Also one firestorm, but that was in Oakland and I was living in SF at the time, so I’m not sure it counts.

    ETA: also @Redshift: and @Calouste:

  94. 94.

    WaterGirl

    @Violet: I can’t recall who it was or when it was – Joplin, maybe? – but one of our BJers was able to cook food when others around could not, and cooked up everything in his freezer and shared with people in the area.

    Reading about that really touched me at the time, what a great person, I thought. Maybe others will be able to do the same thing this time.

  95. 95.

    greenergood

    I remember when Agnes in 1972 hit New Yawk – we were on vacation at a small house in Hampton Bays (the armpit of the Hamptons) which is on Peconic Bay. Plywooded all the windows, stockpiled on candles, sat up all night listening to the wind howling, etc. but the next day drove to the ocean side. I can remember standing on the shore which had been completely eroded away overnight, and sticking my arm into a churning wall of ocean foam that wasn’t breaking onto land, just churning back on itself. Nowadays, health-and-safety would’ve no doubt kept us from driving within 5 miles of such a phenomenon. But this was when Obama was probably still in Hawaii …

  96. 96.

    Makewi

    Unemployment and a mind numbingly large debt is Obama’s Katrina. The difference for Obama is that he’ll probably have to pay the price at the election box.

  97. 97.

    lamh32

    @kindness: if you ask any number of NOLA residents why they stayed in NOLA even with the evacuaction warning, aside for monetary issues, a good number will tell ya it’s becasue they’d been through it before with A, B, or C and it’s never been as bad as they say.

    Rest assured, when evacuation is slightly recommended, NOLA residents now make preparation to leave.

    “Better safe than sorry”, had never been more prudent than before Katrina.

  98. 98.

    Redshift

    @kindness: Well, sure. You might want to send him Nate’s article, to get the point across that people haven’t acted this way in 30 years because something like this hasn’t happened in more than 30 years, not just because they’re overreacting.

    They may be lucky there, and it may not be so bad, but there’s only one side of the margin of error you want to be on.

  100. 100.

    Gin & Tonic

    The problem with preparedness/disaster recovery planning is that if you do a good job, and the level of crisis afterward is therefore minimized, everybody then says you were Chicken Little — when in truth, the crisis was minimized *because* of the preparation. Think of the people who were pooh-poohing the “Y2K problem” afterward: “See, nothing happened, it was all an over-reaction.” Yeah, “nothing happened” because tons of people spent years working on nothing but that problem, just to make sure that it was fixed before the deadline.

  101. 101.

    Linda Featheringill

    @WaterGirl:

    I can’t recall who it was or when it was – Joplin, maybe? – but one of our BJers was able to cook food when others around could not, and cooked up everything in his freezer and shared with people in the area.

    It was one of those tough-talking dudes in Dixie after a tornado killed everyone’s electricity. I forget which one.

    And it was a sweet and gentle act from such a normally grumpy guy. :-)

  102. 102.

    RandyH

    @Makewi:

    Unemployment and a mind numbingly large debt is Obama’s Katrina.

    Unemployment is serious. And it must be fixed somehow so revenues start flowing from employed people and they’re no longer draining on the system. But “debt” is just a stupid issue if you run things responsibly. If, under full employment, you’re still running a deficit, you raise taxes until there is no more deficit. That “raising taxes” thing is oddly always left out of any discussion in decent company, but it’s the way you do it. And you raise them on those best able to pay them.

  103. 103.

    Svensker

    @kindness:

    And honestly, when was the last time the subways were flooded?

    Don’t know about NY, but the PATH train under the Hudson was flooded at the Hoboken terminal a few years ago during a heavy rain storm during high tide. It was weird to walk up to a set of stairs going down into the tunnel and see water at sidewalk level. Glub glub.

  104. 104.

    wrb

    @srv:

    Still I’m getting blown away…

    Lived down the street from one of the the NJ prosecutors at the time of Rubin’s troubles.

