Apocalypse Not
Hurricane Gustav has been formally downgraded to a Category 2, and it is now coming ashore right about where the National Hurricane Center predicted it would, just south of Houma. Radar shows the northwestern core — or “eyewall,” though I’m not sure that term really applies in this case — getting a wee bit stronger, just in time to wallop Jim Cantore & Co. there:
Because of Gustav’s weakened state — which, 36 hours ago, no one could have predicted with any confidence — and its landfall location, it now appears almost certain that New Orleans will be spared:
Army Corps of Engineers chiefs say they anticipate no storm surge flooding due to Hurricane Gustav, which is turning out to be far less than what was previously forecast by the National Weather Service.
Live TV reports also suggest little if any serious wind damage in New Orleans — overhyped cries of “OMG!! DAMAGED TRAFFIC LIGHTS!!” notwithstanding. And although there are reports of some water coming over the Industrial Canal, the Arms Corps believes the wall itself will hold. Of course, we thought New Orleans had “dodged a bullet” with Katrina at first, too. So, cross your fingers. But if the levees fail, it will be because they (again) failed to live up to Army Corps promises, not because of Gustav’s strength and location. The Weather Channel is predicting 6 to 9 feet of storm surge, peaking in the next couple of hours. That will be enhanced in some of the canals. But the levee system should be able to withstand a surge like this.
With regard to the statement that Gustav is “turning out to be far less than what was previously forecast,” that’s not really fair, IMHO; “previously feared” would be more accurate. The official forecast in recent days has consistently called for something less than a worst-case catastrophe, but it was way too close for comfort, and there were plausible alternative scenarios whereby Gustav would be a calamity. The contemporaneous plausibility of these calamitous scenarios is not retroactively invalidated by the fact that, thankfully, a different scenario has occurred — indeed, a scenario more friendly to New Orleans than anyone dared hope Saturday night, when Gustav was a 150 mph monster that seemed destined to get stronger.
It is crucial that blogospheric and journalistic snark not take hold here. We must not use 20/20 hindsight to dismiss Gustav as having been naught but hype. There are, and will continue to be, plentiful examples of ridiculous media overhype, and those are deeply unfortunate. But the media always misbehaves, and not just with regard to weather. Cable news is buffoonish. This should surprise no one. What matters, though, is this: the forecasts were not “hype,” and the evacuations were not “hype.” Gustav had the legitimate potential to be far worse than this, and decisions had to be made at a time when we could not depend on the more favorable scenario that has instead occurred.
Yes, Mayor Nagin should have expressed himself with less certitude when he called Gustav the “mother of all storms.” But the precautions that he and others ordered, including the highly successful evacuation of New Orleans, were absolutely necessary at the time those decisions had to be made. That much cannot be seriously disputed. And it is deeply irresponsible to feed people’s sense of cynicism and complacency about hurricane warnings by carelessly suggesting otherwise.
P.S. Meanwhile, for the folks in Houma and environs, all this talk about how Gustav “could have been worse” would probably seem rather bizarre, if they could see it. A landfalling Category 2 is no walk in the park, particularly when you live in a marshland. This is, and will continue to be, a hellish day there. Let’s all remembe that there’s more to Louisiana than New Orleans, and just because our teevees show us that there’s no damage in the French Quarter doesn’t mean people aren’t suffering elsewhere.
UPDATE: “Small overtopping” at the Industrial Canal. Also this:
St. Bernard Parish Sheriff Jack Stephens and Parish President Craig Taffaro were on the Claiborne Avenue bridge, checking the water levels. Water was lapping over the wall on the Upper Ninth Ward side, but had not yet overtopped the side closest to the Lower Ninth Ward.
“It’s better than seeing cement collapsing but it’s not good,” Taffaro said.
“We’re worried about the pressure building up on this wall,” he said, pointing at the corner of the floodwall nearest to the Claiborne Avenue Bridge.
Meanwhile, a barge and two boats are loose in the Industrial Canal, a boat is sinking in the Mississippi River, and a power line is down across Interstate 10. Much more at the New Orleans Hurricane Center.
P.S. In comments, “Ragman” makes an excellent point:
Those who would try and characterize the government and NHC actions of the last few days as overreactions, are the same ones who’d crucify them if they underreacted.
Indeed.
I am glad that N.O. did evacuate – but it will be hard not to snark just a bit at the difference between Nagin’s response to Katrina and Gustav…
As for the “catagory 2 equals wimpy” crowd, I have 3 words for you: Tropical Storm Allison.
