Sunday, August 28, 2005

'ladies and gentlemen, this is not a test ... '



now pay attention:
hurricanes are known as 'typhoons' in the western pacific, 'cyclones' in the indian ocean, 'baguios' in the philippines and 'willy-willies' in australia.

highest storm surge - bathurst bay hurricane, australia, 1899. it was 13 meters (42 feet)!

deadliest - bangladesh cyclone of 1970. it killed 300,000 people.
- the deadliest hurricane in the united states struck galveston, texas, in 1900. a storm surge almost two stories high broke over the city, causing 20-foot (6.1-meter) floods and more than 8,000 deaths.

largest rainfall - cyclone denise, jan. 1966, 12 hours, 1144 millimeters - la reunion island in the indian ocean off the east coast of africa.

costliest - hurricane andrew in aug. 1992. the damage was estimated at $25 billion in parts of florida, louisiana, and georgia.

longest lasting - cyclone/typhoon john, aug.-sep., 1994, lasted 31 days. traveleing both the Northeast and Northwest Pacific basins.

largest - typhoon tip, northwest pacific, Oct., 1979, with a gale radius 1100 km..

fastest intensification - typhoon forrest deepened 100 millibars (976 to 876) in under 24 hours. in one day winds increased from 120 kph to 277 kph........

... we hope everybody gets the hell outta metry for katrina. she is big, bad and looks real pissed. we said it before, but the big easy has gotten off the hook for a long time. now it seems there's a good chance this broad's gonna fuck up the city a bit if she get's too close. it really is frustrating to be sitting up here in reno while friends, family and property, (which we have yet to occupy), are sitting in the crosshairs of this ex-wife-kinda-hurricane bitch, (ya know the kind, no direction, with an attitude, looking to kick somebody's ass and you just happen to be the one in the way).

well, my clan is heading in a caravan to my cousin's in arkansas in the morning so at least i know they'll be alright, but to just watch it go down with no control over anything is dreadful. and if the gods of drunkards and all things yat are smiling, katrina will catch a wave moving away from fat city. i don't wish others the horrid luck to fall in the path, i just want her to die wandering aimlessly in the gulf. fat chance of that tho, somebody's gonna get it.

... so s.a. and i are having a mini-mock hurricane party, wishing we were drinking anything but hurricanes in the quarter and toasting to dry ground and high hopes.

katrina is out there, lurkin' a ways off, and not predicted for landfall until sometime monday, thereabouts, but i got a bad feeling about this ...

(a few tunes we're playing that i'm sure they're not singin' down there ...)
the tragically hip - new orleans is sinking
t-bone walker - call it stormy monday
the scorpions - rock you like a hurricane
bob dylan - shelter from the storm
neil young - like a hurricane
katrina and the waves - i'm walking on sunshine
(mp3s via yousendit)

... as i finish this up they just told everybody in new orleans to get the fuck out .... she just got up to a '4'!!!!
uh-oh, (gulp) ... good luck ya'll ...

6 comments:

Laurie said...

I feel your pain. I don't want it to hit anywhere else either, but, if what the experts say is true, other areas would be able to handle the storm surge better. This is driving me nuts!

Jim Marquis said...

Wow, looks like some scary shit. Sure hope those folks get through it okay.

Mommy said...

i am flipping the f*** out. i don't live there, but i have friends and family there. :(

this sucks donkeys.

sleepybomb said...

yep, this sucks big donkeys ... i'm so glad my familia and friends are long gone (i hope, no phone service for hrs now). i am sick with anxiety. looks like we're not moving to new orleans for awhile now, but at least we got a house here to live in while we build a new one in metry.
i feel pretty bad now for all in the easy... and what everyone is gonna face in the next few days or more ...
oh, the humanity!

Danno said...

I hope all of your family and friends made it out Ok. Damn that Katrina turned into one nasty bitch. Keep us posted M.A. ...and those poor souls shacked up in the Superdome, man alive.

sleepybomb said...

actually the dome held up quite well, it rode out 150 mph winds with just cosmetic damage.(i seem to remember a dome up north that collapsed a while back from a little snow, we build ours to last ...) and it looks like the city got roughed up but it's not the disaster the media chicken littles said it would be. and yats are a pretty tough bunch. we'll be back up and running in no time!