Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

I really should read my own blog.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

You cannot shame the shameless.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Donald Jessica Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

Everybody saw this coming.

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

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

You are here: Home / Climate Change / BJ Peeps in the Path of the Storm: Check In

BJ Peeps in the Path of the Storm: Check In

by | 192 Comments

This post is in: ,

I thought it might be good to have a thread where BJ peeps who are in the path of the storm can check in.  If you have family in the path of the storm, let us know that, too.

Kind of like we did with the fire threads from last year: preparations, resources, support.  Updates on how you are, and where you are.  I guess we should be grateful that we don’t have to ave a hurricane thread and a fire thread at the same time?

Anyway, if you have any great resources, link to them in the comments and we can collect the best ones here.

Stay safe, everyone, and if you can, let us know how it’s going.

I will keep this thread linked in the sidebar – under Action Alerts at the top, for easy access.  This has been added under the hamburger menu on mobile.

 

 

Reader Interactions

192Comments

  1. 1.

    Mike in NC

    Upon turning on the idiot box this morning, we see that between Kabul and New Orleans, the MSM is hoping for a massive loss of life today. Fucking ghouls.

  2. 2.

    Starfish

    If they are getting out or staying put, they probably don’t have time to check in yet. The first group is on the road, and the second group is preparing (filling the car with gas, buying water, batteries, non-perishable goods, taping or boarding the windows.)

    My friend in New Orleans is staying put. It looks like the storm is going to be west of them. It looked like there were a lot of people on the I-10. Who are these folks who do not know to get off of I-10 as soon as possible and just to avoid the thing

    Here are the evacuation centers for Mississippi and places you can get sandbags and such. Mind you, no one will be able to see these things once they lose power.

  4. 4.

    mali muso

    My mom’s side of the family is all located in the greater Baton Rouge area and beyond.  The cousin that I’m closest to has confirmed that she is all stocked up on supplies and lives on a second floor apartment (good for flooding, maybe not so much for high winds).  Hoping against hope that it doesn’t turn out to be as bad as forecasted, but who knows.

  5. 5.

    LivinginExile

    Ms exile was born and raised in New Orleans, and has many nieces and nephews and their families there.  Gretna, Belle Chase, !uling, River Ridge, Slidel. Most of them left, headed to Nashville,Memphis, and Pensacola. A few didn’t leave.  Her sister is in Tylertown Ms, just north of New Orleans, but not far enough north to be safe. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.

  6. 6.

    WaterGirl

    @Starfish:  My thinking is that the time to let folks know about this thread is now, before things get even more chaotic.  If they know this thread is here, they can check in when they have the time and the ability to do so

    Also, lots of folks are no doubt worried about family and friends, and there are no preparations to be made because there’s nothing they can do from a distance.

    This can be a place to talk about any of that where it doesn’t get lost in a thread about something else.

  7. 7.

    germy

    “The good news, such as it is, is that the Biden administration’s FEMA isn’t run by a completely unqualified horse show trainer who got the job because he knew somebody who knew somebody.”

    (Paul Campos)

  8. 8.

    Starfish

    @WaterGirl: For Katrina, I was combing the entire internet to see if anyone had heard from my mom. Some doctor who had been out of the path of the storm had internet connectivity from somewhere. Three days after the storm, he said he had seen my mom at the hospital. (She usually camps out there during the big storms, and they have a Satellite phone, so they have some phone access when others do not.) I was so grateful for that dude. The current path of the storm looks like it is going to miss that area.

    Slidell, mentioned by Living in Exile above, floods even with normal heavy storms, so it makes sense for people to be out of there.

  10. 10.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I talked to my son a number of times yesterday. I don’t expect to hear from him again for the next 24-48 hours, maybe more.

  11. 11.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Starfish: Who are these folks who do not know to get off of I-10 as soon as possible and just to avoid the thing

    The people who know it is the only reasonable route to safety.

  12. 12.

    getsmartin

    We’re about 70 miles east of NOLA on the Miss. Gulf Coast. We’ll get tropical storm force impact, but will be spared the full brunt of the storm… this time! I had a stand by generator installed a couple of years ago, so when we inevitably lose power later, the lights and air conditioning stay on.  We’ve lots of friends over in Louisiana, most have evacuated. I cannot wait to retire and leave this area. Given the red state politics and tropical weather threats, this place blows…

  15. 15.

    Starfish

    @OzarkHillbilly: I don’t usually believe in haunted things, but I-10 is definitely haunted.

    Every time there is a hurricane, that thing moves.

    Here is a riverboat casino that wedged itself under I-10 last year during a hurricane last year.

  17. 17.

    Gvg

    @Starfish: Take a look at a map of New Orleans some time. It will explain why everyone gets on I-10. The last time I looked (Katrina) it was the only real road out. The geography of the area is river, lake, swamp land, low lying land and a few sort of higher places. Places where roads can be built are limited. Sinking land and erosion have made that worse.

    I am worried because there doesn’t seem to have been much time to warn people. A lot of times there is more warning.

    Katrina also revealed that so many people in NO were poor enough that they didn’t even have cars to flee in. They use public transportation and the cities plans for that didn’t work last time. Given the limited exit roadways, I don’t think leaving quickly is ever going to be practical for this city.

  18. 18.

    Nukular Biskits

    Nukular Biskits is ready.

