Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog

SWFLKR -- I think we posted at the same time.

"During the eye we came out of the closet..." jeez louise, what an experience to have to go through. Yeah once the roof goes, it is easy for the walls to come down...not a situation you want to be in, even with a mattress on top of you. Evac is better than riding it out...there would be no safe haven outside with high winds and flying debris.

I was talking to my brother last night...he had been very depressed and closed up for a couple weeks, but now it seems he is coming back to a better place, not so depressed, and we talked for awhile about Katrina. He said he would like to know about what the windspeed would have to have been to cause some of the damage he saw. He said that the sustained winds (which were extreme for about 90 minutes, in his location), were able to rip shingles off the roof and then run them through a car window on one side, smashing it, and out the other side, smashing that glass as well, without stopping. I'd like to know as well. He said that the roof of the sub station was very close to coming off, but luckily it didn't. He did see the roof of the BP across the street go flying off and skip like a stone as the wind blew it down the road.

I found out that the location of his sub station is different than what was on the topographic online map I had been using...the sub station was actually much closer to the coast and the eyewall, as it was south of I-10, not north of it, just across the street essentially from the Gulf Hills subdivision in Ocean Springs, to the east of Gulf Hills on Washington Ave (nothing was left in Gulf Hills...and it is a couple miles NE of the tip of East Biloxi, across the bay, where they received the 30-35 ft surge and eyewall winds). So I'd originally thought that he received 26 ft of surge and now because the location turned out to be different, a couple of feet lower, it appears they got 23-24 ft of surge there, which is very consistent with nearby areas of Ocean Springs; it appears that the worst surge received in Ocean Springs was about 25-26 feet, on the SW-facing shore.

He said that when the really strong winds came in, and this was after hours of already-strong sustained winds, which started blowing at hurricane force I believe around 6:30am (they were getting 30-40mph around 2am with gusts), that they came in with very dark low-lying clouds, with scud clouds, and the entire time the sust winds were at that highest point, the clouds remained very dark overhead. Since they'd already had hours of high winds, this was the most unnerving part of the storm for them. They actually experienced nonstop hf sustained winds for many hours. He said it was afternoon before the winds dropped below hurricane force, and winds were still a factor in the evening (that is partly because Jackson and Mobile counties were under the strong feeder band that stayed in place for some time, as Kat moved inland to the NW).

I wish I'd saved all the radar images so I could have gone back over them later. If anyone has a link, please post.

Also he was interested in finding out about the wave action at the coast. As soon as the storm abated a bit, he had to go around to all those areas right after, if he could get to them, doing S&R, and he said he saw bark completely ripped off the trees right on the shoreline up to about 25 ft high, which we assumed was surge plus some waves, and then he said there was another portion above that, for about the next 25 ft up, where only a line of the bark was ripped off, facing the water, and he wondered if waves could have done that as well, and wondered if the waves were that much higher than the surge. Since the water is very shallow there, we think so.

It spooked him out to know he had been so close to an area of total destruction.

So far he hasn't been able to talk about the Search & Recovery, and some of the things he saw. I know he felt very bad about not being able to save everyone, even though he did save over 20 people, mostly from drowning in their homes as the water rose, just before the main surge rolled in...once the main surge came they were all trapped at the sub station, and indeed almost didn't make it back there in the ATV. Eventually we will talk about all that. I believe a lot of the people who drowned were older couples back in the county who just did not want to leave, from reading the obits afterwards.

I think finding out some figures on the storm surge and windspeeds are theraputic for both of us.

jcasey: hard facts? Not interested. No flame to you either. It is just very obvious you have not lived through one, so I feel you have no "real life" stats to go by. Go somewhere else with your drivel and stats, where you will be heard.

jcasey,

I don't think my mother's death, or the deaths of any of the other victims of hurricanes can be compared to the odds of winning the lottery. This is just the sort of false statistic people toss out when minimizing the problems of others. Nor can the number who suffered injury, illness, the loss of their homes, jobs, etc., be compared to those who won lesser prizes.

There is really no objective way to compare these disparate events. And why choose to compare power outages to loss-of-cars from accidents? There were 6 million of us without power after Wilma hit. My power was out for a week, my son's for 2 weeks, many others still have no power. Incidently, my car was totalled when my neighbor's flying roof hit it, and my husband's car sustained $3200 in damages. Why not compare car losses to car losses? Because none of it makes any sense.

But since you tossed out a "fact" - >Statistically, you are more likely to win the lottery than to be nailed by hurricanes, tornados, or earthquakes. Get real.< - then tell us where you got your "facts." Or better yet, maybe YOU could "get real" by examining your motives for posting your original message. This is a weather site. Dr. Masters and many who post here are making an effort to help people prepare for disaster and understand how the forces of nature work. Perhaps you could find a statistics site on which to post your totally fictional "facts."