    He swore that Rubin was guilty but they wouldn’t be able to get the evidence admitted, so he should go free.

  105. 105.

    J. Michael Neal

    @Tom Hilton: If the firestorm was in Oakland, it doesn’t count. Your location is irrelevant. What happens in Oakland stays in Oakland.

  106. 106.

    Steve

    I thought it was awesome living right by the Hudson River when Sully landed that plane and it floated right by my window. The location seems less awesome right now for some reason.

  108. 108.

    Dee Loralei

    @Calouste: I was thinking the exact sme thing. Sheesh.

    LOL and so was redShift and JC! GMTA and all that.

    Y’all in the path stay safe!

  109. 109.

    Violet

    @WaterGirl:

    I can’t recall who it was or when it was – Joplin, maybe? – but one of our BJers was able to cook food when others around could not, and cooked up everything in his freezer and shared with people in the area.

    Everyone did that after Ike. People had cookouts night after night. It was a great way to get to know your neighbors.

    @greenergood:

    stockpiled on candles

    Said this last night, but PLEASE do NOT rely on candles as your lighting source. Open flames are dangerous. You don’t know what gas lines might have been damaged and if you’re using them for your lighting they are easy to leave unattended while you are busy doing something else. Fire fighting services will be less available after the storm, so you really don’t want to do anything that might accidentally start a fire. Stick with flashlights and other battery-powered lighting sources.

  114. 114.

    PurpleGirl

    @kindness: Sometime in the early 2000s. It was definitely after I moved to Woodside. The Q60 pulled into its stop at Queens Plaza and there were hundreds of people waiting for a bus. The E/R train tunnel had flooded after an afternoon of rain and they were ending the trains at the Plaza. And the 7 train was having signal trouble from the rain to boot. Maybe it doesn’t happen often, but it can. Why take chances? Why have people possibly die because the City has to be tougher than tough.

  115. 115.

    Marc McKenzie

    @General Stuck:

    I hope so, GS. I’m in the central region of New Jersey, and they are calling for tropical storm conditions. Granted, it’s still nothing to mess with, but that’s a helluva lot better than a Cat 1 or 2 storm.

    It does seem to be tracking slightly eastward (thank heavens), but I’m still worried about friends and family in Jersey City, Hoboken, New York, Brooklyn and Long Island.

    Still keeping the fingers crossed. And at least the President is getting back to DC and not playing guitar out west. Unlike the previous dude, Obama does give a s*@!, even if some refuse to see that.

  116. 116.

    Marc McKenzie

    @lamh32:

    Can’t argue with what you said. FEMA was, well, a disaster under Bush, compared to Clinton. And one of Obama’s first duties as President was to fix the agency.

    If there is a silver lining to Katrina, it’s that they’re taking this storm very seriously and a lot of prep was done beforehand. One cannot paint Obama with the same brush used against Bush; it’s ridiculous.

    Although they’ve tried some weird stuff over at Raw Story:

    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/08/26/obama-warns-americans-on-hurricane-irene/

    Yeesh….

  120. 120.

    Jennifer

    Lilbrit – is your freezer crammed to the gills? If so, so much the better – a freezer full of frozen food will stay frozen without power for significantly longer than 2 hours. I know having been without power after a tornado a couple of years back – power was off for 36 hours & I didn’t lose anything in the freezer. If the freezer isn’t full, fill up whatever containers you’ve got on hand with water and freeze them – they will help hold the temps if/when the power goes out. Then, run the freezer on the generator until you hear the compressor kick off; at that point it’s as cold as it’s gonna get and you can switch the generator over to running your a/c & tv for the next several hours. Really, if you just keep the generator hooked up to the freezer and running non-stop, you’ll just be wasting gasoline, because the freezer’s compressor only runs for a few minutes every hour or so, and when it’s not running, it’s not making the freezer any colder.

    Hope this helps. Stay safe – that thing looks like a monster.

  123. 123.