    But it appears my preps won’t be needed as the Ocean Springs/Biloxi area is well east of the storm center.
    Still, a LOT of retail establishments are closed and we’re expecting a crappy day.  Rain on/off and some gusty winds, though (so far) nothing to be concerned about.

    Addition:  Yesterday, I-10 eastbound was a bumper-to-bumper parking lot with folks “Leaving Louisiana In The Broad Daylight”.

  19. 19.

    Starfish

    @Gvg: You are assuming that I did not grow up in this area. Some people had vehicles but not enough space for the entire family, so they told their spouse and children that they were just going to the store and abandoned the family in their pickup truck with their favorite child if they had one.

    I am sorry, everyone. I am still traumatized by Katrina, even though I was not there when it happened.

    @Watergirl, thanks for the check-in thread.

  20. 20.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Starfish: I don’t blame you for feeling that.

    @WaterGirl: I-10 is elevated, when it isn’t a bridge it is built up above the surrounding area a good 5′ at least. There are no utility poles along it to fall and block it up. Every hurricane it becomes gridlocked. It’s damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

  22. 22.

    sab

    In-laws around Baton Rouge. We have strict orders not to contact them until they contact us. They expect power failure, and they want to keep the cell phones charged . Of course, with Katrina the cell phone systems were out for days.

  24. 24.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Nukular Biskits: Which is also elevated a fair amount above the surrounding land. The interstates are the only viable routes out because of the way they are constructed. As such, they are all gridlocked but at least if there is a fender bender they should be able to pull off the road, or people can drive around it. The state roads are a different kettle of fish. One has no idea what one might meet and when one inevitably does, one is fucked.

  25. 25.

    Nukular Biskits

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    Having driven the state and federal highways (US 11 and US 49, for example, or US 190 out of Baton Rouge to I-49)  that offer northbound alternate routes, I don’t disagree.

    The problem is that ANY minor fender-bender can cause traffic to come to a complete stop.

    I drive I-10 every workday and I’m here to tell you that even on the best of days, traffic can come to a complete stop.  Even on the section here in MS that is six-laned.

  31. 31.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @JPL: Metairie, on the other side of the river. I tried to convince him to head over there yesterday, to not wait until “things get bad” but BiL and fam are in the last days of a Covid quarantine and my son just feels like damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t so he wants to wait until the writing is on the wall.

    Truth is, they had no good choices. When I talked to him Friday afternoon he was trying to pick up one more shift before everything shut down because they need the money. When I called back at 8 PM they had just closed the restaurant and were starting to board it up. He got one table all night.

    ETA: he had 9 lives. He might be down to the last one now.

  33. 33.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @HinTN: It’s an alternate but not as good as the Interstates and as I understand it, it’s pretty much a nightmare. That’s where CJ got run over.

     

    eta clarification

  34. 34.

    HinTN

    Our friend in the Marigny (high ground) left yesterday for Laurel, MS. Said I-59 was 15 mph all the way to Harrisburg.

  37. 37.

    Benno

    70 miles NW of New Orleans here. Bracing. Those of you saying I-10 is elevated and therefore safe are mostly correct, but it was closed for a couple of days outside Baton Rouge earlier this summer after flooding. It was only a couple of miles blocked, but you only need to shut down a few hundred yards to wreak havoc.

  39. 39.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @HinTN: There ain’t no shoulder on that bridge

    Exactly, at least half the reason he got run over was because there was no getting out of the traffic lanes. The other half reason is because he couldn’t keep his dumb ass in his truck, just had to go see if others were OK. No good deed goes unpunished.

  40. 40.

    Scout211

    My sister’s adult child lives in NOLA and decided to stay.  They are stocked up, gassed up and ready.  I hope the levees hold.

    I went to grad school in NOLA and we had a hurricane headed straight to NOLA (Carmen, 1974). The entire area was in preparation for days.  They know what to do.  I stayed with friends who had an upper apartment (mine was ground floor).  Right before the hurricane hit coastal Louisiana, Carmen turned to the west and hit at Vermilion Bay.  New Orleans was spared a direct hit from Carmen.

    I hope history repeats itself.

  42. 42.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Benno: Yep, some sections are lower. Sections of I-44 go under from time to time around here when the rivers get high enough.

  50. 50.

    RandomMonster

    I’m imagining all those epidemiology experts who later became military evacuation experts will now reveal that they are actually FEMA experts.

  52. 52.

    Butter Emails!

    @germy: The bad news is that all the hospitals in the region are already full up and there isn’t as much time to preposition resources.

  55. 55.

    J R in WV

    My closest experience with a real hurricane was in 1972, my ship was in a floating drydock in Mobile Bay AL as part of a long yard overhaul preping the AS-16 for deployment to the Med, after a long period on the SE coast of the US. Agnes hit just east of Mobile Bay over in FL on June 19, 1972. At the time it was mostly sawgrass swamps as opposed to all condos like it is today.

    Being way up out of the water gave the old timers a real heartburn. We spent a couple of days pulling hawsers out of deep holds and running more lines from the ship to the drydock AND from the drydock to the piers on either side. Then bolting bronze storm covers over all the portholes, bolting down hatches and doors, closing ladders and watertight doors all over the ship.

    As I recall, each deck had like one porthole you could look out on the down-wind side, and you couldn’t see anything because the rain was like a waterfall. Must have been tons of water on the decks pouring over the side. Was actually very scary as you could feel movement in the ship, which you aren’t supposed to have on a ship in drydock.