As for flaming, I haven't seen anybody flame you. What we did was merely question your staitistics and your reasons for posting a somewhat hostile message. If your insulting message was received by a less-than-enthusiastic response, can you wonder why?

mouseybabe

jcasey, Can't get my goat, blew away in one of the many south Florida hurricanes in the last 15 months.Still buying lottery tickets.

Inviting jcasey to experience a "mininal hurricane " with me. Bring extra underwear.

mouseybabe, so sorry for your loss.

mousey.. Sounds like me. Tree limb fell on my daughter's car, and pool enclosure destroyed. I was eithout power 11 days. Lake Worth Utilities. Not my favorite anymore

code1,

Thanks for your kind words. I know many have lost much more, and I'm thankful for my blessings. But it's weird to reach the point where you're nobody's "baby" anymore. As for the house and cars, they're stuff and are replaceable.
mouseybabe

ah, melly, beautiful lake worth... when i moved to FL back in '72, my aunt called it the "home of the newlywed and the nearly dead"...don't think the newlyweds visit anymore...

now, i live in boynton, so i've got no room to talk!

mouseybabe

mousey, lost the "baby" tag myself this spring, so definitely know where you are coming from. Not nice to feel like an orphan, when you are an adult.

I was talking to my husband about the damage in Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties from Wilma the other night after talking to a good friend who lives in Broward. We both think the winds were higher than a Cat 1 like most reports are saying. I read alot about wind speeds and experiments they are doing after Ivan hit the Pensacola area last year. I really don't think they have a full grasp on the actual wind speed at ground level. And of course like I said before those gusts will do some serious damage. All you need is a couple Cat 3 gusts and it becomes alot worse than the Cat 1 no one prepares for. I wish more people would sit back and look at the horrific hurricanes the country has endured these 2 yrs and prepare as best as possible. Here in Punta Gorda not many people take any hurricane warning lightly now. The tornado devastation in Indiana and Kentucky is heartbreaking, they never knew what was coming. At least with a hurricane we can make choices. We had a waterspout here in Punta Gorda this summer. To me it looked like it was a tornado as we watched. My poor 8 yr old was the one who spotted it. I was walking through our livign room and I see him pointing across the canal with a look of horror on his little face. I said what is wrong buddy, he just points at it. I about dropped to the floor after living through Charley. All I could think of was getting in that closet again and hearing the roof get torn off again. Well half of it, we still hadn't had the tiles put on yet just the dry in. We had the cat in his cat carrier, and just as we were ready to head to the closet the water spout lifted back up into the cloud. I just stood there in shock thinking why do I stay in Florida? My poor son was crying saying you told me we would never have to go back to the clsoet again. I was just completely crazed. I felt like I was in a bad dream that would never end. To see my former home Broward County all ltorn up now just makes it worse. Well all of these storms this year have made it difficult. This winter we tried hard to move past Charley and the clsoet ride we call it. I guess you really never do for quite awhile.

You know what else no one seems to realize what happens to all of us affected by the hurricanes. In Florida homeowners insurance is so hard to get and if you get it how to pay for it??? Now they are cancelling policies or increasing rates so high no matter how many jobs alot of people could get it wouldn't pay for them. I have a good friend here in Charlotte County who lost their home to Charley. Had insurance but the 50% rule came into play and they couldn't afford to rebuild. The house was demolished and they sold the land. They now rent a home and cannot even come close to being able to afford a new home. These storms affect so much beyond loss of life and homes. Of course I am not saying that loss of life isn't the most important thing here. I wasn't sure if I would make it out alive in the closet or more so blaming myself for not evacuating and putting my child at risk but it was too late. People lose jobs, destroy their credit, crime rates rise. So many things change and it takes so long for normal to return. Our schools that were lost to Charley will take years to rebuild. I just thank god that Charley was not the norm for a Cat 4 storm since I live on the water. After seeing the horrible images after Katrina in MS and LA. The storm surge and the levees breaking made Charley look like a day in the park to me. I had just moved here on the water from a home 10 miles inland in Broward County. I never gave much thought to storm surge. To think of drowning in your home. Talking about it helps, it seems its all we do here still.

jcasey, you must not have been in a natural disaster. It is hell on earth. I have to drive by where there were over 100 homes and now looks like a junk yard. I had to watch my sister in law cry her eyes out because she lost her sister( who was pregnant), brother in law and nephew. I had to watch my 9 year old boy get upset enough to cry because he saw a little boy being dragged out of what was left of a home after seeing his father and sister killed before his eyes. I had to go without power for a couple of days. I could go on for about an hour about what has happened to me personally and luckily I wasn't in the tornado's path.

I live in Warrick County in Indiana. You really can not minimize the damage a tornado can cause. I have seen both hurricanes and tornados. I am not saying that one is better than another but I can tell you one thing that makes tornados worse in my mind. No one going through a hurricane will ever have to wake their 4 children up and rush them to a safe place in a matter of a couple of minutes and pray that they live. That was my last Sunday morning at 2:00.