    PurpleGirl

    http://crisislanding.appspot.com/

    Website via Cheryl commenting at Making Light:

    From AFP:
    “…Google has rolled out an online map tracking the path of Hurricane Irene and providing other useful information about the storm headed for the US east coast.

    The map, located at crisislanding.appspot.com, is a product of the Google Crisis Response team, which provides online tools to help with relief efforts following natural disasters.

    The map displays three- to five-day forecasts for Hurricane Irene, shows evacuation routes and which coastal areas of the eastern United States are in danger of facing a storm surge.

    Besides maps, online tools developed by Google include the “Person Finder,” which attempts to locate and reunite victims of earthquakes or other disasters.”
    http://crisislanding.appspot.com/

  124. 124.

    General Stuck

    @McJulie:

    Well, I said largely above sea level, and half of it qualifies as largely in my mind. And I don’t think people are stupid to live there. I think NO is a unique and very special place of Americana culture, that is not replaceable, and that more than makes up for it’s precarious position with Hurricanes being potentially catastrophic, more so than with other coastal cities. That is just a fact, whatever the parsed reasons.

    From what I read a while back, the City of Sacramento is also in a precarious place depending on levies and floodwalls to keep it above water. But it is unlikely to get hit my a hurricane.

  125. 125.

    Davis X. Machina

    Far enough north (ME), and it’s a nor’easter, come early.

    Everything I’ve got, batteries, lights, alternative cooking gear, etc, I’ve got because we average 4-5 or so days without electricity in the course of a year, and it’s not hurricanes that do it. (11 days in ’98 from the ice storm)

    At least it will be warm.

  126. 126.

    schrodinger's cat

    @Davis X. Machina: I remember that ice-storm too well. No shower for 4 days! We had to camp out in my friend’s office we had fun though, we played board games saw movies.

  127. 127.

    demz taters

    @kd bart

    Hurricane Irene is good news for John McCain, right?

    Maybe not. I’d think at least one of his houses has to be in its path.

  128. 128.

    Roger Moore

    @General Stuck:

    From what I read a while back, the City of Sacramento is also in a precarious place depending on levies and floodwalls to keep it above water. But it is unlikely to get hit my a hurricane.

    There are lots of cities in the US that depend on levies to keep from being flooded by their neighboring rivers in the event of a flood. New Orleans is the only major US city that depends on those kinds of barriers to keep it from being flooded by the ocean in the absence of any added disaster. The longer term problem with New Orleans is that the sea level situation is getting progressively worse because of subsidence and rising sea level.

  129. 129.

    RandyH

    @Marc McKenzie:

    I’m in the central region of New Jersey, and they are calling for tropical storm conditions. Granted, it’s still nothing to mess with, but that’s a helluva lot better than a Cat 1 or 2 storm.

    Hate to break it to you but “tropical storm conditions” CAN include cat 1 or 2 or 3 storms. Don’t go feeling all confident. “Tropical Storms” can be mild or VERY VERY serious.

    Take care of yourself and your family. Seriously. This could well be the worst experience of your life. Don’t treat it so casually.

    Look around your home and figure out which trees may fall on it. They could kill you. Maybe they need to be trimmed or removed now. Serious. Look at all of the threats around you. Sleep under a sturdy table tomorrow night, if you can possibly get to sleep.

    This storm is a very big deal. I say this from the west coast, but I’ve lived through other awful acts of nature elsewhere.

    Everyone on the east coast needs to take this thing deadly seriously. Hopefully it will fizzle out and be nothing but I doubt that it will.

  131. 131.

    Mike in NC

    Sitting here on the SC/NC border, this hurricane is shaping up to be another complete bit of media bullshit. Barely enough rain to keep the grass growing. Let’s hear about Rick Perry’s personal relationship with the Baby Jesus.

  132. 132.

    Violet

    @RandyH:

    Look around your home and figure out which trees may fall on it. They could kill you. Maybe they need to be trimmed or removed now. Serious. Look at all of the threats around you. Sleep under a sturdy table tomorrow night, if you can possibly get to sleep.