    Wife was still in Key West when Agnes passed near the keys, tornadoes took a couple of roofs off. The worst damage was up into VA and PA where the rain caused flooding and multiple deaths up there, she went out into the Atlantic and back into the east coast after a chance to strengthen.

  57. 57.

    Tony Jay

    Hoping for the best for all Juicers and the Juice adjacent from this side of the Pond.

    Not much we can do from Brexitannia, but I’ve identified a nearby hill here on the Isle of Bute that has clearly been used by pagan worshippers for thousands of years, so I’ll be up there later dancing skyclad and woad-painted in the hope that the landlord’s daughter had a word with the Old Ones on your behalf.

  59. 59.

    Percysowner

    For the pet lovers here. From on the ground in New Orleans, Tia Torres of Villalobos Dog Rescue is sheltering in place. They have a couple of hundred dogs and simply can’t get them out. You can see what it was like about 2 hrs ago. Video here The video explains their situation and what it is like in NO currently.
    If you go to the main page, you can see her rescuing an abandoned Siamese cat last night, because she knew the poor thing wouldn’t last in the hurricane.​

  60. 60.

    Tony Jay

    @sab:

    No, no, it’s fine. As long as you can make out hair follicles under the paint you’re in good with the gods.

  61. 61.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @sab: I think he is talking about doing two separate dances in order to hit both marks.  Belt and suspenders (braces for our Brit well-wisher).

  63. 63.

    zeecube

    @Gvg:  I-10 really is the major east-west route through south Louisiana.  We initially planned to stay in place, until it was predicted storm may be Cat 3 over my house north of New Orleans.  Present forecast is hurricane force wind; power loss foe days likely.  So, we evacuated after securing the premises.  I wanted to go stay at the Peabody in Memphis.  It’s a really nice hotel, and Ms. ZC has Memphis on her bucket list/  Plus, ducks (really, because they are pet friendly), and South to North route not as crowded.  But Ms. ZC won the argument instead (storm gonna hit Memphis, may lose power) and we headed to Houston.  Left at 1 pm Saturday.  Basically 350 miles of rush our traffic.  Arrived at 4 this morning.   I originally had planned an alternate route via back roads through the Atchafalaya Basin between Lafayette and Alexandria to cut time in half, but Ms. ZC freaked out when we drove about 5 miles on a gravel road (it connected two LA highways) through the sugar cane fields in the middle of nowhere during pouring rain and lightning storm.  Oh, well. Guess I have to wait another day before I see Melville, LA.  So stuck to HWY 190 and I-10 west routes until traffic came to a standstill in Lake Charles.  At that point, took back roads south of Lake Charles along the gulf and arrived in Houston via Port Arthur.  14 hours of Fun Time with 2 dogs and 2 cats.  We are tired, but safe.  Heard from a friend that it took her 11 hours to get from N.O. to Gulf Shores, Alabama.

    Got internet, at least. Stress level down if I don’t look at the live weather map.  Time for a nap.

  67. 67.

    sab

    @Tony Jay: Back in the 1990s, the Marin County Fair in California used to have a Wicca tent in amongst the jewelry, wime tasting  and other religion tents. In Ohio we would never allow that (what’s the first amendment?)

  69. 69.

    sab

    BILs house in Baton Rouge did fine in Katrina, but came within a few feet of flooding after a tropical storm in 2016. They had to be evacuated by a boat his daughter organized. Louisiana is very flat, so nothing much can drain anywhere.

    ETA Back when I lived down South, they always emphasized it’s not the wind it’s the water. That is still mostly true. More wind makes worse storm surge

    ETA Plus, as always, lots of rain.

  70. 70.

    Mike E

    When Irma was honing in on Naples FL, my recently retired sister called me from there to ask what category I would consider before evacuating…ha. Hugo hit me in Charlotte just as it had weakened to a 70 mph tropical storm so I informed her I had seen many storms in NC but no full-on hurricanes, nor would I stick around to experience one if I could help it. Irma hit her town as a cat 2 so now she knows better thru staying put, and fortunately without loss of life, limb or property.

  74. 74.

    Redshift

    My niece has been down there clearing out her parents’ house, but luckily that meant she could leave whenever she wanted, so she headed out yesterday (which was about when she planned to leave anyway.)

  76. 76.

    Tony Jay

    @sab:

    Velcro loincloth – check

    Lashings of blue paint – check

    CD of Ozzie Osborne crying out for Sharon to get him out of the bath, played backwards – check

    Sandwiches – check

    I’m off to do what little I can do. If Christopher Lee turns up doing his Cher circa 1974 thing, well, I knew the risks.

  77. 77.

    Zeecube

    @zhena gogolia: Thanks.  Worst road trip ever.  I would not be honest if I  said I  was not having any Katrina related PTSD this week. I have friends in Ida’s pathway and I  am hoping they make it to the other side safely.

  79. 79.

    LivinginExile

    @Scout211: I was living in the French Quarter in 74.  I remember Camille.  In true Quarter tradition, let’s have hurricane party.  Closed the shutters on our favorite  bar and stayed drunk for two days. Oh to be young again!

  80. 80.

    zhena gogolia

    @Tony Jay: Doughty lad wants to save his marriage by performing a pagan ritual atop a barrow at the rising sun. As he shoots his arrow into the sun, some miscreant shoots an arrow into him. Midsomer Murders, “The Fisher King.”

  86. 86.

