#22 Postby PTPatrick » Sun May 17, 2009 8:31 am
I guess I am glad they changed the scale. I have always felt they dont give surge enough attention. Taking it on case by case basis is good, but the media outlets rather than just giving the projected surge values, should use there fancy computer graphics and such to simulate the surges for people. When Katrina hit and mom asked me where the water would go and I said it "might" stop at I-10...her attitude changed 100%. She had this vision that water on the MS could never be higher than Katrina... but its basically pretty sound sciece at this point to extrapolate waterlines from known elevations. We need to hear more of of " with a 25 foot surge x-building(that everyone in the area knows) will be underwater. I bet many lives would have been saved on the mississippi coast in Katrina is stations had been showing simulations of water reaching I-10, or the expected water level at a place like Edgewater mall. People need to know there elevations and local topography. My dad thought he was higher than he was because his original survey was incorrect. Either way...with my own limited knowledge of all this and rough estimate of the elevation of the house, I was able to specifically warn my folks how much water would be in there house given a MS/LA hit or a direct hit, and they got out. The problem is the "expected" surge potential usually only gets specific attention in the "local hurricane statments" which many folks never see because they too busy watching Jim Cantore walk around the beach.
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