We didn’t get much of anything from Isaac, but US-98 on our barrier island was nearly undercut again from the mild surge. They just finished all of the repairs from several hurricanes that were quick ‘patch’ jobs to get the road open. They need a five mile causeway if they want to keep the road, because another half foot of surge would have cut it again. It is being cut on the bay side of the island, not the Gulf side. The Gulf side has dunes that protect it, but there is nothing on the bay side.
We will have memories and little else because wealthy corporations own the government.
]]>You want to know what sad is, find Golden Meadow, LA on Google Maps and switch to satellite view. See those dikes around Golden Meadow? Those are new. They weren’t needed even 20 years ago. In 20 years, those dikes are going to be the new southern border of Louisiana. Follow LA 1 south from Golden Meadow. Note that they had to build a new LA 1 Causeway where LA1 hits the Houma Indian reservation (of which little remains other than the docks), this is all post-Katrina because LA 1 washed out and the places it isn’t washed out are only a few inches above water at high tide now. There were towns down there, even 20 years ago, all along LA 1, there were many towns south of Golden Meadow, and there was no open water anywhere, it was all marsh with just the one canal that ran along LA 1, and solid land on the other side of LA 1. Now there’s nothing down there until you get down near Port Fouchon, and Port Fouchon washed away with Katrina so there’s not much down there even. Grand Isle still exists only because they dredged it back out of the Gulf of Mexico after Ivan and Katrina, and continue doing so every year, but I don’t know how long they’re going to manage doing that…
Louisiana is fsked. Period.
– Badtux the Sad Penguin
]]>Actually I was thinking about my area where flood insurance is available, but people buy the wind insurance and don’t bother with the flood insurance. The insurance companies blame everything on the water and actually don’t lose much money on the coast, despite what they claim to justify their outrageous rates.
If they allow the marshes to rebuilt with some help from man, things would get better, but I don’t really expect that to happen.
]]>You can’t buy flood insurance in Plaquemines Parish. It’s already been written off by the Feds as underwater.
]]>Between FEMA and the BP settlement maybe they’ll do something about their levees, but I’m not holding my breath. Real fixes for real problems never seem to get funded when a chunk of money lands in the laps of local pols. Their first concern is to get it in the pockets of their relatives and friends [speaking of Haley Barbour].
Everyone fixates on the wind speed, and it is the always the water that causes the damage. People are spending thousands a year on wind damage insurance, and don’t buy flood insurance, which is what they really need.
At least they haven’t blocked the roads to keep help out like they did during Katrina.
]]>It looks set to parallel the Mississippi then head out on the Ohio River.
If that moron Barbour was right about the soybeans ready for harvest in Mississippi, they have been drowned.
I see where PBJ wants Zero to give him 100% reimbursement for everything. Piyush needs to talk to the Repubs in the House, because I don’t see that getting by Cantor and the crazies, after Louisiana pulled attention away from the coronation of Rmoney by having a hurricane. This is a second offense, as they did the same thing in 2008 with Gustav and the coronation of McCain. You have to wonder why Louisiana keeps having hurricanes during the Repub convention. It’s very suspicious 😉
We’ve had a constant South wind all day long, but it has been mostly sunny. We’ve had more sunshine during Isaac than the rest of the month combined. Just two short squalls.
They must have actually properly installed the cell towers after the rash of hurricanes that has beset Southern Louisiana. Ours got fixed after Ivan, and should be good up to Cat 4 at least. A lot of solar panels around these days for billboards, cell towers, and some traffic signals.
]]>It isn’t so much the track, as the internal behavior of the storm that we can see on the radar loops that is driving everyone up the wall. Instead of the eyewall contracting until it collapsed and being replaced by an outer eyewall, this sucker was attempting to create an inner eyewall, reversing the process. I would still like to know where all of the dry air was coming from that was inhibiting the intensification. It has been ‘moistening the atmosphere’ so long the mold has mildew, but it kept sucking dry air into its core.
It’s moving but not quickly, and it will definitely be dropping enough rain in the Mississippi Valley to flush the couple of hundred miles of salt water that got pushed up the river by the storm surge.
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