    Chacal Charles Calthrop

    This is where I keep up with climate issues: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/

    Jeff Masters and Bob Henson are two climate scientists who’ve been posting on Weather Underground since the 90’s.  Yale seems to have provided them with a permanent home, for which I am grateful.

    The most up-to-date info is in the moderated comments, which seem to be a collection of professional and amateur stormchasters: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/08/intensifying-hurricane-ida-a-significant-threat-to-key-infrastructure/

    go halfway down the page and then sort the Disqus comments by “newest”

  87. 87.

    Tony Jay

    @zhena gogolia:

    Was it –

    The wife? (She didn’t want to reconcile)

    The wife’s lover? (Knew she wanted to reconcile, didn’t like it)

    The husband’s lover? (how dare he use me and cast me aside?)

    Their Psychopathic child? (Daddy’s life insurance would stretch to buying a pony)

    The local priest? (It’s what Jesus would have wanted)

    Thats at least a Halloween special right there.

  88. 88.

    dp

    @zeecube: Just as well you didn’t get to Melville; IIRC Jindal shut down the ferry and it doesn’t run anymore, so you’d be stuck on the east side of the Atchafalaya.

  92. 92.

    Yarrow

    @WaterGirl:  In terms of intensity it doesn’t matter that much but it in this case it means Ida made landfall at almost high tide, which is way worse in terms of storm surge. It also means it’s moving faster, which means it will be out of there faster and that’s a good thing.

    Landfall during daylight hours is way better for anyone experiencing it. Landfall at night when power goes out and all you hear is howling wind and torrential rain and you can’t see what’s going on is rough. Goes on for what seems like forever and you don’t know if a tree might fall on your house our a weird flooding event might happen and you have to evac unexpectedly.

    Not everyone should evacuate in a hurricane (follow local guidelines) and if everyone does out of panic you end up with disasters like happened with Rita. So many people stay, as they should, but it’s not fun.

  93. 93.

    sab

    Climate change. I feel like I am back in the Florida of my childhood. Hot and sunny all morning, then a short deluge mid-afternoon. Every day this week! In Ohio. Ohio usually has weather fronts that park themselves for a while.

  100. 100.

    Uncle Cosmo

    One of my earliest clear memories is when Hurricane Hazel came through Baltimore in mid-October 1954. I recall looking out our front window through the darkness of midday, across the street to the big old Gothic-eerie dark brown house in which lived The Widow Vesper (who owned all the land all the way back to the ridge where the cemetery ended). That edifice was surrounded by huge (to a boy’s eyes) equally sinister weeping willow trees – and I remember all those branches whipping around furiously in the wind, as if intent on flaying the flesh off all the soon-to-be-damned of the neighborhood… (It didn’t hurt the imagination that we were in the runup to Halloween.)

    (The last time a hurricane came up to whack “Churn City” was Isabel in 2003, but I was in London at the time & missed the brouhaha…)

  102. 102.

    Yarrow

    @debbie:  It’s the camera most likely. Highest wind report I’ve seen from Grand Isle is 166 mph. That’ll shake a camera. That was a gust. Sustained winds at 130 mph.

  103. 103.

    Betsy

    Has anyone already noted that one M.  Yiannopoulos has COVID and is “self-treating” at home with ivermectin injections?  Warning, there are pictures.

  105. 105.

    Tony Jay

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Pfffft. It’s 2021 Grandad, the era of the smartphone and social media. No one of a class elevated enough to fear scandal can afford a butler anymore.

  107. 107.

    sab

    @Tony Jay: You nailed that genre. I will keep watching,

    I still have to interpret for Ohio only husband.  Shetland is going to be quite a challenge.

    If you comment on Doug Henshall’s accent, he yells at you all in caps.

    Exactly the same approach my Ohio husband uses when he meets a non-Ohio accent.

    My Chinese brother in law speaks perfect American English. My husband says he can’t understand him because of the accent. I can barely hear the accent. Someone isn’t even trying, and it isn’t the BIL.

  108. 108.

    J R in WV

    @raven:

    @J R in WV: My old man’s tin can was in Halsey’s Typhoon

    The Gilmore put to sea in my first 3 months aboard when a major storm was drifting around the area. Much better to be at sea where you can run away, run away, than in port where the sea can batter you against the pier/mole.

    We were a tender, so not agile like a destroyer, more like a freighter with machine shops. But the sea was pretty heavy even tho we were successfully avoiding the actual storm. I’m not prone to motion sickness, but when surrounded by land-lubbers who are, it’s hard to resist. I was working in the galley, but of course only about 10% of the crew was interested in any sort of food.

    Biggest seas I experienced, they managed to keep us headed into the waves, which is of course what you need to do. Big tender, if you get sideways, you could capsize in heavy seas.

    When that freighter, El Faro, went belly up in hurricane Joaquin not long ago, I had a hard time that night. What an ass that captain was — the board landed on his memory hard. The sea is totally unforgiving, one mistake and you are history.

  110. 110.

    debbie

    @Yarrow:

    Thanks. The replies were full of arguing whether the objects swept in and back out were people or boxes, but nothing about the pilings.

  111. 111.

    L&DfromSLT

    Well, as someone in the potential path of the CALDOR fire, I’m here to say you COULD have both fire and hurricane threads. We escaped the oppressive smoke on Monday last and are In Carson City. Yay Nevada //. Home after yhe red flas warning expires Tuesday.

  113. 113.

    Tony Jay

    @sab:

    Accents are funny. It’s everyone else that has them.

