To those in Katrina's path...GET OUT! (Cat. 5 HURRICANE!!!!)
 

OK Guys...I just woke up 10 minutes ago, turned on the news and saw Katrina is now a cat. 5 hurricane.

MY ADVICE IS TO LEAVE IMMEDIATELY!

I was 7 years old when Andrew, a category 5 hurricane, blew through Miami and it is still an image that haunts me. Storms this big are not a joke. They will kill. You will not have power or weeks. You will be flooded for weeks. Please listen to my honest advice and get out.....I'll never forget the sound of a frieght train outside my window for 12 hours that night...and I was only 7 years old....and to this very day I can honestly say it was one of the scariest moments in my life.

Please take my advice and run.....I can not stress this enough....a category 5 DESTROYS. Its not a question of if, but when t will destroy.

Hopefully this thread can convince some of you to leave....

~Alex

I wasen't in Andrew, but I had lots of family living in Miami when it hit, including a then 3 month old baby cousin who was born 3 months early. They fled, becasue they had no choice, and they did it at the last minute. There were no hotel rooms available up state, or even in southern Georgia, for that matter. When they did find somewhere to stay, there was no electricity, no running water, and the baby needed all this for his heart monitors, and, of coarse, formula. What a nightmare. I'll never forget crying becasue we didn't talk to them for about 3 weeks, and all we could do is let our imagination get to us, and wonder if they were alive or dead.

I'll never forget the first time I visited Miami afterwords, either... When I saw Homestead, I was just bawling. A year later it still looked like a war zone.

Alot of families couldn't reach loved ones after Andrew...

Katrina will probably change the New Orleans landscape for time to come. Homestead was never the same after Andrew

This makes me feel old. I was 15 when it hit. :lol:

Isn't New Orleans like a huge bowl? If they were hit with a tsunami, or massive amounts of rain, wouldn't it fill up just like a bowl??

Ugh! F*ck this thing! It's really pissing me off. If the French Quarter is destroyed then we will lose so much!!! There is SO MUCH history there! There is so much culture there! There is an aquarium and I worry about those fish. Also, I worry about the animals at the zoo. Not to mention that they can't possibly get all the people out, despite the fact that they have declared a mandatory evacuation! I am really afraid that this is going to be horrible. We haven't seen anything like this. I don't live in New Orleans but I love it SO MUCH and this is truly scary. If New Orleans changes then the whole face of LA changes. New Orleans is our pride and joy, from my point of view.

And stupid Governor Blanco is on CNN talking about how we need to pray. They even quoted her. Leave it to our politicians to make us all look like hicks, too. My eyes were rolling around so much when she said that. "Pray strongly," she said. The only thing that CNN didn't do was include the "strongly" part when they quoted her. Not only are we screwed, the whole country gets to be reminded how backwards we are.

It pretty much is. They predict that it'll fill up with about 10 feet of water.

this is so sad, i hope everyone flees, i hate to see this kind of destruction, entire towns just gone, i pray the loss of life is minimal~

According to...
 

the Weather Channel the winds on Katrina are now at 175MPH, Stronger than Hurricane Andrew.

She means business
 

Thats scary...

Yikes! I hope everyone makes it out safe!!!!

I couldn't believe it when I woke up this morning and saw this had turned to a Cat 5 from a Cat 3 overnight. It just makes me want to cry. Hopefully most of the city has been evacuated. It appears that this storm will make a direct hit on New Orleans. :distress:

Thank you, Anna. :xoxo: I'm safe. :)

I'm so sorry about your family losing their house in '38. I have no idea what that's like. :distress:

I know I said it already, but I'm so scared for the city. :(

At this point, I don't think it could hurt. :shrug:

My parents lived through '38. My mother talked about the strom her whole life as the most terrifying storm she had ever lived through.

Yeah. Because everyone who prays is a backwards hick.

I've just seen something about the storm on CNN, it looks really scary.
Take care everyone and be safe.

Hurricane Hugo survivor here. Hugo was "only" a 4, with winds of about 140 miles per hour at landfall, near Charleston, SC. It then proceeded to march up through the center of the state, and left virtually no area of the state untouched. We didn't have power for days afterwards, and we were some of the luckier ones. The entire power grid had to be more or less rebuilt and some were without power or running water for weeks.