    When I was a kid a tree fell on our house in a hurricane. I was right under it. It didn’t actually go through the roof, but just leaned on it. I was lucky.

    Some family friends, a couple, were asleep in bed during a storm. A tree fell on the house, through the roof, and killed her in bed.

    In other hurricanes I’ve been through, trees or branches have gone through roofs and destroyed all or part of houses.

    It really is something to take seriously, especially if the ground is already saturated from lots of rain this summer. The additional rain and the wind could really push trees over. It’s different from a winter storm, too, because the tree canopy still has leaves. That means the wind can’t get through the trees as easily and that’s what knocks them down.

  133. 133.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Mike in NC:

    This to me is one of the major problems with our sensation oriented “news” media…they hype anything that comes along for ratings impact (“if it bleeds, it leads”) and when the event fails to live up to the hype, many people are immunized to real concerns.

  134. 134.

    chopper

    @Jennifer:

    yeh. got gallons of water in the fridge as well as a bunch of smaller bottles in the freezer to keep the fridge cold if the power goes out (and as backup water), and the chest freezer is jammed with crap. some of it i’d throw out, but it’s worth keeping it to keep the rest cold. i cranked them up to max today.

    if power goes out, i figure we’ll have 3 days.

  135. 135.

    magurakurin

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred):

    Hatteras Island is nominally part of the East Coast. It’s a fucking sand bar…way out in the sea. And few people live there, of which almost zero will be there when this or any hurricane hits. There is no city like New Orleans on the East Coast and a Category 2 hurricane that makes land fall on the Outerbanks, then drags itself up the Delmarva before finally moving over NYC is absolutely nothing like a full strength Category 4 making landfall over New Orleans.

    I live in Japan. Typhoons are a routine part of summer/fall. The transportation system shutting down, like in NYC, is SOP in Osaka/Tokyo. We stay in our houses and wait for the storm to pass. Also, too people don’t build 10 million dollar mansions on the beach in Japan because nobody would insure such nonsense. Nobody would in the States, but the owners of the mansions figured out how to get the government to insure their trophy homes. Again and again. Much of the damage numbers from this storm will come from the damage/loss of these over-inflated big homes on the beach.

    Hurricanes demand respect, but the sense of panic and dread that seems to precede a hurricane in the State is largely over the top media hype decided to drive up ratings.

  137. 137.

    chopper

    BTW, NYC has had crazy weather this year. lots of snow, lots of rain, tornadoes and now a hurricane. at least we didn’t have a huge heat wave like last year.

  138. 138.

    Anne Laurie

    @JC: To be fair, it’s probable DougJ & I both looked ‘behind the curtain’, saw there hadn’t been an Open Thread for a while, and started putting one together at the same time. I just beat him to the draw, so I “lost” — this time.

    Since ABL did her posts “outside” WP, and then cross-posted, none of us other front-pagers could tell when she was going to put something up. ABL and I were often on the same late-night blog-schedule, which is why certain commentors will never be dissuaded from their impression that I was trying to “block” her Angry Truthfulness with my lame-arse old-white-lady posts. Murphy’s Law in action!

  139. 139.

    RandyH

    @Violet:

    It really is something to take seriously, especially if the ground is already saturated from lots of rain this summer. The additional rain and the wind could really push trees over. It’s different from a winter storm, too, because the tree canopy still has leaves. That means the wind can’t get through the trees as easily and that’s what knocks them down.

    I know that in the Philadelphia area they are having their wettest month on record EVER and I know someone who lives near there in the middle of a forest in a sturdy log cabin. No flooding concerns because he’s in the hills but those overgrown oaks, maples, etc are just ready to be ripped out of that soggy ground by a hurricane. I hope he’s safe. And I hope he owns a good chainsaw because he could be trapped for weeks with all of the downed trees that, no doubt, will be surrounding him.

  140. 140.

    chopper

    @magurakurin:

    NO only got cat 2 or so winds from katrina. remember, she weakened upon landfall at the coast. what was the killer was the surge.

    also, this storm is waaaaay bigger than katrina at landfall. i aint saying it’s as bad, but hurricanes is different.