    Stephen Fry tells the story of one of those very posh Scottish landed gentry types with a very soft, lilting Edinburgh swirl to his Queen’s English. Like Ms Jean Brodie, but with added gruffness.

    When complimented on the lovely tone of his voice he was mortally  offended. “But I,” he insisted “ have no perceptible accent.”

    I love accents. Pick them up like STDs. Here on the Isle of Bute they have a really nice Scots burr that just oozes friendliness, it’s just lovely, so I’ve been rolling my vowels happily all week.  8-)

  114. 114.

    Yarrow

    Ida made a direct hit on Port Fourchon, a critical hub for the U.S. oil industry. According to its website, Port Fourchon plays a strategic role in furnishing the U.S. with about 18% of its entire oil supply. The port has lots of tank farms; oil spills will be a hazard. pic.twitter.com/Nf9WR8KId0— Jeff Masters (@DrJeffMasters) August 29, 2021

    If your cars’ tanks aren’t filled up you might want to go do it now. No telling yet if this kind of thing will affect supply and/or price but it could.

  116. 116.

    JPL

    Ed Asner died.   RI

    What Joyce said.

    He was quite the entertainer.  I even loved him in UP.

  117. 117.

    sab

    @Tony Jay: Having grown up in the American South with a mother with  midwestern accent and a serious speech impediment, I can barely pronounce “rr”. My mother made them sound like “w”.

    In the coastal South they are pronounced “r”  like “h” unless it starts the word.  ( Roanoke v. Carter.) My year in England all the English, Scottish and Irish kids laughed at me, and delighted in making me say “orange”, which every American knows is only one syllable with a barely perceptible “r”. They stretched it out to two syllables with a weird trilled “r”.

  118. 118.

    FlyingToaster

    @Yarrow: This coming week is practice for WarriorTeen and I in taking the T:  specifically, crossing Watertown on the MBTA busses.  Her school T pass should be there Tuesday/Wednesday.

    Of course, we’ll be doing this in the dregs of the hurricane on Wednesday, won’t we ?

  119. 119.

    raven

    @sab: My wife is from Central VA and her people say stuff like “err” for “our’ and “hoose” for house and things a “right” good!

  120. 120.

    HinTN

    @Yarrow: We had a friend in Ocean Springs when Katrina hit. House was on (relatively) higher ground but next to Biloxi Bay. The storm surge just power washed everything out of the downstairs. Water came to within an inch of the second floor. We went down in the Spring to celebrate the recovery effort.  At the end of the street (much lower) a house on piers had been stripped away and tossed well inland. The piers each had four 3/4″ rebar and every pier had those twisted like pretzels at the top.

  121. 121.

    catclub

    @HinTN: The piers each had four 3/4″ rebar and every pier had those twisted like pretzels at the top.

     

    yeah, water is heavy, and waves on TOP of storm surge pack a wallop.

  122. 122.

    sab

    I am about to have serious battles with spouse.   Our grand–daughter unvaxxed starting school. Stepdaughter jumps through every hoop and then invents more to protect grand-daughter but makes no effort whatever to protect us. It is all a loyalty test. If she laughs at masks (which kid wears happily in school),  and husband backs her, which he will,  then he can move in with them or sleep in the yard. I am not risking Covid so he can appease this dramalama. Everything is a loyalty test, common sense or science be damned.

    I don’t understand the anti-maskers but I am starting to appreciate the social pressure they live with.

  123. 123.

    HinTN

    @catclub:

    water is heavy

    Truth! I once capsized a canoe on a bend in a river. It ended up wedged at the bank with the flow directly into the boat. It took thirty minutes to work it loose to where I could refloat it.

    I would not want to be anywhere near that raging storm surge!

  124. 124.

    zhena gogolia

    @Tony Jay: None of the above, but no spoilers from me.

    Barnaby’s short-lived deputy Scott gets all the best lines in this one.

    [Barnaby tells Scott that Roger Heldman has fathered yet another illegitimate child]

    Scott: Roger by name, Roger by nature.

  126. 126.

    WaterGirl

    @L&DfromSLT: Maybe it’s that between Afghanistan and the hurricanes the fires aren’t hitting the news cycles as much?  I was mostly going on the amount of comments on Balloon Juice to judge the fire situation.

  129. 129.

    FlyingToaster

    @sab: I feel for you.  Our town just reinstated the mask ordinance, along with most of the surrounding communities. On social media, the wankers are all, “We’re not shopping there”, to which we all reply, “you never did, so fuck off already”.

    Our local antimaskers found out the hard way last year that nobody in the MA business community fucks around.  I watched a guy getting handcuffed at the Waltham Home Depot in spring of 2020, and the manager of the Allston Star calling the cops on a screechy “MY PRIVACY” customer; he yelled at her as he was dialing, “Lady, nobody gives a fuck if you’re buying Depends! But you’re not coming in here without a mask!”

    We’re heavily vaccinated hereabouts; most of the suburban/exurban schools are starting this coming week, and most of the urban schools (waves!) start just after Labor Day.  We’re all pretty certain that the current surge isn’t going to get better any time soon.

  130. 130.

    Another Scott

    @Betsy:

    If Milo Yeahimnolongeranybody is posting pics doing something notable or controversial you should probably assume it’s faked for attention as he attempts to climb back out of the pit of deserved obscurity and sadness

    — OneHitPopehat (@Popehat) August 28, 2021

    Yup.