NPR is devastated. They put their maudlin Katrina retrospectives on hold cause they had such high hopes for Gustav but now they’re running a lot it anyway and they just sound confused. It’s very sad.
Brendan,
I am amazed I still have electricity and cable. Thank you for all your information and your emphasis on the levees. For New Orleans THAT is the important thing. I saw a quick video of what looks like the 9th Ward floodwalls. The Industrial Canal waters were almost to the top and the white caps were blowing over the edge. Still if the wall hold, ovettopping is not catestrophic.
Oh great! I barge is lose in the Industrial Canal! (Of course, it is Fox which was full of misinformation in Katrina.)
a lot *of* it I mean
The American Media: S.O.S.
Stuck.
On.
Stupid.
OK,
I have switched local news. It is the city side of the Industial Canal (the Gentilly or Upper 9th Ward) where overtopping is a concern. Mr. Bedey of the COE said they were concerned but they did do scour protection there to keep the wall from failing. Go to live streaming on WWLTV.com .
It really doesn’t look that bad. That’s a very good thing.
“But if the levees fail, it will be (again) because of Army Corps incompetence, not because of Gustav’s strength and location.”
That is unfair.
The Corps is not yet finished with a major project to beef up the levees, which have been maintained (poorly) for generations by a Byzantine (or is it Balkan?) patchwork of corrupt levee boards, that squandered much of their funding on the Good Ol’ Boy Network. The “(again)” refers to failures before that project even began.
I changed the wording to “failed to live up to Army Corps promises.” That, I think, is indisputably fair; the Corps’s assurances indicate that the levees, in their current state, should survive a storm like this.
I’m with Cathyf. We had huge damage from Tropical Storm Ernesto a few years ago simply because the ground was already saturated from a few weeks of off and on rain. In the NE, it’s the Nor’easters we don’t see coming on the radar that clash with a full moon and high tide that do real damage out of nowhere. Hang in there Houma.
Thanks for being a voice of reasoned commentary. On occasions like this, one has to reflect on the true democratic potential of the “internets.”
You did a very good job of blogging this I think. I don’t understand though how boats can be loose in the industrial canal. Are those people just stupid or what?
Brendan,
Can tornadoes form over NO with the eye his close? What strength?
Any opinion what a tornado could do to an overtopping levee wall?
I agree with you totally that the evacuations and the forecast were not hype. Even Mayor Nagin, although he could have chosen better words and phrases, I kind of give him a pass. I mean this is the man that used the term “Chocolate City”
I and Alan Sullivan have already mentioned this on our site but we are not done folks and Hanna could potentially be a bigger deal than Gustav and of course with in 12 maybe 24 hours we will have Ike. Things look like they are going to get interesting
Well, my meteorologist wife says we’re not out of the woods yet …
… the surge still looks like it could be a strong one.
About the only saving grace is the speed at which this storm is moving (as opposed to stalling like Fay).
Why single out cable news as buffoonish? Doctorj2u correctly points out that Fox, and Sheppard Smith in particular, was melodramatic and full of misinformation. But they were no different than any of the others. All, network as well as cable, newspaper and magazine also, overstated the deaths and rapes, etc. In fact, teh epitome of “buffoonish news” is Dan Rather, no cable newsman he.
Pet peeve: Parish president Taffaro worried about “cement” collapsing. That’s analogous to saying you’re going to toast a piece of flour. Just as flour is a main ingredient of bread, cement is a major ingredient making up concrete! The concrete might collapse, but the cement is already taken up within the material matrix of concrete.
I don’t know anything about this stuff, but those flood walls make me think of a line of soda crackers stood on end. Shouldn’t they be thicker? And higher?
News media sell fear. After all, when you can get people to be afraid, they tune in to the news.
There is nothing so new as Homer, and nothing so old as the News.
Bullseye on the call for minimizing snarki- and dismissiveness regarding Gustav’s predicted impact.
Those who would try and charactreize the government and NHC actions of the last few days as overreactions, are the same ones who’d crucify them if they underreacted.
Some people just complain.
Some people just like the sound of their own voice (blog?) and love to impress everyone with their 20/20 hindsight.
Some people are just jerks.
Remember the old newsman’s adage….if it bleeds, it leads. The media is only doing what it always does, presenting the public with the worst case scenario for anything, that’s how you get viewers to turn it. Of course, hyping problems that don’t exist works against them in the big picture, as trust for anything presented on the news diminishes over time. On a scale of believability, newspeople probably now rank below car salesmen and politicians in trust.
Does it make sense to live below sea level in a place prone to hurricanes? No. Does it make sense in both economic and human terms to have to evacuate a major city every time there’s a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico? No. Can levees every be built there that are hurricane-proof? Probably not. Conclusion: obvious.