  142. 142.

    Violet

    @magurakurin:

    There is no city like New Orleans on the East Coast and a Category 2 hurricane that makes land fall on the Outerbanks, then drags itself up the Delmarva before finally moving over NYC is absolutely nothing like a full strength Category 4 making landfall over New Orleans.

    Katrina was a Cat 3 at landfall and landfall was east of New Orleans, which spared them the worst of the hurricane force winds. Mississippi took the brunt of those.

  143. 143.

    MikeJ

    Top story on google news is a link to fox, “Christie’s Response to Hurricane Irene Could Test His Popularity”.

  144. 144.

    SensesFail

    This will be Obama’s Katrina if Obama and all the other lazy public employees don’t get the hell out of the way of THE INVISIBLE HAND OF THE FREE MARKET and the awesome private sector Galtian heroes during the aftermath of the storm.

  145. 145.

    arguingwithsignposts

    Can people please not get into a dick-measuring contest over whose hurricane is worse or whose city is lower or whatever?

  146. 146.

    J. Michael Neal

    The really big problem for New Orleans is its precarious position between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River. If it gets hit at just the right angle, which Katrina did, the surge piles on in and gets magnified by the narrowing of the water its traveling through.

    There’s nothing to do about it now, but there really are better places for the city to be located, even right in that area.

  148. 148.

    magurakurin

    @chopper: I stand corrected on the numbers, but the point stands. And by the same margins this storm will be a tropical storm(if that) when it gets to NYC and the Big Apple isn’t below the level of the river and dependent on aging pumps to keep it from flooding. To compare this storm with that one and the affected cities, is fucking silly.

    Take precautions, absolutely. But, and I’m not calling out people here, the media in the States is just stupid about hurricanes.

  149. 149.

    Violet

    @MikeJ:

    Top story on google news is a link to fox, “Christie’s Response to Hurricane Irene Could Test His Popularity”.

    Wasn’t Christie MIA during a storm this past winter? Whoever the next in line is — Lt. Gov? — managed the emergency. Christie was somewhere warm, I think.

  150. 150.

    Keith G

    Lord! Reading some of these posts, one would think there was a earthquake, volcano and space alien invasion all in one.

  151. 151.

    scav

    @magurakurin: Well, to an certain extent, it’s a repeat of the earthquake they just had in that it’s also the this area doesn’t have that much practice at it (nor have they built for it) so there’s an extra adrenaline rush plus it’s the area with the media et al elite so it makes the news because it’s always all about them plus the usually OTT news disaster large font stuff. Hard to judge if the overall impact will be to make enough people take it seriously and actually prepare or will drive them into over-reaction (like Wilma and TX wasn’t it?). I guess we’ll just have to go into the situation with the media we have.

    Speaking of space aliens, there are going to be some very upset Whovians if/when they lose power Saturday night.

  152. 152.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Violet: He was at Disneyworld for the big blizzard. And the fat fucker stayed there too, while Cory Booker was shoveling people out.

  153. 153.

    Jennifer

    @scav: Good point about this happening in the talking heads’ own backyard.

    Does this mean that we get to ridicule and berate them for the next umpteen years for “failing to evacuate” if this gets nasty – like they did to all the New Orleans Katrina victims? Golly, I sure HOPE so.

  154. 154.

    RandyH

    @magurakurin:

    Get out of town if possible but if you stay, be prepared for the worst. Have appropriate food and water. Be ready for some really inconvenient stuff and deal with it because you didn’t get out ahead of time.

    BUT, baby, things could get really really bad and you have to be prepared for that. You’ll all probably survive but it may not be much fun. So when you’re all ready to bitch about not having electricity for several days or no transit, etc… Just remember that you were warned it wouldn’t be so easy, even in the big city of New York.

    Mother nature is a powerful bitch. Respect her.