    DeLong points us to d-squared’s 1 minute MBA:

    Fibbers’ forecasts are worthless. Case after miserable case after bloody case we went through, I tell you, all of which had this moral. Not only that people who want a project will tend to make inaccurate projections about the possible outcomes of that project, but about the futility of attempts to “shade” downward a fundamentally dishonest set of predictions. If you have doubts about the integrity of a forecaster, you can’t use their forecasts at all. Not even as a “starting point”. By the way, I would just love to get hold of a few of the quantitative numbers from documents prepared to support the war and give them a quick run through Benford’s Law.

    Application to Iraq This was how I decided that it was worth staking a bit of credibility on the strong claim that absolutely no material WMD capacity would be found, rather than “some” or “some but not enough to justify a war” or even “some derisory but not immaterial capacity, like a few mobile biological weapons labs”. My reasoning was that Powell, Bush, Straw, etc, were clearly making false claims and therefore ought to be discounted completely, and that there were actually very few people who knew a bit about Iraq but were not fatally compromised in this manner who were making the WMD claim. Meanwhile, there were people like Scott Ritter and Andrew Wilkie who, whatever other faults they might or might not have had, did not appear to have told any provable lies on this subject and were therefore not compromised.

    tl;dr – (though you should) Never give a known liar the benefit of a doubt.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  131. 131.

    Lyrebird

    @mali muso: Good thoughts to her and to everyone else’s connections.  Here’s hoping!

     

    We’re several states away, due only for some ordinary wind and rain after the coastal folks go therough the main event.  But right now my kiddos are in massive drama mode, gotta put my big person hat on and deal…

  132. 132.

    FlyingToaster

    @WaterGirl: No, 8th grade in a PK-8 school.

    If there hadn’t been a pandemic, WarriorTeen would have been riding the bus last year.  But, given transmission rates and her parents’ risk factors (old with minor but real autoimmune issues), we just had her walk off campus about 4 blocks and one of us picked her up instead.  WarriorTeen was the last of us vaccinated, and two-weeks out from her second shot was after school was out.

    This year, with community spread pretty low, she’ll take the bus home on “short” days (12:15 or 3:15 dismissal), and get picked up off campus on “long” days (5 or 5:30 dismissal from School Play, School Musical, Science Olympiad, SSAT Test Prep).

    Next year WT starts high school, and if we’re lucky enough to get into the first-choice school, there’s a bus from Watertown Square to across the street from the HS in Boston.  So learning the T this year is really damn important.

  133. 133.

    Catherine D.

    @sab: Turn on the subtitles. My mother does that, partly because she’s never been good with accents and also her hearing isn’t the best at 88 even with hearing aids.

    I’ve never understood why she has so much trouble with Irish accents. Her parents emigrated in the 1920s, and every greenhorn in NYC stayed with them while she was growing up. I’ll spot her Ulster and maybe a heavy Kerry accent, but ??

    And Vera starts in the US this week. Geordie, pet?

  134. 134.

    Tony Jay

    @sab:

    “You’re different and exotic! Entertain us with your words from the TV machine so we can bask in your strangeness!”

    Kids are bastards, aren’t they? 8-)

    Coming from Liverpool I had to moderate my (not very strong) accent to make myself understood. I must have succeeded, because when we lived in Provence* and had friends from all over Europe and America, I had to translate for my Ramsbottom-raised other half. Somehow the tones of north Manchester bounce off everybody else’s ears, while I just adopt the scent of whoever I’m talking to and get by fine.

    *   No, I never learnt to speak French, but I sound like I do.

  138. 138.

    Scout211

    @WaterGirl:

    The Caldor fire is on its way to Lake Tahoe and it is the state’s #1 priority right now. A fire thread may be needed soon or maybe a thread that encompasses all the natural disasters affecting jackals and jackal-adjacents right now.

    Added:  The fire has burned through mostly national forest but now is headed toward populated areas.  That may be why there’s no jackals discussing it until now.

    https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/wildfire/caldor-fire-el-dorado-county-fire/103-24c053c6-8d15-4eab-ac0a-a33a9749ba56

    The wildfire burning in El Dorado County has charred about 156,515 acres and is 19% contained. On Saturday, the blaze continued an eastward march toward Tahoe. No new evacuations have been announced at this time, but officials are telling Tahoe residents to prepare for the worst as the forecast in the next few weeks show increasing wind speeds.

  140. 140.

    Starfish

    @Scout211: Was everyone still traumatized from Hurricane Camille at that time?

    People threw beach parties when they thought the hurricane was not heading their way, and it turned out to be a very bad idea.

  141. 141.

    catclub

    Uncertainty amid danger feels awful. So it’s comforting to have strong opinions even if you have no idea what you’re talking about, because shrugging your shoulders feels reckless when the stakes are high.

  143. 143.

    Alice

    @L&DfromSLT: Welcome to Carson L&D, but best hopes you can leave and go home soon! Isn’t it weird how today’s unhealthy air seems like a beautiful day after a week of off the scale hazardous. Still very worried they won’t be able to keep the fire out of the Basin.

  144. 144.

    Tony Jay

    @japa21:

    See? It’s traditional.

    Though thinking of it, that would have been a radically different take on ‘Mr Ed’, wouldn’t it?

  146. 146.

    Scout211

    @Starfish:

    Was everyone still traumatized from Hurricane Camille at that time?

