Definition of a Catastrophic Hurricane in New Orleans

[Mattie]

http://www.kenner.la.us/hurricane_jpep.html (A great link to hurricane preparedness steps for everyone also. Just cruise through the site)


Hurricane protection levees have been built to protect life and property from storm surge. These levees do a very good job protecting communities during minimal hurricanes. However, sophisticated computer modeling of storm surge effects indicates most levees in Southeast Louisiana would be overtopped from the storm surge generated by a direct strike of a major hurricane, resulting in widespread flooding.

A catastrophic hurricane for Southeast LA is defined as a Category 3-Slow (average 5mph forward speed) and all Category 4 or 5 hurricanes. Hurricanes in Categories 1, 2 and fast-moving 3 (average 15mph forward speed), are considered less destructive and dealt with through the use of normal emergency preparedness procedures.

[WeatherNLU]

Walter Maestri was on the news not more than two weeks saying that they have have looked at this very hard and now believe that all CAT 3 and even now slow moving CAT 2's would cause terrible destruction.

[charleston_hugo_veteran]

IVAN...

[Scorpion]

Wow, NO needs to watch out!

[wabbitoid]

Hurricane force winds extend out 90 miles, so if a Cat2 is a disasterous that means a strike between Lafayette and not quite as far as Mobile could be a problem.

[WeatherNLU]

Hurricane force winds extend out 90 miles, so if a Cat2 is a disasterous that means a strike between Lafayette and not quite as far as Mobile could be a problem.

Well, not exactly. The biggest problem here is the water. If a cane hits that far away the surge will be much less here. Rainfall would be a huge problem, but without the surge, the catastrophic flooding that is possible would probably not come into play.

I am going to look for a link to Maestri (Jefferson Parish Emgy. Ops. Director) comments.

[wabbitoid]

The biggest problem here is the water. If a cane hits that far away the surge will be much less here. Rainfall would be a huge problem, but without the surge, the catastrophic flooding that is possible would probably not come into play.

I see, so is it surge through Ponchtrain that is the problem, meaning landfall around Biloxi, or is it coming the other way also an issue, across the Bayous?

[BigO]

THe big concern is that the storm will push water through the Rigolets into Lake Pontchartrain, doubling it in volume. Then, the trailing wind on the west side of the eye (north) would push all of that water over the levees and into the city.

Having crossed that levee many times, it isn't a far-fetched scenario. Georges Had water up over the railroad levee. Last year Isidore had the water up to 10 feet.