Isaac's Toll Much Great Than Expected From a Cat 1 Hurricane

Isaac came ashore a category 1 storm, but its toll on the northern Gulf coast has exceeded what one might expect from a “low-end” hurricane. Its large size helped it spread vast quantities of water ashore - both from the ocean and the sky. Not to mention it has spawned numerous tornadoes and led to hundreds of thousands of power outages.

Rainfall

New Orleans

*Average rainfall totals around New Orleans have been in the 9-12” range.

* New Orleans International Airport has officially received 9.69” and it’s still raining.

* The 7.86” New Orleans International Airport received Wednesday set a daily rainfall record shattering the 4.5” mark established during Katrina in 2005. And it’s more than the city averages in an entire month (5.98”)

* The National Hurricane Center said last night an unofficial total of 18.35” was reported in Gretna, Louisiana

Here are some other totals measured from around the Crescent City:

Audubon Park: 11.19” (through Wednesday)
New Orleans City Hall: 11.5”

Mississippi

* The bulls-eye for extreme rainfall has occurred around Pascagoula where around 20” of rain has fallen according to two WeatherBug stations there which have recorded 21.37 and 17.74”. Severe flooding has been reported in that area - not to mention a tornado touched down in the vicinity.

* Some other totals from MS:

Gulfport: 9.59” (through Wednesday)
Waveland: 8.69”
Biloxi: 4.61” (WeatherBug report)

Alabama/Florida

*Generally 2-5” fell along the coast of Alabama to the western panhandle of Florida. Here are a few totals:

Mobile Airport: 4.67”
Pensacola (Fl): 2-3”

Total output

* The Weather Channel’s Greg Forbes estimates Isaac will produce 23.5 trillion gallons of rain water or enough to fill 35.6 million swimming pools.

Storm surge

* Generally speaking, the highest storm surge levels were around 8-10 feet in southeast Louisiana and coastal Mississippi.

* Via Jeff Masters:

“The peak 11.06′ storm surge at 1:30 am EDT this morning at Shell Beach, which is in Lake Borgne, 20 miles southeast of New Orleans, exceeded the 9.5′ surge recorded there during Category 2 Hurricane Gustav of 2008. In general, the storm surge heights from Isaac have been more characteristic of a strong Category 2 hurricane, rather than the weak Category 1 hurricane”

Wind gusts

* Weather.com reports a wind gust to 113 mph was clocked in Belle Chasse, southeast of New Orleans along the Mississippi river.

* Wind has gusted to at least 30 mph for 51 straight hours at New Orleans International Airport

* The peak wind gust at New Orleans International Airport was 68 mph recorded at 4 and 5 a.m. Wednesday morning

* The WeatherBug network clocked a gust to 90 mph at East Jefferson General Hospital just to the northwest of downtown New Orleans

Tornadoes and tornado warnings

* NOAA issued 47 tornado warnings Wednesday and received 9 tornado reports

* NOAA has already issued nearly 40 tornado warnings this morning and received at least 3 reports

Power outages

* The storm knocked power out to nearly 700,000 customers in southern Louisiana as of this morning (source: New Orleans Times-Picayune)

* 150,000 customers were without power in Mississippi (source: Clario n Ledger)

Potential economic cost

Via Reuters: “Hurricane Isaac has caused up to $1 billion in economic losses for offshore energy properties and up to $1.5 billion in insured losses onshore in Louisiana and neighboring states, disaster modeler Eqecat said on Wednesday.”

Additional reading

New Orleans: By the Numbers (weather.com)

By Jason Samenow | 11:01 AM ET, 08/30/2012

Why People Don't Evacuate: Bottom Line

George, like thousands of others in the low-lying parish of Plaquemines, had ignored an evacuation order despite hammering rain and the fateful anniversary of hurricane Katrina. "I suppose it was foolish to stay, but I had no money, so I stayed," he said.

Interesting, isn’t it, that this can be said in a British newspaper, but we don’t print this sort of thing in either the local or national papers in the U.S.

At the moment, people are having to evacuate along the Louisiana - Mississippi border. They are being removed if they don't go voluntarily.

According to NPR News (as of 1 PM), Jindal is ordering the intentional blowing of the Plaquemines's levee on the east bank today. Shades of the dna memory of the Flood of 1927, which is referenced in Beasts of the Southern Wild.

Bad Enough

Thank goodness it wasn't worse.