    Yes, but the ones that went through Betsy seemed to be the most traumatized. The locals talked about both of them all the time (even not during hurricane season).  The few people that I knew that went through either one of them were the first to evacuate out of NOLA. Most of my fellow grad students had no where to go and no $$ for hotels outside of the city so we stayed. I don’t remember parties but it seemed like the city just breathed a big sigh of relief when it turned west.  We still had fierce winds and rain but no direct hit or huge storm surge.

  147. 147.

    Kent

    @Starfish:

    @Scout211: Was everyone still traumatized from Hurricane Camille at that time?

    People threw beach parties when they thought the hurricane was not heading their way, and it turned out to be a very bad idea.

    I used to teach a unit on hurricanes when I taught oceanography.  There was a film I used to show where a news reporter walked around pre-Camille and interviewed people throwing hurricane parties on the beach.  All festive.  And then returned the next day to find only the concrete foundations remaining and everyone missing.   Pretty stark.

    Camille came after a long hiatus of no major hurricanes and it really took people by surprise.  No one has that excuse today.

  148. 148.

    Starfish

    @Scout211: Camille happened before I was born, but a lot of people still talked about it when I was a child. Basically, people were having beach parties on the Mississippi gulf coast, and they died.

    It also killed a lot of the tung trees which were used to make tung oil that was used in paint, so it hurt the economy. I wrote a paper about this topic in high school and got a small college scholarship.

    Here is a history of tung oil that does not specify that the industry died in the region when Hurricane Camille took out all their trees.

  150. 150.

    Scout211

    More on the Caldor Fire, with a stark photo of the Stateline casinos.
    https://fox40.com/news/wildfire-watch/weather-heats-up-as-california-fire-inches-toward-lake-tahoe/

    Some help is arriving:

    The Department of Defense is sending 200 U.S. Army soldiers from Washington state and equipment including eight U.S. Air Force C-130 aircraft to help firefighters in Northern California, the U.S. Army North said in a statement Saturday. The soldiers are expected to arrive in California in early September after a week-long training. The C-130s have been converted into airtankers that can dump thousands of gallons of water on the flames.

  151. 151.

    LivinginExile

    @Starfish: Ms Exile was.living in Marrero with her first husband when Betsy hit.  She was at her parents house in Algiers during the storm.  It flattened their trailer, nothing left to salvage.

     

    @Starfish:

  153. 153.

    The Dangerman

    So the news has Ida as tied for strongest storm to hit area but it’s only a Cat 4 while Katrina was a Cat 5. What am I missing (besides my sanity, but that’s a different topic)?

  154. 154.

    sacrablue

    @Scout211: My house is on the flight path to/from McClellan. I can tell the intensity of the fire fight by the number of flights and how hard they are pulling on takeoff or landing. Lots of C-130s. In previous years we had the 747 tanker low overhead. This year there are at least two DC-10s added to the mix. Between Caldor and Dixie, it has been very busy and they are coming in very low.  Even the cats look up now!

  156. 156.

    mrmoshpotato

    @The Dangerman:

    So the news has Ida as tied for strongest storm to hit area but it’s only a Cat 4 while Katrina was a Cat 5. What am I missing (besides my sanity, but that’s a different topic)? 

    You’re missing that George W Bush is a sack of shit who didn’t care if New Orleans drown.

  158. 158.

    Kent

    Katrina was also a much slower storm and geographically larger across a wider front. And so had the ability to generate much larger storm surge. Ida seems more compact and fast moving so is inherently less dangerous despite having faster reported winds.

    With hurricanes, it is the water not the wind that is by far most destructive. Both the saltwater storm surge coming from the sea, and the freshwater flooding coming from the massive rainfall. So wind speed isn’t really the most important measure of storm danger or destructive power.

  159. 159.

    L85NJGT

    @The Dangerman:

    Katrina was a category 3 on landfall in Louisiana.

    Ida is predicted to have less of a storm surge, but is bringing far more wind power ashore.

  162. 162.

    Scout211

    @WaterGirl:

    No, that one is the Dixie Fire.
    https://www.kcra.com/article/dixie-fire-butte-plumas-county-august-28/37422789

    The more than 1-month-old wildfire has burned at least 759,218 acres, more than 1,186 square miles, in Butte, Plumas, Lassen, Shasta and Tehama counties.

    The blaze has charred an area twice the size of Los Angeles and destroyed at least 1,275 structures. It is the 14th-most destructive wildfire in state history, according to Cal Fire.

  163. 163.

    Kent

    Fun Fact.   Camille made landfall on the final day of Woodstock.  When Biloxi was being smashed, the Who, Jefferson Airplane, Joe Cocker; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; Blood, Sweat & Tears; and Country Joe & the Fish were all jamming on the Woodstock stage.

  164. 164.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Mississippi River flow reversing due to hurricane “extremely uncommon,” USGS says

    From CNN’s Brandon Miller

    Storm surge and strong winds stopped the flow of the Mississippi River on Sunday near New Orleans and actually caused the flow to reverse – something the United States Geological Survey said is “extremely uncommon.”

    “I remember, offhand, that there was some flow reversal of the Mississippi River during Hurricane Katrina, but it is extremely uncommon,” Scott Perrien, a supervising hydrologist with the USGS Lower Mississippi Gulf Water Science Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, told CNN.

    Perrien noted that the river level rose about 7 feet due to the storm surge pushing up the river at the USGS gauge, located in Belle Chasse, about 20 miles south of New Orleans in southeastern Louisiana.

  165. 165.