Katrina is both a very intense storm (worse than Andrew), it's also a HUGE storm in terms of the real estate it's covering--more like Hugo in that regard. And let me remind you what that means exactly-with Hugo, 12 hours after it made its initial landfall, it hit Charlotte, NC with 100 mile per hour winds, and Charlotte is 175 miles away from Charleston.

If I could say one thing to the people in the path of this monster-it would be this: GET OUT NOW.

I lived 70 miles inland, and about 70 miles up from the initial landfall of Hugo and there were trees downed everywhere afterwards. Tornadoes struck everywhere, all over the state. It was estimated later than 60-80% of the trees in the state suffered some type of damage. Economically, it was catastropic. Psychologically? It was the scariest night of my life and I do NOT scare easily.

I only had to live through one hurricane and that was hurricane Belle in 1976, a category 1. We got more wind than anything else. I think the winds reached about 75 mph. It hit us in the middle of the night. I remember I slept in the bed with my mom that night and waking up to the sound of things flying past the window. I don't think she was sleeping at all though.

I thought you would know that that isn't what I mean. I think she's representing us as a state and by taking it into a public forum she's doing something inappropriate, much like praying in public schools and so on.

Agreed. But that wasn't my point. I just think it's inappropriate for her to say that.

Okay - long, rambling post alert...

I've been awake all night, sick to my stomach about this. I was watching The Weather Channel about 1:30 AM, when the advisory came in that the storm had jumped from 110 mph to 145 - the weather guy looked like he was going to faint.

About New Orleans - most of the downtown section of the city is about 10 feet below sea level, so with a 25-foot storm surge, it could actually be under 35 feet of water. That's basically 4 stories. They're not sure the levees that separate the city from the Miss River and Lake Ponchartrain will hold at all. And that's just the storm surge - if they get 15 inches of rain on top of that like this same storm dumped on certain sections of Florida...

But Hillary, I totally agree about the history and culture that will be lost. I LOVE New Orleans - the French Quarter, Garden District, St. Charles Streetcar, Jackson Square, the new Warehouse District that has been built. I was just there in May, and I couldn't believe all the improvements they had done to Canal Street.

I went through Hurricane Alicia in 1983, and she was barely a Cat 2 storm. Just like others have said, it was 18 hours of pure terror. And that's after the 12-hour leadup of random rain bands and wind.

And the aftermath: the lack of power, water, sewage, city services are one thing. We were without power after Alicia for 2-1/2 weeks, and without phone service for almost a month. But we're also talking about the South in summer. Think swarms of mosquitoes, displaced fire ants, poisonous snakes, rats and mice, cockroaches, and biting flies feasting on all the trash and sewage backup.

And of course, not to belittle the impact this will have on Biloxi, MS, or Mobile, AL, or any of the many towns between. And the fact that a huge gasoline refining facility had to be closed yesterday (and may be destroyed).

And finally, not to shift the thread, but they just aired a taped audio statement from the President about the situation, in which he talked about ...
the Iraqi Constitution and its importance and impacts on our country for 5 minutes. And then at the end quickly said Katrina was a very bad situation. :mad:

Hurricaine of 38, My family's story of disaster, is longer than I thought
 

In this situation I don't think it is. :shrug: People of all denominations pray. If you're an atheist, then you don't.

Jesus H. Christ. I wanted to catch his speech but was on the phone. :distress: At least he's already declared a state of emergency. This whole situation is absolutely heartbreaking.

Oh my God. I looked at the satellite yesterday and it looked unorganized but now it's like this perfect looking storm.

It's the 4th strongest atlantic storm and the pressure is one of the lowest recorded.

Please, everyone be careful!!!!!!!

I don't think in this context referring to prayer necessarily violates separation of church and state. Prayer means different things to different people. For some, it's just holding a good thought. Much like utterances of "Thank God" and "I'll keep you in my thoughts and prayers," I think what she said seems more like a common expression.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/5583239.html

New Orleans evacuated as Hurricane Katrina bears down

NEW ORLEANS — Monstrous Hurricane Katrina barreled toward the Big Easy today with 175-mph wind and a threat of a 28-foot storm surge, forcing a mandatory evacuation, a last-ditch Superdome shelter and prayers for those left to face the doomsday scenario this below-sea-level city has long dreaded.

"Have God on your side, definitely have God on your side,'' Nancy Noble said as she sat with her puppy and three friends in six lanes of one-way traffic on gridlocked Interstate 10. "It's very frightening.''

