Labels: hurricanes

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
by Christine Bowman

Hurricane Ike just about blew away the city of Galveston. Evacuations had been ordered there, and recovery and rebuilding efforts are expected to take months or even years. But rescue and recovery is under way in Galveston.

In contrast, Houston's 4 million people were told to hunker down and stay in place. What now for them?

Millions have no power, going on 3 days later. No food supply. No ice. No water supply, no cell phone service, no land lines. Not many gas stations and grocery stores are up and running. There's no air conditioning. (The scorching summer in Houston lasts well into October). Roofs blew away, trees smashed homes and vehicles, flood waters and leaks have destroyed much.

[snip]

Harris County chief executive Judge Ed Emmett (a Republican) and Houston Mayor Bill White (a Democrat) "warned the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Sunday morning that it would be 'held accountable'" if it did not deliver emergency supplies as promised. ... Through gritted teeth, White said: 'We expect FEMA to honor our request and their commitments. ... If all these supplies don't materialize, they'll get low marks.'" 

In an interview with Harry Smith, Republican Governor Rick Perry said that FEMA was responsible for distributing aid in Houston, not the state of Texas, which was responding in other areas.

On Sunday the ABC affiliate in Houston reported more confusion among authorities as to who is responsible for helping Houston, FEMA or the state?

It wasn't until Sunday at a news conference with FEMA head Michael Chertoff that we realized FEMA thought the state was going to transport FEMA supplies and distribute them. But the state let them know this morning that they couldn't do the distribution, that they wanted FEMA to do it.

And on Sunday night, we found out that FEMA put the responsibility on the city of Houston and Harris County. The city and county say they're set up to do the distribution, thanks to plenty of employees and volunteers. But the confusion may have led to a delay in getting supplies here and we addressed the delay and confusion with Secretary Chertoff. ...

"We were asked to take on the responsibility of actually getting them to the points of distribution and manning the points of distribution," said Chertoff.

"Who screwed up?" we asked.

"This is not about a screw-up," said Chertoff. ...

"Did the state tell you guys at some point this morning, 'Hey we can't distribute it by Plan A. We have to go to Plan B?'"

"This morning, the state, where it's slow with its resources and capabilities and capabilities, said 'We'd like you to take over this assignment.' We were happy to do it."

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story...

FEMA pointed the finger at the state in an LA Times report:

But federal officials said state authorities suddenly changed plans Sunday morning and asked the federal government take over distribution of supplies after earlier promising to take care of that task themselves.

"An unanticipated glitch" is how Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff described it during a news conference in Houston attended by White and Emmett.

The bureaucracies had better get themselves organized, and fast. Already, reports indicate that the needs of elderly and disabled citizens have not been met. This writer, with immediate family members and close friends in Houston, can confirm that that is not an isolated incident. Even first responders were going hungry, in the beginning:

Congressman John Culberson complained that 300 first responders were not getting food to eat. He was appearing on local TV, asking Houstonians who could get out to bring supplies to these staging areas. I hope the problem has been solved by now. My question is: Where was FEMA?

Labels: hurricanes

Labels: hurricanes

Labels: hurricanes

Sunday, August 31st, 2008
An Open Letter to God, from Michael Moore

Dear God,

The other night, the Rev. James Dobson's ministry asked all believers to pray for a storm on Thursday night so that the Obama acceptance speech outdoors in Denver would have to be canceled.

I see that You have answered Rev. Dobson's prayers -- except the storm You have sent to earth is not over Denver, but on its way to New Orleans! In fact, You have scheduled it to hit Louisiana at exactly the moment that George W. Bush is to deliver his speech at the Republican National Convention.

Now, heavenly Father, we all know You have a great sense of humor and impeccable timing. To send a hurricane on the third anniversary of the Katrina disaster AND right at the beginning of the Republican Convention was, at first blush, a stroke of divine irony. I don't blame You, I know You're angry that the Republicans tried to blame YOU for Katrina by calling it an "Act of God" -- when the truth was that the hurricane itself caused few casualties in New Orleans. Over a thousand people died because of the mistakes and neglect caused by humans, not You.

Some of us tried to help after Katrina hit, while Bush ate cake with McCain and twiddled his thumbs. I closed my office in New York and sent my entire staff down to New Orleans to help. I asked people on my website to contribute to the relief effort I organized -- and I ended up sending over two million dollars in donations, food, water, and supplies (collected from thousands of fans) to New Orleans while Bush's FEMA ice trucks were still driving around Maine three weeks later.

But this past Thursday night, the Washington Post reported that the Republicans had begun making plans to possibly postpone the convention. The AP had reported that there were no shelters set up in New Orleans for this storm, and that the levee repairs have not been adequate. In other words, as the great Ronald Reagan would say, "There you go again!"

So the last thing John McCain and the Republicans needed was to have a split-screen on TVs across America: one side with Bush and McCain partying in St. Paul, and on the other side of the screen, live footage of their Republican administration screwing up once again while New Orleans drowns.

So, yes, You have scared the Jesus, Mary and Joseph out of them, and more than a few million of your followers tip their hats to You.

But now it appears that You haven't been having just a little fun with Bush & Co. It appears that Hurricane Gustav is truly heading to New Orleans and the Gulf coast. We hear You, O Lord, loud and clear, just as we did when Rev. Falwell said You made 9/11 happen because of all those gays and abortions. We beseech You, O Merciful One, not to punish us again as Pat Robertson said You did by giving us Katrina because of America's "wholesale slaughter of unborn children." His sentiments were echoed by other Republicans in 2005.

