Final Ivan Thoughts From New Orleans

[Sean in New Orleans]

In opening, I'd like to say that I sincerely hope that all of our brethren in Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida fared well through this storm and that later today, the clean-up may begin and by Monday most of you will have some sense of "normalcy" return to your lives and the routine pattern of life sinks back in to your schedule.
Ivan was an interesting system that was destined to come to the Northern Gulf region from it's inception which is evident from a majority of systems that form into hurricanes at such low latitudes in the Atlantic. Regardless of what models tell us, it's difficult to see systems in the Southern Caribbean move up the East coast. They, generally, slam into the Yucatan or enter the Gulf of Mexico through the Channel (which Ivan pretty much did).
Ivan followed a predicted path and caused a major stir among those in the Central Gulf region as its path easily could have varied by 100 or so miles all the way up until it's last day. This is evident by the mass evacuation from New Orleans all the way to Apalachicola. The NHC's cone remained unusually large for Ivan all the way until it almost reached the Mouth of the Mississippi River. Even on Ivan's final night before the storms day of striking the system tracked NW for a good 50 miles straight towards the SE Lousiana region. Thank the good Lord, for New Orleans, it did make a gradual turn North and missed our region. New Orleans is unique along the Gulf, in that, it is below sea level and almost all other regions do form some sense of elevation away from the shore.
As for the future of Ivan in the SE United States up to the Appalachians, the system still is extremely dangerous, and unfortunately, a majority of US deaths from Ivan are still ahead of us---most hurricane deaths come from flooding and not the winds. I hope that many in the Appalachian mountain region will take serious note of all of the warnings we are hearing right now about the likelihood of massive flooding and do take necessary precautions to protect life and property. Ivan is a tightly wound system still that is still a strong tropical storm that will take quite some time to unwind and die. It has a huge amount of energy still to release.
I do believe that this may be "the system," for this hurricane season for the United States. I hope I'm right. We've endured enough for this season. Also, today is September 16, and within the next two weeks or so, most of us will begin to feel, consistently, the pleasant dry cool air that leads us back to Winter.
In closing, I would like to send a brief apology for abrubtly leaving yesterday and not returning. Tensions for many were simply running too high and as a person who is in their mid 30's I still haven't reached the threshold in life where I can tolerate a great deal of drama particularly among younger posters, accusations of -removed-, and silly name calling. It's probably my own fault, but, it simply gets in my way of focusing, therefore, I had to leave yesterday.
Sean