Katrina intensified into a Category 5 giant over the warm water of the Gulf of Mexico on a path to come ashore early Monday in the heart of New Orleans. That would make it the city's first direct hit in 40 years and the most powerful storm ever to slam the city.

The Superdome was named a place of refuge.Cheryl GerberAssociated Press"I'm really scared,'' resident Linda Young said as she fill her gas tank. "I've been through hurricanes, but this one scares me. I think everybody needs to get out.''

Rain began falling on southeastern Louisiana by midday today, the first hints of a storm with a potential surge of 18 to 28 feet, topped with even higher waves, tornadoes and as much as 15 inches of rain.

"We are facing a storm that most of us have long feared,'' Mayor Ray Nagin said in ordering the mandatory evacuation for his city of 485,000 people, surrounded by suburbs of a million more. "The storm surge will most likely topple our levee system.''

Preparing sandbagsDavid J. PhillipAssociated PressConceding that as many as 100,000 inner-city residents didn't have the means to leave and an untold number of tourists were stranded by the closing of the airport, the city arranged buses to take people to 10 last-resort shelters, including the Superdome

snip

Despite the dire predictions, a group of residents in a poor neighborhood of central New Orleans sat on a porch with no car, no way out and, surprisingly, no fear.

"We're not evacuating,'' said 57-year-old Julie Paul. "None of us have any place to go. We're counting on the Superdome. That's our lifesaver.''

The Superdome, the 70,000-seat home of football's Saints and the New Year's Sugar Bowl, opened at daybreak today, giving first priority to frail, elderly people on walkers, some with oxygen tanks. They were told to bring enough food, water and medicine to last up to five days.

Click the link for the full article.

I agree. Praying doesn't necessarily involve God, especially in the context she probably said it in. This isn't the same thing as the government putting the Ten Commandments in a courthouse or making my kid pray in homeroom.

I see the point you and Krista are making. I still think that even though it doesn't necessarily involve God, it is inevitably religious and the comment was obviously public. I can't understand why any of that has to be mentioned in a newscast. But it is far less serious than the Ten Commandments being displayed in a courthouse or someone being forced to (or even asked to) pray in homeroom. I have to give you that. But it pissed off both of my parents, and that really got me going. My dad is quite the conservative and he found it very inappropriate, so that signified something to me.

Hillary, where in LA are you again? The lastest forecast says the storm may still be a Cat 2 even after it's a couple hundred miles inland. :distress:

I'm hoping you're on the west side of the state. :nod:

OH JEEZ --

MSNBS just broke out the props to demonstrate the storm surge. The weather dude is raising himself to the ceiling on a mechanical sciccor-lift to show how deep the water will be. :rolleyes:

Of course, this is the network that had the plywood reconstruction of Saddam's "spider hole" and broadcast from inside it...

Her comment may not be "ideal," but I really don't see it as offensive at all. I think it was just a common reaction to an impending disaster. I also disagree that prayer is inevitably religious. People can pray to many gods/goddesses, the universe, the stars, whomever. Or it can be simply meditation. Prayer is spiritual, but not necessarily religious.

Anyway, it was the hick comment that got me, not your opinion.

I'm safe. Thanks for your concern. :) :xoxo:

About the first part...you're right.

About the second part...it just reminded me of the people I grew up with, the people who assumed that everyone wants to pray and there's something wrong with them if they don't. The people who have never been anywhere else or seen anything else and think that what they've seen is all there is to see and that everyone else has to agree, and of course adopt their opinions as well. But I know that that wasn't going through Blanco's head at all and there's a chance that she wouldn't have said it at all if she knew people would take it the way my family did. Part of this is the fact that I already really don't like Blanco at all. It's kind of like how some of us get really angry when Bush does something that isn't necessarily that bad, but coupled with other things he's already done, it's bad enough for us to get angry whereas the same action by someone else wouildn't be judged so harshly. Sorry for the sentence fragment and babbling.

They are saying more and more people are gathering in the French Quarter and partying. :shocked: WHY?!

I heard that, too. :distress: I really don't know why.

LOL - I guess you might as well be drunk if you can't get outta the city.

I guess you might as well be drunk if you're going to drown. :confused: I'm surprised the police are allowing this but they've probably got their hands full.