NancyB:
Right. The “modern” steel reinforced and engineered concrete levees are the ones that have routinely failed. The old river levees made up of a thick base of real earth wide enough to hold the height of water with a considerable safety factor have never faile in my lifetime. I have been flooded twice by the Industrial Canal levee breaking.
Each time it fails there are long explanation of how the engineering was compromised and how they will correct it next time. It’s a joke.
An even bigger joke is having barges and ships break loose in the canal. That’s a dog bites man story. Tell when it didn’t happen during a major storm. That whole canal is very short and includes locks. It’s overall construction and maintenance is the defining example of Corps of Engineers incompetence. It is being stretched to the limit bay a storm that should not bother it at all.
Brendy-Boy, *you* are part and parcel of this “overhype” you now profess to deplore. What were you writing just yesterday?
Yeah. Whew. Let’s evacuate the whole frakking gulf coast because a windstorm is coming. Gee, thanks, alarmists, now I can pay an extra half-dollar for gas because a bunch of weak little women panicked.
Sheesh.
Sanssoucy, my prior posts speak for themselves. They have been consistently measured, and have portrayed the worst-case scenarios as just that — worst-case scenarios, not certainties. I challenge you to find any specific statement I’ve made that, in context, constituted unjustified “hype” at the time it was written, based on the data then available.
You are the problem here, not me. Did you even read what I wrote here? When you characterize the prudent precautions as “evacuat[ing] the whole frakking gulf coast because a windstorm is coming,” you are doing precisely what I decry in this post:
You’re doing precisely that “deeply irresponsible” thing. You, sir, are an ass. If you have anything serious and substantive to say in response to the above-quoted analysis, please say it. Otherwise, you are just being a troll, and I may choose not to approve your further comments. You’ve been warned.
Yeah. Whew. That’s the way to dismiss contrary opinion; erase them with censorship. Brilliant. Way to speak truth to power, eh?
You weather freakazoids are so predictable that you’d be laughable if you weren’t playing with people’s lives. Every spring, we hear; “SUPER-ACTIVE HURRICANE SEASON PREDICTED, EXPERTS SAY.” Then every tropical storm that forms is touted as “HELL STORM APPROACHES.” Then come the terrified calls to “FLEE, FLEE! AS NIGHTMARE SCENARIO UNFOLDS!”
Then the wee little windstorm proves to be nothing, and you guys move on to the next “HELL STORM APPROACHES! HANNAH TO DOOM FLORIDA!”
Shit, but I’m sick of this dopey schtick. Why don’t you just get a life, stop playing this Chicken Little game, and realize that hurricanes hit the Carribean every frakking year?
It’s just a bunch of windstorms. Stop wetting yourselves. Or move somewhere else.
..and next time, the jaded populace will be more reluctant to evacuate. After enduring dozens of hours on jammed evacuation routes, sleeping in their cars, running out of gas, all for nothing.
The only people that needed to leave were those below sea level, or just above. Everyone else was foolish and put themselves in greater danger, encouraged by this sensational, pathetic media blitz.
Fox News just reported that a tree – a whole *tree*!!!! – was uprooted in Louisiana.
Breaking News!!!!
Maybe it’s the fact that I live in the icy north that causes me such astonishment at the hurricane freakazoids; perhaps spending three solid months every single year in an environment that will kill you dead in about 60 minutes if you go outside without serious preparations tends to make one a bit blase about dangerous weather.
Is anybody in Florida or Lousiana going to freak out when I’m buried under four fukking feet of snow next February?
Is Brendan & Co. going to liveblog it when it’s 30 degrees below zero up here?
I don’t have a problem with “contrary opinion,” sanssoucy, but your opinions are totally lacking in substance. You’re not making an argument, you’re just making broad, sweeping, and totally inaccurate generalizations that fail to observe obvious, crucial distinctions. Thus, for instance, you lump me in with the people who say “SUPER-ACTIVE HURRICANE SEASON PREDICTED,” when in fact I’m on record as repeatedly decrying those pre-season forecasts are relatively useless and overhyped. Similarly, you accuse me of crying “HELL STORM APPROACHES,” a la Drudge or the cable news idiots, without acknowledging the various caveats and nuanced explanations that are always attached to my posts.
The reality is, you are not making an argument against overhype. You are making an argument against giving any warnings about hurricanes at all until it’s too late. You would decry every warning that could potentially prove, in hindsight, to have been unnecessary. That includes every single warning ever given.