    Dan B

    @Yarrow: Another reason we love our Nissan Leaf.  Oil scarcity – Oh really?

    Big infrastructure bill would increase charging stations but… the Leaf’s charging system is going away.  Oy!

  166. 166.

    Kent

    @Dan B: @Yarrow: Another reason we love our Nissan Leaf.  Oil scarcity – Oh really?

    Big infrastructure bill would increase charging stations but… the Leaf’s charging system is going away.  Oy!

    Wait what?  I was thinking of picking up a used leaf for my HS daughter to use as a commuting car back and forth to HS.  There are tons of them for sale in the greater Portland area.  What system is going away?

  173. 173.

    WaterGirl

    This weekend’s Artists in Our Midst thread just went up at 4:00, and I put up an Open Thread a couple of minutes later.  So there’s a totally open thread for you.

  174. 174.

    Barbara

    @The Dangerman: Katrina wasn’t cat 5. It hit NOLA at cat 3 — it actually weakened as it approached land, but it was massive and dropped huge amounts of water. I think that Camille is still the only storm to hit the Gulf Coast at cat 5 levels. I think Andrew reached cat 5, but it was in Florida.

  178. 178.

    Dan B

    @Kent: Chademo is going away.  Nissan will stop making Chademo after this year.

    My gearhead partner says the Leaf’s simple system, no fancy and complicated cooling / battery temp system, makes them much more reliable.  Great if you charge at home.

  179. 179.

    Kent

    @Barbara:@The Dangerman: Katrina wasn’t cat 5. It hit NOLA at cat 3 — it actually weakened as it approached land, but it was massive and dropped huge amounts of water. I think that Camille is still the only storm to hit the Gulf Coast at cat 5 levels. I think Andrew reached cat 5, but it was in Florida.

    Hurricane Michael, which struck the Florida Panhandle (gulf coast) in 2018 was also Cat 5  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Michael

  180. 180.

    Kent

    @Dan B:

    @Kent: Chademo is going away.  Nissan will stop making Chademo after this year.

    My gearhead partner says the Leaf’s simple system, no fancy and complicated cooling / battery temp system, makes them much more reliable.  Great if you charge at home.

    We are probably still fine then.  I would just install a charging cord outside our garage and she would charge at home unless she got stuck somewhere long away.

  181. 181.

    Michael Cain

    @WaterGirl:

    Maybe it’s that between Afghanistan and the hurricanes the fires aren’t hitting the news cycles as much?

    As a general rule of thumb, if there is a story overseas or in the US from the Mississippi east, the major media will drop coverage of everything in the Mountain/Pacific time zones.  “Major” here includes the NYTimes, WaPost, and all of the broadcast and cable networks of any size.  I look at the US edition of The Guardian these days when I’m hoping for somewhat broader geographic coverage of the US.

  183. 183.

    Another Scott

    The NWS radar loop of Ida doesn’t seem to show much if any motion of the eye in the last hour or so.

    Not good.

    :-(

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  184. 184.

    L&DfromSLT

    @Alice: Thanks for your good thoughts! We’re vacillating between being 100% sure our house will be fine and the other side, that it will be gone. Hate the waiting but there are 8 more C-130s coming from Washington state to bomb CALDOR into submission. We can only watch, when any news station even talks about it, and wait.

  185. 185.

    Kent

    @Barbara: @The Dangerman: Katrina wasn’t cat 5. It hit NOLA at cat 3 — it actually weakened as it approached land, but it was massive and dropped huge amounts of water. I think that Camille is still the only storm to hit the Gulf Coast at cat 5 levels. I think Andrew reached cat 5, but it was in Florida.

    Katrina was Cat 5 in the Gulf but apparently diminished to a strong Cat 4 when it made landfall. But the eye and stronger right side actually made landfall in Mississippi, not Louisiana. The trailing bands that scraped across Louisiana were less powerful and rotating in the opposite direction. So even if Katrina might have technically been stronger, the news is still correct if they are saying that Ida is the strongest storm to hit Louisiana in a century, even if Katrina was stronger, if the emphasis is on the part of Katrina that hit Louisiana.

  187. 187.

    dp

    @The Dangerman: Katrina was a Category 5 for several days, but by the time it made landfall it had decreased to Category 3.  Nevertheless, it had built up a huge storm surge while it was out in the Gulf.  Ida, OTOH, moved so quickly that the surge was bad, but not as bad as Katrina.

  190. 190.

    catclub

    @Kent: ​
     

    Ida seems more compact and fast moving so is inherently less dangerous despite having faster reported winds.

    That fast moving bit may be inoperative. Eye seems to have stopped.

  191. 191.

    burnspbesq

    @Dan B:

    the Leaf’s charging system is going away.  Oy!

    EA has a big installed base of CHAdeMO chargers. They won’t disappear overnight.

  192. 192.

    burnspbesq

    @Kent:

    The Leaf is pretty much the only EV with any market share that uses CHAdeMO plugs. Nissan lost the standards war. Pretty much every other mass-market non-Tesla EV uses CCS plugs, which combine a J-1772 for Level 1 and 2 charging with two additional pins for DC fast charging. Tesla’s, of course, use a proprietary system (yet another illegal tying arrangement that violates the living shit out of the antitrust laws, but I’ll spare you a rant on that subject).

    As I said above, I don’t expect that CHAdeMO will disappear overnight, but caveat emptor. It’s also likely that somebody will start to sell adaptors.

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