Joe Maller.com

NOAA Warning for Hurricane Katrina

I’ve never seen anything like this advisory:

URGENT – WEATHER MESSAGE
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA 413 PM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

…EXTREMELY DANGEROUS HURRICANE KATRINA CONTINUES TO APPROACH THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER DELTA…

…DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED…

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS…PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL…LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE…INCLUDING SOME
WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY…A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD…AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS…PETS…AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS…AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING…BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED.

AN INLAND HURRICANE WIND WATCH IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR HURRICANE FORCE…OR FREQUENT GUSTS AT OR ABOVE HURRICANE FORCE…ARE POSSIBLE WITHIN THE NEXT 24 TO 36 HOURS.

Wikipedia’s Hurricane Katrina page is proving to be an exceptional resource for additional information.

(Via Jeff at Shape of Days)

Updated Feb 16, 2007, after a reddit link: Fixed formatting and pointed the first link to NOAA archive thanks to CB’s comment for the url, though a quick quick Google Search finds this text all over the place.

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19 Comments so far
link: Aug 28, 2005 10:07 pm
posted in: misc.
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  • j armstrong

    unbelievable. this administration is supremely incompetent. i’m so pleased it’s all coming out. impeach the snotty imperialistic sonovabitch.

  • f swick

    so typical. It’s the presidents fault that not everyone left? Shouldn’t the governors have picked everyone up in their Excursions and then asked W. to help. No?

  • F swick is an idiot

    Didn’t the president say ‘No one could have predicted this’? Either he’s evil, or hopelessly, fatally stupid. And the next idiot conservative who tries to defend him deserves to share a prison cell with him. I’m sick of being nice, I’m sick of trying to see it your way. You voted for this evil, corrupt, dangerous man, you deserve to share the consequences with him.

    And your lies about Katrina are as tiresome as the rest of your arguments. The governor asked for Louisiana to be declared a disaster area before the hurricane struck land, in preparation of what was to come. But as usual the Republicans did nothing, then claimed it was everyone else’s fault.

    The only thing that’s typical here is conservative myopia, and a pathological inability to accept blame. And it sickens me, as usual.

  • luke

    everybody knew destruction like this was bound to happen. As a college junior in 2000 I prepared disaster assessment for a class stating just what could happen. obviously if a college student could predict it, then everyone knew (or could have known).

    As for this “warning”, it has to be fake. There is no way the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration would issue a WEATHER statement with sayings like “will make human suffering incredible by modern standards” or predictions about high rise office buildings swaying to the point of collapse. First off, why would they feel the authority to speculate on office building stability? Second of all, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a reinforced steel structure (especially one built in hurricane alley) collapsing from high winds. It’s an absurd notion.

  • luke

    ok, i take that back. MSNBC did a story on it soon after the hurricane.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9358447/

  • Soccerman

    Where is the primary source for this? “MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS” has not, to my knowledge, ever appeared in any weather advisory ever given by the National Weather Service.

    Just typing something in a blog post doesn’t make it so. Ya know?

    Primary sources, people.

  • CB

    Here’s your primary source.

    http://www.srh.noaa.gov/data/warnarchive/LIX/NPW/0828155101.txt
    See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August28200510:11AMCDTNOAA_Bulletin also.

  • CB

    Blugh, rich text mangling. Put an underscore wherever you see the italicized text switch, or Google “National Weather Service bulletin for New Orleans region”.

  • http://chasev.blogspot.com Agent_Smith

    Being that I’m from South LA, I can say that this is not as the first comment says,

    “this administration is supremely incompetent. im so pleased it’s all coming out. impeach the snotty imperialistic sonovabitch.”

    The president had nothing to do with the recovery effort and its failure. The governor was a complete tard and the local city of NOLA government –read: chocolate city Nagin– was the cause of most of the problems — further read: Democrats.

    Had we done the right thing and elected Bobby Jindal in our prior governor’s election and perhaps actually had a competent mayor of NOLA, then we could have alleviated tons of these problems.

  • dave

    “As for this ‘warning’, it has to be fake.”

    I assure you it’s not. I vividly remember reading this the morning Katrina made landfall, because for me that was the moment when the scale of the horror we were about to see really sunk in.

  • http://www.joemaller.com Joe

    This did not predict “almost exactly the devastation that the White House claimed nobody could have predicted” unless you’re talking about Biloxi.

    Most of the damage in New Orleans was the result of breached levees. Popular Mechanics published an extensive article debunking the myths about Katrina which should be required reading before any discussion of what did or didn’t happen. Television news coverage of Katrina was horrible and often completely wrong.

    The destruction of a gulf coast city is not historically unprecedented. The destruction of Galveston in 1900 seems to have dropped out of collective memory, but the circumstances are very similar. Except that the Galveston hurricane can’t be blamed on global warming or President Bush.

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  • Dan

    Everybody knew that Katrina was going to be bad. They did NOT know the levees would break. ALSO, Bush cannot be blamed for nobody leaving New Orleans, it was Ray Nagan and the LOCAL governments who went out on the air and told people that evacuations were not necessary. President Bush didn’t say anything on the matter until after Hurricane Katrina hit. If you want to say something about the length of time for a response, that is another argument.