That really sucks about the tree.
“Warnings” are fine. By all means, issue your “warning.” But do you ever STFU?
A relentless, 24/7, breathless liveblogging of a storm isn’t a “warning,” it’s hysteria. Sorry, Brendan, but you’re not even one step removed from Geraldo Rivera squealing, “IS THAT A *PERSON* IN THE WATER” even as the Mother Of All Storms proves to be Yet Another Fizzle.
See, you’re not issuing a “warning.” You’re issuing a pathological *series* of warnings that amounts to almost a perfect campaign of useless fearmongering.
How many posts have you issued about Gustav? A dozen? Two dozen? Where – exactly – do you imagine you cross a line from “issuing a warning” to “getting off on scaring people?”
Never?
LOL. So apparently it’s the quantity of my posts that determines the answer to this question, and not what I actually say in those posts. Nevermind that hurricanes change all the time, so the quantity of posts is necessary to keep things current, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the level of “fearmongering.” Apparently my coverage would be less scary if it was less thorough and timely. That’s a new one.
I notice that you still haven’t quoted a single thing I’ve said. It’s easy to see why: if you did quote my posts, with proper context, it would impossible to support your allegation that I’m “not even one step removed” from Geraldo’s ridiculousness.
I’m done with this ridiculous debate. You’re fundamentally unserious.
Why would I want to quote something you’ve said, when you’ll say all of it, all over again, the next time a BIG SCARY STORM approaches [insert anywhere here]?
There’s no need for “quoting.” You hysterics are like parrots; you say the same things over and over and over again. “DEADLY STORM LOOMS!” “DR. JEFF MCALARMIST SEZ STORM *MAY* END ALL LIFE ON EARTH – OR MAYBE NOT”.
And so on.
I’m reminded of the classic skewering of economists and recessions in the statement:
“Weather alarmists have accurately predicted twelve of the last two weather disasters.”
Sadly, the fact is that the weather itself has become politicized.
The Republicans actually delayed their convention because they are afraid the Democrats will call them “callous and uncaring” to be doing business in Minnesota while it’s raining in New Orleans.
Gleeful avowed atheist Democrat operatives proclaim God is in his heaven and on their side in attacking the Republicans with a storm.
Was one football game postponed other than any directly in the storm’s path? Does that mean the NCAA is uncaring? I heard the perfunctory “our prayers are with Louisiana” announcer comment then, “Back to the game and now this from our sponsor!”
We have now come to the point where it is the President’s fault if any idiot parks himself in the path of a stinkin’ hurricane and suffers any consequences. Or even if his house blows down. Jeesh. We have truly become wusses of the first order. Help me oh Almighty Government because I built my house below water!
I guess what I’m essentially saying is that it would be nice if journalists – and bloggers – could be held accountable for their shameless alarmism. As it stand now, any dipshit with a keyboard can relentlessly hype the worst-case scenarios regarding every little windstorm that blows up.
Maybe it would make sense to require every self-selected hurricaneblogger to post a $1,000 bond and surrender it every time he talked shit and got proven wrong.
Brendan and Geraldo would be out roughly $134,000 by now.
sanssoucy, the proper way to understand the situation is this:
Two days ago, there was something like a 1 in 6 chance that Gustav would be close enough to that “worst case” track Brendan drew on the map, and come in at Cat. 3 or higher strength, after having been a 4 or even 5 after feasting on the Loop Current, producing a storm surge more consistent with a far more powerful storm.
If that had happened, we wouldn’t be discussing whether to blame the Corps of Engineers or the sundry Levee Boards for shoddy construction; their quality (or lack thereof) would have been irrelevant, for the waters of Pontchartrain would have poured over even the mightiest walls erected at their height, and turned much of New Orleans into a toilet bowl. Literally.
But one could easily miss the commingling of waste water with the flood waters, were there tens of thousands of decomposing corpses and the wreckage of shattered houses floating along with the excrement. That’s because it wouldn’t have happened as gradually as it did with Katrina (which missed being this worst-case scenario only very slightly); it would have filled that bowl so quickly that people who stayed in homes under the level of the lake would have been drowned inside them before they could escape.
What Brendan said three years ago, and said again a few days ago, is that even though odds like “1 in 6″ qualify an event as “unlikely”, rational thinking people must also take into account the severity of such “unlikely” events. Nagin hyped it only by failing to insert “may be” in his pronouncements. Loy, Masters, Neudorff, and other responsible commentators on weather have been very clear about the odds.
They don’t recommend playing Russian Roulette, even though the odds of dying are “only 1 in 6″ per pull of the trigger.