  155. 155.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @J. Michael Neal:

    One of the early mayors of New Orleans, upon arrival to his new appointment, immediately understood the precarious situation that the site presented, and begged Paris to allow him to move the entire town to higher ground.

    The answer was no. Of course, no one in Paris could imagine the situation, and they needed a port RIGHT THERE for both political and practical reasons (Brits to the left of me, Spaniards to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you…).

  156. 156.

    suzanne

    @Yutsano:

    Yeah lamh32, but is he gonna stop being blackety blackety black black black?

    Remember that brief period of time in which he wasn’t black enough?

  157. 157.

    Dee Loralei

    And if anyone wants to take their minds off the impending storms and hurricanes, BBCA is re-airing pretty much the entirety of the first part of this season of DrWho tonight and all day tomorrow. They also have mini-documentaries after each show, pertaining to that particular episode.

    My fav ep was ” The Doctor’s Wife”. Written by the inestimable Neil Gaiman. She says : ” I like biting. It’s like kissing, only with a winner!”

    And the Doctor explains the 17 minutes missing tape from Nixon’s White House.

    Y’all stay safe and keep us informed as best you can.

    Has anyone, not in the storm’s path, thought about keeping a running tab, or something spreadsheety, on the regulars who are in the way? And as they check in afterwards. I don’t know kinda like a hope/prayer wiki of our BJ community? Maybe post it on top til all danger has past, so we don’t have to keep asking if anyone had heard from LitBrit, Chopper, MikeinNC, Valdivia,Gogol’s Wife, etc? I know there are tons more, those are just a few I could think of from this thread.

    I mean if it was kept at the top of the blog then those of us curious about those of you in the storms wouldn’t have to be in the right comment section to know when you were safe.

    Just an idea.

  158. 158.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Keith G:

    As far as the vermin of the Village are concerned, especially the ones who hang out on the Hudson, it’s both a huge problem and a huge opportunity to make your name, sort of like Leslie Blitzer reporting on scud hits…

  159. 159.

    magurakurin

    hurricanes are indeed all different.

    Here is an image of Katrina as it made landfall

    katrina landfall

    The eye wall is super defined. That is a scary sight to me.

    Here is the latest image of Irene as it is preparing to make landfall in the Carolinas

    Irene

    I’d prefer not to be under either one, but I’ll take Irene any day when looking at those images.

  160. 160.

    Roger Moore

    @arguingwithsignposts:

    Can people please not get into a dick-measuring contest over whose hurricane is worse or whose city is lower or whatever?

    Of course not. Dick measuring contests are an inevitable consequence of human behavior, so there’s nothing you can do about it. Besides, this is a mild, tame dick measuring contest compared to the huge dick measuring contests we used to have back in the day…

  161. 161.

    suzanne

    @PurpleGirl: Gloria in 1985 is the one I remember best.

    Me, too. I was five, and we lived on the North Shore of Long Island. We were without power for five days. Entire oak trees scooped out of the ground, roots and all. Lotsa fun.

  162. 162.

    Anne Laurie

    @WaterGirl: ABL (a/k/a Imani Gandy) got a paid gig over at thegriot.com. She said she’d be ‘taking a hiatus’ here, understandably, to concentrate on her own blog & her new for-profit career. I wish her all the best, and assume she’ll be back here eventually, whenever she chooses.

  163. 163.

    boss bitch

    @suzanne:

    Remember that brief period of time in which he wasn’t black enough?

    its a recurring meme and has recently been revived.

  164. 164.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Violet:

    Disney World, with his brood.

    Wife apparently laid down the law on this…you’re not going to go governating during this long promised family vacation…

  165. 165.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Roger Moore:

    Besides, this is a mild, tame dick measuring contest compared to the huge dick measuring contests we used to have back in the day…

    I see what you did there.

  166. 166.

    gogol's wife

    @Dee Loralei:
    You’re really nice.
    Nothing is happening here until Sunday, so I’m not sure how much crazier I can get by then. I’m about to indulge in my tranquilizer of choice, John Thaw as Inspector Morse.