  • Reality Check

    This warning is 100% real. I remember looking at it at 5 in the morning in my home (thankfully hundreds of miles away) when it was issued.

    It’s completely genuine, and was a final effort to warn people of what was going to come…yes the language was apocalypic for a scientific organization, but people that work for the NOAA, in my experience, care very much about people.

    Why is everything bad that happens in the world somebody’s fault? Especially someone in government? Especially federal government? I’m no bush lover, but the bush hatred out there in the country is so ridiculous and unproductive.

    Who should be prepared to conduct an evacuation and preparation for a devastating storm? Federal officials in Washington, or those in Louisiana (or Florida in my case) who have experienced such things their entire lives.

    The federal government provided the science capable of warning people…but how is the federal government going to evacuate people anywhere as efficiently as local government should?

    And then horrible state and local government takes hold. And THEN lies and rumors come out about the number of deaths in places like the Superdome, where, in reality, a few elderly people died of the stress and heat of the structure…but hundreds of hooligans stole, frolicked and drank themselves stupid.

    For fifty years or more, people knew a hurricane like Katrina would have an impact. It’s sad that it happened.

    But just because something bad happens doesn’t mean it’s time to yell and blame…especially officials that are dozens of layers of administration away from having any impact.

    Why wouldn’t and “blame” lie first with those who ignored warnings, took advantage of a situation for profit, stole funds from the government, and simply were too stupid to realize what would happen.

    Then why not blame the local officials who should have been planning for this event for weeks, if not years.

    Then why not blame the state which would not even federalize the national guard in the wake of the storm.

    No. Blame the president because of blind, pointless hatred.

    Better to just blame fate, God or nature…there are some things that no single leader can do.

  • dragon

    You DO know that 2-3 days before Katrina hit NOLA that the airport in NOLA was packed with outgoing flights by every airline continuously until the weather got too bad and they had to close the airport. That most of those out going flights were NOT full?

    That Amtrack was running trains OUT OF NOLA before the storm hit, full of evacuees?

    (BTW it’s “evacuees” instead of refugees. The term “refugee” refers to people fleeing some invading army and or hostile political ideologies such as Nazis, or the Communists.)

    Let me clue you in: Over 24 hours before Katrina hit , Max Mayfield issued his warnings about what to expect post-Katrina :

    To expect roads and bridges to be destroyed, that the people in the affected areas could be without food,water,electricity for several weeks.

    Friday night before the storm hit, theres people in the local bars sitting in the dark and knocking back another drink.

    Saturday morning, you see news footage of parking lots outside apartment buildings. The parking lots are full of cars, 3 feet of water over the roofs of all these cars. Then later on, the news cameras pan up and show people on their balconies. After that the news networks never showed another flooded car again. Why? Because the networks decided to make them all victims! Victims of a government’s apathy.The truth is, these 100 thousand people were victims of their own laziness and stupidity.

    And there was the media building up that angle. The networks with their newscasters seemed to not know anything about the 150 kiles between Waveland and Gulfport that was basically disintegrated down to the sand , up to several miles inland. That every road was blocked by downed trees up to 100 miles inland from the coast.
    Does anyone think the Government should have sent all the resources in BEFORE the storm hit? Ummm no, because if you do that then all those resources and rescuers would have been lost too. You need to go back and look at Waveland and Biloxi and Keesler—THAT was what was predicted to happen to NOLA. The storm turned at the last minute though and the people lived. The Media seems to look at only the negative.And the critics forget: All those people who lived though the disaster could have been killed. And of their own stupidity. They don’t call New Orleans the “big easy” for nothing. It’s a microcosm for Liberalism. Liberal policies breed out the instinct for self-reliance and survival, leaving only reliance on social welfare and handouts instead.

  • Alicia

    I think president bush is retarded, i think he should have helped those people up in katrina but instead he has to be stupid and be a little wimp and do his own thing president bush is selfish he hasn’t done crap for this country he shouldn’t have become president and his dad should be back in office cause atleast his dad cared about this country.President bush should have never been elected

  • valory

    BUSH IS AN IDIOT AND PEOPLE THAT VOTED HIM IN FOR THE SECCOND TIME IS RETARDED HE STOLE THE FIRST ON E WHY WOULD YOU WANT A THEIF FOR A PRESIDENT THE OLNY THING HE HAS DONE IN SCREW UP OUR ECONOMY AND RAISE GAS PRICES AND DECLARE WAR MCAIN WLL DO A BETTER JOB IM A DEMICRATE BUT I WILL NOT VOTE FOR OMOMA BUSH SHOULD HAVE BEN IN LOUISANA INSTEAD OF ON HIS RANCH IN TEXAS LIKE A BIG DUMB IDIOT HE MAKES ME SO MAD IM OUT FOR NOW

  • http://www.joemaller.com Joe

    I thought about deleting those last two, but I’m going to leave them up because they sort of speak for themselves. Thanks for sharing, I hope that hate keeps you warm at night.

  • valory

    HEY jo people on thee a cussing and maybe you don’t agree with me but and like bush i have my ays of lookinga t things and you have yours and my hate does keep me warm at night you can delete mine idc K peace