It was a small party of my wifes co-worker....it was over...

we are not talking a Dorm room beer bash here...

Exactly. But, if you listen to them, they continually use the "90,000 square mile" figure when referring to the damage from the storm. It's complete and total BS. The amount of destruction is something close to 1/40 th of this value, and may even be less!

......of MS and LA. A good friend of mine lives in Fairhope, AL, and while they got their collective asses kicked, the place was up and running within a couple days.

I don't think that contradicts what I said, does it?

Point being that storm impacts are not uniform nor are they perfectly predictable. At some scale, predictability goes to near zero.

For example, Grand Isle got trashed but only a few miles away (Galiano) damage was slight. Same with Pensacola (and Fairhope). But Mobile Cty had many homes and businesses trashed by winds or flooded by storm surge. Anything between NOLA and Ocean Springs MS within a mile of the coast was severely damaged or utterly destroyed. Damaged decresed northward but extended above Jackson, MS.

The point being that damage estimates will vary with distance and direction from the eye wall.

B

Can we say that serious damage was limited to 50 miles from the coast?

If so, then the area is 8750 square miles. My original estimate was off because I assumed that the damage would be limited to 20 miles from the coast.

If there was destruction all the way to Jackson, then the size is doubled to 17,500 square miles...........a significant area..........but nowhere near the 90,000 square miles that is still in the media on a daily basis.

so why is the press collectively ignoring everyplace that suffered huricane damage to focus on a levy break?

or is it so they can play the race card and make it look like only poor blacks were effected?

Where did the media figure come from? I'll bet it is the sum of areas of all affected counties and parishes.

Who determines the area affected? Governor and FEMA, signed by the president.

B

I think their ability to predict storm paths is pretty impressive. I recall as a kid, if a hurricane meandered into the gulf, it was pretty much 'everyone run for your life!' -- I mean they had barely a clue. Now they seem to predict paths with remarkable accuracy -- certainy with enough accuracy to be really useful.

I agree.

The primary predition envelope encompasses the 50% (as I recall). That is, within that envelope there is a 50% probability of hurricane force winds within some period of time.

When do you call out the NG? When do you ask people to haul a$$? How much of a role should financial impact play?

B

Don't know. It's on CNN every hour. I don't think you can get 90,000 square miles, no matter how you calculate it. Sorry, it's simply too large an area.

CNN couldn't be wrong!

I haven't heard any figures, but lets' assume CNN has it right, that's 300 x 300 miles. Roughly Houma to Pensacola to Memphis? Maybe they include folks who were flooded by the storm as it passed northward? I dunno.

B

Me neither. As was mentioned previously, maybe it's the area that suffered heavy rainfall.

It's grossly misleading. This was the point of the discussion. But, I now understand that the media didn't make up the number, presumably.

Musical Chairs
 

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Hi Botnst,

Everyone in the hurricane path is crying Me TOO! Me TOO!
Do you think that it is a case of not wanting to be left out of a bit of federal aid?
When one of the kids is given some cotton candy, the others want some too.
It would be intersting to see how many outside of N.O. were asked to evacuate by their
local governments. I wonder how may outside of N.O. qualified for the $2000 debit card.

Ron (Canada)

The Media
 

Guys , think of the media as a bunch of second graders with cameras,limited
attention span,chronic inability to travel any further than they have to to
file a story,Etc.,Etc.,Etc.
If they could get away with showing the exact same scene and footage on all channels all the time ,they would .[surprise, the majority do!]
If we accept being spoon fed whatever their editors and publishers want,
shame on us!

There are excellent reporters and journalists (and producers) out there,
in the "Mainstream" media,all of them already permanent residents in
cemetaries.

I absolutely cannot wait for Mike Wallace and 60 minutes to detail EVERYBODYS stupidity and incompetance in this matter.(except the
E.M.T.s , cops, firepersons ,coast gaurdspersons,and thousands of
volunteers)

When you your prayers tomorrow please include the fine people of eastern
North Carolina ,they may be in for a bad week.

60 minutes needs to Zipper their lips....

remember Rathergate? where they falsely accused Bush and could not prove one thing....

not to mention when they rigged explosives to the pre '88 GM trucks to make them blow up and claim they were overly dangerous...