  172. 172.

    Uncle Clarence Thomas

    .
    .

    Update. Forget it, a million people have already called this Obama’s Katrina?

    No, no and no. President Obama’s Katrina was obviously The Beer Summit.

    Of course, that was before SUPER COKE!, so I don’t blame the man.
    .
    .

  173. 173.

    Petorado

    Haven’t read all the other comments, but Irene won’t be Obama’s Katrina until Kanye West says on a video that Barack Obama hates black people. Face it, that’s when we all knew the truth.

    Though I am waiting for the inevitable blowback that a dampened Hamptons will be the new Lower 9th Ward.

  174. 174.

    burnspbesq

    @Tom Hilton:

    I was a senior in high school. IIRC, we were out for a week.

    The big thing with Agnes, at least in Jersey, was flooding. Ho-Ho-Kus Brook, normally a tranquil little thing, shut down every street that crossed it for days, and put about four feet of water on our football field. The Passaic River put about eight feet of water in the streets of Wayne and Pompton Lakes.

    The big wind lasted less than 12 hours. Water, water, everywhere seemed to last for the entire fall.

  176. 176.

    piratedan

    well I guess this could be Obama’s Katrina if thousands of white collar folks are trapped in Madison Square Garden with no way out and they are totally cut off from fresh provisions, law enforcement and electricity for the better part of a week. When that happens, be sure to get back to me….

  177. 177.

    dww44

    @fasteddie9318: Actually, if you haven’t watched one of his shows, give it a try. Not bad. Has folks on from the “other side” and always cuts them off at the pass, i.e. in mid-sentence. Mostly they laugh.

  179. 179.

    Mnemosyne

    @Petorado:

    Slight correction — West said that Bush “doesn’t care about black people.”

    Which was, and still is, indisputable.

  180. 180.

    Mnemosyne

    @Dee Loralei:

    I’m not a big “Dr. Who” fan, but I am a huge Gaiman fan, and I loved that episode.

    “You didn’t always take me where I wanted to go.”
    “No, but I always took you where you needed to go.”

  181. 181.

    Nora Carrington

    @lamh32:

    bad storms were “all ladies.” ::kids today, sigh, off the lawn, etc.:: In the Olden Dayz, back before Wimmin’s Lib and the Intertubes, all hurricanes had women’s names because we’re evil like that. Then the feminazis took over the Universe and made the pu$$y-whipped Weather Dudes do boy-girl-boy-girl, which was against Nature. And God.

    Camille was a Bitch. It not only smacked the Mississippi coast, it kept on — mostly inland — all the way up past DC, where I was at the time. 2nd worst storm in the US ever, or so wiki tells me.

  182. 182.

    Kane

    Rick Perry prayed for rain, and now we have Irene.

    Coincidence?

    And how come he isn’t having a prayer event to pray for no rain now? :)

  183. 183.

    kindness

    Man, I’ve been pulling up the doppler loop from time to time since yesterday. Seems Irene has just parked itself over North Carolina. Haven’t turned on the idiot box yet to see what they say. Probably won’t. Once you’ve seen Geraldo get blown over a dozen times, who cares to see it again?

    @Kane: Ricky is obviously very powerful, just not specific enough. God does have an odd sense of humor, eh?

  186. 186.

    grandpajohn

    @General Stuck: And was one of those storms that was heading WEst when it hit allowing that NE quadrant to make a direct hit, then turned and went up across the state hitting Charlotte area and on in to NC Causing much damage inland not just along the coast.

  187. 187.

    grandpajohn

    @scav: I would expect the the governors and the emergency people are depend more on NOAA than the media for their information about what to expect and what is the status of the storm. And I also note that for the media coverage i have watched that they are also getting their information from the same source. so people who are ignoring the media do so at their own risk. I remember when Camille hit Alabama and many there decided to sit it out and have a “hurricane party” after Camille hit with 180 mph + winds many of the party goers bodies were never found.

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