Hurricane Katrina Storm Surge In Mississippi Video

[Frank P]

I'm quite convinced after looking at the water line in the standing homes in my neighborhood that I had at least a 24-25 foot storm surge on the front beach in west Biloxi... the house (small cottage 10 feet from the back of my property line) behind me had a 7 foot water line in the surviving walls, and its at least 18 feet above sea level... my garage slab was surveyed at 18 feet last year, and the cottage behind my house is pretty much at the same level, if not a couple of inches higher... I checked out about six standing but destroyed homes and apts in my neighborhood... all had very consistant water marks that would validate at least a 25 foot storm surge... (plus or minus a foot at best)... my neighor on the corner lot, two lots inland stayed in his house.. he said the water surge almost got into his second floor... about a foot below.. which is about 7 feet above his slab, which is about level with my property... again validation of the 25 foot mark... I'm not sure how the wave action played on all of this however... be it 25 foot total surge, or 25 foot surge with some wave action on top... one other neighbor who filmed the surge, said he saw waves breaking on the second floor of the neighbor on the corner lot, breaking on his second floor dormers... sure would like to see the video on this if he has it...

[MGC]

I was driving through what is left of Downtown Pass Christian the other day. I stopped to talk to a man doing survey work and asked him if he knew the elevation above sea level where we were (2nd St). He said we were 15.71 feet above sea level. Debris is still in many trees that was placed there by the water. I'm around 5 feet and the debris was a good ten feet above my head. So, without question the water was near 30 feet in the Pass.....MGC

[timNms]

was there surge near 40 ft NHC says otherwise

Was there not surge near 40 ft even tho NHC was not[/b]there to witness it first hand?

Exactly how do the experts measure surge? Do they measure the water marks in every location that the surge touched, or is it just a certain number of spots that are investigated?

I can tell you that my friends from Waveland (one of which is a retired NWS met. with over 30 yrs experience) said that during the height of the surge, people were being rescued by boats from the tops of trees. Exactly how tall is a Mississippi Pine tree? and how high would the water have been for it to get to the tops of those pines?

Something for the experts to think about.

I'd venture to guess that there will never be a true, undisputable estimate of the surge because there is not a lot left along the coast to measure it by.

[f5]

my gut feeling is that surge in waveland is higher than what NHC says it is