Joz, Joan, Jo-Ann

[digitS']

Jomoncon . . . how are those three Louisiana gardeners' names so similar?

Anyway, I don't suppose gardening is very much on your mind this morning. Teevee says 400,000 are without power this morning but I bet that is a changing scenario. We all would like to know how things are going for all of you today.

:/

Steve

 

[Southern Gardener]

Good morning Steve. I got up early this morning to catch the weather and see how my neighbors to the south were doing. Big bad storm that one. We're not under the gun way up here. We'll get rain and some wind out of it tomorrow and could spawn tornados. I hope my fellow southern gardeners are all safe and well.

 

[897tgigvib]

I've never been to Louisiana or the caribean coast but I've always wanted to go there. Not all the tourist places or the Mardi Gras, but right to the Mississippi's delta. On one of those propellor boats, travel slowly upstream, take tributaries, see Ponchetrane.

Those places are so fragile, changing, and such special environments.

After Katrina, while I lived in Montana, several families of refugees came up to Montana to live and work. They were from "as far south of New Orleans as you can get and still have dry land". Montanans did not have the fancy relief for them that some states had, but convoys of trucks went down there filled with bales and rolls of hay. Some of those trucks returned with refugees. They became good important folks in town, had jobs waiting for them, electrical technicians some of them. The ladies came to the nursery where I worked. They were doing yardwork for others. Their accent. Wow. Something about women with that accent, and the "genteel" the older lady called it.

Yes, let's hope they will be alright. You can be sure they are all working hard for preparations.

 

[digitS']

Thanks, Joan!

The storm seems so slo o o w . . . I hope we aren't going to learn that it tracks back out a ways and then makes landfall again.

I like to use this thing to see how the next 7 days might play out: Pressures & Fronts thru Day 7 (click)

In New Orleans, they are predicting gradual decreasing of the storm thru the night and tomorrow. Sheesh! After all that time, I bet they will be glad to see it go.

I was lost south of New Orleans once, Marshall. Luckily, it was in a car . . . We had a regular TEG gardener who went to school in Montana and, she and her family, moved to New Orleans after Katrina to do the rebuilding. Big country, people moving both ways - as it should be.

Steve

 

[Carol Dee]

For now the weather stations are predicting rain up our way in a few days from this. Way up the Mississippi River , we NEED rain, but they DO NOT need a hurricane. So I am keeping everyone in the path of this storm in my thoughts and prayers.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I lived in south Louisiana, mainly the New Orleans area, for over three decades and have kids and a grandkid down there now. So, yeah, I am watching closely. They all elected to shelter in place, which was the recommendation for their areas. As you can imagine, different areas have different risks.

The winds can certainly cause damage and especially power outages but the real danger to people is from water. Storm surge is the big risk, but rain can cause problems. You'll notice the people that have problems were practically always in areas that should have been evacuated or where a levee failed.

I'm watching the Weather Channel and keep hearing Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish, say that they are getting water in places they did not get from Katrina. Well, DUH! Katrina came ashore east of New Orleans. Isaac is coming ashore west of New Orleans, on the other side of the Mississippi delta. With the counterclockwise rotation in these things, the storm surge is going to be totally different. He knows that. He's just playing the dumb hick for sympathy. Nungesser is not dumb. If Katrina had come ashore west of New Orleans instead of east (where it was originally predicted) the damage would have been totally different. Katrina would still have been a nasty storm but it would not be a famous one.

The big problem with this one is that it is so slow-moving and it is a wet one. It's going to dump a lot of rain and the land is so flat it is slow to run off. In New Orleans and the East Bank of Jefferson Parish, the pumps to get that water out are world class. Venice Italy sends engineers to study the New Orleans pumping system, it's that good. Certain low-lying areas always flood in a heavy rainstorm but those pumps can handle a lot of water. Those pumps have their own generators and their own fuel supplies. I don't expect the pump failures they had with Katrina and I certainly don't expect the major levee failures. I still consider Katrina a manmade disaster because of the levee failures. Those levees were not designed properly, were not built properly, and were certainly not maintained. I lived there at the time and you can probably tell I am still bitter about that.

Some people will be thinking why did certain people not evacuate even if there was a mandatory evacuation. Hurricanes and tropical storms are a way of life down there. With a some people living in the outlying areas, a typical response it to batten things down and go to Granny's to ride it out in a house that has stood through hurricanes for many decades if not over a century or two. You are going to lose power so clean out the freezer and make a gumbo. Just ride it out.

Besides think about the costs of evacuation. It takes money to buy gas, eat out, find a place to stay, all that. But it is not just money, which a lot of people don't have much of. It's stressful to evacuate. Traffic really backs up. It can take 12 hours to travel what would normally take a couple of hours. A friend evacuated her elderly father for Katrina. He died from the stress in the car with grandkids in the car. Just evacuate? Its not always that easy.

There will be dramatic things shown on TV. Some people will have real personal tragedies. I'm not trying to downplay this thing at all. It's nasty. Some people will really be hurt. A lot more people will be inconvenienced but most will be OK.

 

[Smiles Jr.]

Can you imagine how terrible it would be if Issac was as powerful and slow as Katrina was? NOLA might not even exist today. We moved back to Indiana from Slidell, LA just two weeks before Katrina hit. I was on a temporary 18 month project in New Orleans at that time just before my retirement. S. E. Louisiana is one of my favorite places in the world.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'll admit this storm did a lot more damage than I expected. It was so slow moving that it just kept pounding the same places. And that surge just kept on building.

My kids in New Orleans and Baton Rouge are still without power but they are doing OK. Hopefully they can get the power back pretty soon.

 

[Southern Gardener]

Well, I was hoping for more than 1/4 inch of rain from Isaac, but no luck up here - just a little wind and even less rain.

 

[digitS']

1/4 of an inch?!!

That would be a rainstorm around these parts but in NW Louisiana . . ? I wouldn't expect so!



Steve