Our friends are in for some uncomfortable, inconvenient and in some cases, expensive times for a while, at least until the power grid for their area comes back to life.  A lot of them have classes and students to sort out too, as this was the first week of the semester for so many.  Maybe the institutions should re-think the idea of opening this week of August?

Further south and west though, things are worse.

We can only hope that as Isaac finally lumbers its way north the tons of water dropped on the drought-parched lands will be able to penetrate the ground and replenish some of the regions' moisture.

Also hope all the fellow-traveling tornadoes are wound down.

The last bits seem scheduled to hit us on the 6th, which probably means a little wind and some rain.

Funny it isn't, that prior to 2004, I never even thought about hurricanes or posted about them.  Hurricane Ivan changed all that.

El V, of course, growing up his first years in Louisiana, has always been hurricane sensitive, and since Katrina he's rabidly phobic on the subject, always ordering everyone to EVACUATE, NOW!

Hurricane Isaac Or Not: New Orleans Still Sewing

Indians not bowing down.

E-mail from Cherise + photo:  Sewing.  Gonna be the prettiest for sure!

New Orleans - Isaac

This storm is much rougher than anticipated earlier.

It's so big and so frackin' slow.

Reports from friends via text is last night not good.  No sleep.  Periodically the wind shook one friend's house so hard that the newly built shelves came loose from the wall studs, dumping avalanches of  books.

Power's gone in many places in New Orleans, including our friends', they text -  as well as elsewhere -- 450,000 according to reports.  Our friends' phones will be out of juice before the day's out, no doubt.

It's going to be a very long day for our friends on the Gulf.  It could continue beyond today. Isaac's that frackin' slow.

New Orleans

You are in my heart and mind.

So are the pumps.

Be well!  Be safe!

Love is being sent you from everywhere.

A Tide Turned - African Returnees

Their parents and / or grandparents left their African homes in search of a more secure and prosperous life.  Now their children and grandchildren are coming back.  They are returning for all kinds of reasons.  It isn't necessarily easy, and it certainly is expensive.  Yet, for instance, a woman wrote this article concerning the reverse migration.  She includes this:

[ " "Who needs the glass ceiling when you could be running your own business in one of the world's fastest-growing economies, enjoying the warm weather and surrounded by your own people?" one returnee to Ghana told me. "There is no contest." " ]

Women have traditionally been the market, run the market in so many African cultures.  In business they are plugging right back into that status when they come back to their family's country.  I hadn't thought of that until reading this article.

The article is long and tries to cover all the aspects, negative as well as positive.  Being a returnee herself, she focuses on an area that in this country, with our current confusion outright bigotry to racialist disputes that debate cultural appropriation and cultural appropriateness, we could do well to consider deeply -- because, you know, not everywhere does it the way we're doing it here:

[ " The battle for the image of Africa – helpless and underdeveloped versus rapidly emerging economic giant – often gets personal. Journalists frequently, and rightly, draw criticism for describing a continent of 54 nations and breathtaking diversity as one country. But some commentators are quick to employ a definition of what it means to be African that excludes returnees like me for being too fair-skinned, too British or too westernised.

But being African is an increasingly complex identity. As someone who has been told she is too black to be British, and too British to be African, I am strongly against the notion that identity can be policed by some external standard. And I am not alone. The term "Afropolitan" is beginning to enter the mainstream; one definition describes it as: "An African from the continent of dual nationality, an African born in the diaspora, or an African who identifies with their African and European heritage and mixed culture.

"It doesn't matter whether they are born abroad or not; the important thing is their global perspective on issues, as well as their mixed cultural identity."
The enthusiasm with which people of African heritage around the world are embracing their roots has reached the level of a cultural resurgence. In stark contrast to my teenage Africa-denial, a significant number of international cultural icons are now African. The black British music scene is dominated by rappers with Ghanaian heritage – Tinchy Stryder, Dizzee Rascal and Sway. Azonto, a popular Ghanaian dance, has begun colonising clubs in London, a growing number of which now include Afrobeat on regular rotation.

This is not to dismiss the inequalities that still exist between Africa's increasingly visible international, urban elite – a category many returnees fall into – and the vast majority of Africans.

The reality is that, on so many levels, access to the west is still a fault line for determining privilege. For example, entrepreneurs in west Africa currently find that borrowing money for their businesses typically comes with interest rates of up to 30%, an unrealistic burden by any standard. Returnees, on the other hand, who have access to loans from foreign banks, can enjoy single-digit interest rates, effectively dominating local markets. " ]

You see all that she speaks of in this article in the large cities all around the world, including right here in NYC.