#28 Postby Audrey2Katrina » Tue Sep 12, 2017 1:03 pm
Steve wrote:I'm talking US impacts. The levees broke because they were faulty. We'd seen a weakening major run the basic route in the Gulf before 40 years prior with Betsy and 36 years before had a similar North Gulf track but stronger storm with Camille. There have been other NE hooking storms weakening coming into landfall along the NC/NE Gulf. It wasn't even atypical for its year as a Cat 5 as there were several others. We will see similar storms in the future. We most likely won't see a situation similar to Harvey again. I didn't believe Harvey will break the record and still don't. But I think his situation is unique. I'm glad you recognized I'm not one trying to claim a storm. I lost everything in Katrina. What I'd say was most unique about it was that it carried a Cat 5 surge although it was a Cat 3. That's something particularly interesting about it to me. But the landfall and track in the Gulf were nothing special. Neither were most of the effects here in New Orleans. Gusts to 100, several inches of rain, bent power poles and downed trees, etc. The MS Gulf Coast took the brunt of the surge there which was devastating. But again, I don't see it as a unique storm. We had other Cat 5's in the Gulf that year, with Rita being abnormally large and getting far west later in the year followed by Wilma which was the lowest pressure ever.
Where I come from (and live) we call that a faulty analogy. Betsy passed to the WEST of New Orleans, not the East which is what Katrina did... it was NOT the "basic route" and we had much more land (roughly the size of the state of Connecticut) between us and the Gulf back then. Camille was stronger but MUCH smaller--check the data, I'm sure you'll be able to verify that--it's hurricane wind radius was about 25 miles while Katrina's was well over 100 miles... again.. bad analogy. Size isn't all that relevant either, Rita and Katrina were about the same size, and intensity wise, the difference was 7 hPa...not a whole lot... or, if you think so, then Katrina, which was 12 hPa lower than Irma was WAY more intense! Rita also made landfall as a weakening Cat 3 and yet in her own way, she, too was unique.-- Remember, New Orleans runs out all the way to N.O. east and I assure you they had more than 100 mph "gusts" because I had a friend who rode the storm out in one of those buildings near the MRGO. -- they recorded sustained winds over 100 mph. How long did Harvey maintain winds of 100 mph+? Does it matter? NO, because Harvey was a cataclysmic RAIN maker--just as Katrina was a cataclysmic surge producer. As far as the flooding...yeah, it was a result of some faulty levees, it was also a case of others being overtopped... I have film of the MRGO clearly being overtopped. Not that it matters because without the storm, you don't have the surge... without the surge you don't have the flood-- bottom line is the storm precipitated everything that followed. In their own way EVERY hurricane is "unique" -- but I maintain that Katrina was and will always be quite unique, for as you pointed out, her surge alone was a record breaker--surpassing cat 5 landfalling Camille... and by a LOT. There are good reasons they keep records on all these record-breaking storms--and it's called their uniqueness, Katrina was no ordinary storm--the death toll of 1800 (approx) alone is the highest since the Okeechobee storm nearly three-quarters of a century earlier. You can grasp at straws by saying those were caused mostly by flooding which, in full context is completely non-sequitur. By no stretch of the imagination was Katrina "ordinary".
A2K
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Audrey2Katrina on Tue Sep 12, 2017 1:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Flossy 56, Audrey 57, Hilda 64*, Betsy 65*, Camille 69*, Edith 71, Carmen 74, Bob 79, Danny, 85, Elena 85, Juan 85, Florence 88, Andrew 92*, Opal 95, Danny 97, Georges 98*, Isidore 02, Lili 02, Ivan 04, Cindy 05*, Dennis 05, Katrina 05*, Gustav 08*, Isaac 12*, Nate 17, Barry 19, Cristobal 20, Marco, 20, Sally, 20, Zeta 20*, Claudette 21 IDA* 21