So this is my plea to you: Don't do this to Louisiana again. The Republicans got your message. They are scrambling and doing the best they can to get planes, trains and buses to New Orleans so that everyone can get out. They haven't sent the entire Louisiana National Guard to Iraq this time -- they are already patrolling the city streets. And, in a nod to I don't know what, Bush's head of FEMA has named a man to help manage the federal government's response. His name is W. Michael Moore. I kid you not, heavenly Father. They have sent a man with both my name AND W's to help save the Gulf Coast.

So please God, let the storm die out at sea. It's done enough damage already. If you do this one favor for me, I promise not to invoke your name again. I'll leave that to the followers of Rev. Dobson and to those gathering this week in St. Paul.

Your faithful servant and former seminarian,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. To all of God's fellow children who are reading this, the city of New Orleans has not yet recovered from Katrina. Please click here for a list of things you can do to help our brothers and sisters on the Gulf Coast. And, if you do live along the Gulf Coast, please take all necessary safety precautions immediately

Labels: Bush Administration, hurricanes, John McCain, Katrina aftermath, Michael Moore, Mother Nature

It should go without saying that it's time to leave New Orleans. But, I'll say it anyway: It's Time to Leave New Orleans! The risk of staying in New Orleans is unacceptable. This is a huge and dangerous storm that has already killed a lot of people. The projected track and strength of Gustav is very close to that of Hurricane Betsy of 1965, the Category 3 hurricane that overwhelmed New Orleans' levees, and killed 76 people. Get out now.

Crude-oil and natural-gas shipments from the Gulf of Mexico were curtailed and Valero Energy Corp., the largest U.S. refining company, cut production as Hurricane Gustav strengthened on a path to strike Louisiana within two days.

Evacuations closed the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, the nation's largest crude oil terminal, and cut flows from offshore platforms into the 10,500-mile (16,900-kilometer) gas pipeline to the U.S. northeast owned by Williams Cos. Enbridge Energy Partners LP closed gas conduits out of the Gulf. Oil producers shut more output, down 6.6 percent yesterday, according to U.S. government figures.

Marathon Oil Corp., the fourth-largest U.S. oil company, said it shut production at both its Gulf platforms, as Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP Plc raced to cut production of 800,000 barrels a day of oil by day's end. Enbridge Energy Partners LP began shutting off Gulf lines capable of bringing in 6.7 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas. Louisiana's petrochemical- producing parishes ordered residents to leave, adding that return routes will be blocked and curfews imposed by nightfall.

``Devastating storm-surge flooding'' is possible, officials in St. Charles Parish, home to three oil refineries, said in a statement. Officials urged residents to leave before a planned mandatory evacuation at noon, local time, saying Gustav may be strong enough to breach levees protecting the parish just west of New Orleans.

Oil producers halted at least 6.6 percent of output in the region, according to U.S. government figures issued yesterday. An update is due later today.

Gustav, now a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 145 (230 kilometers) per hour or more, picked up speed as it headed toward western Cuba and the U.S. Gulf Coast, the National Hurricane Center said in a bulletin. The storm was about 185 miles east of the western tip of Cuba at 11 a.m. New York time. A storm surge of 19 feet is possible at landfall in Cuba.

Gustav may strengthen before reaching the northern Gulf of Mexico in two days, the forecast said. Tropical-storm-force winds extend as far as 160 miles from the center.

Fields in the Gulf produce 1.3 million barrels a day of oil, about a quarter of U.S. production, and 7.4 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas, 14 percent of the total, government data show. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 closed 95 percent of regional offshore output and, along with Hurricane Rita, idled about 19 percent of U.S. refining capacity. Three parishes in Louisiana with refineries planned mandatory evacuations today.

The president called state leaders in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas in the early morning from the White House before heading out for a 90-minute bike ride, spokesman Scott Stanzel said.

Labels: hurricanes, irony

At the time, nobody was talking about what had happened to the 4,000 offshore oil platforms - and 34,000 miles of pipeline on the seafloor - when Katrina ripped through the Gulf as a Cat 5 storm, followed a few weeks later by Hurricane Rita. Attention was rightly focused on the unfolding human tragedy, as well as the 7-9 million gallons of oil spilled from damaged pipelines, refineries and storage tanks onshore.

...

But for months after the storms, officials from government and industry repeatedly claimed that there were no "significant" spills in the Gulf. That line is still heard even now. Yet in May 2006, the U.S. Minerals Management Service published their offshore damage assessment: 113 platforms totally destroyed, and - more importantly - 457 pipelines damaged, 101 of those major lines with 10" or larger diameter. At least 741,000 gallons were spilled from 124 reported sources (the Coast Guard calls anything over 100,000 gallons a "major" spill).
Wells and platforms were shut down before the storm, so leakage from those facilities was minimal. Pipelines were shut down too. But what the officials failed to mention is they don't require industry to "purge" pipelines before a severe storm - so they were probably still loaded with oil, gas or liquid gas condensate. Any section of pipeline that was breached leaked all of that product into the Gulf within hours of the storm. That's what we think accounts for the widespread slicks seen on the imagery from September 1 and 2, covering hundreds of square miles and obviously emanating from many points of origin. These slicks dispersed after several days of high winds offshore, as shown by our followup imagery taken on September 12, but a few problems remained as evidenced by ongoing leaks from wrecked platforms.

As we saw in 2005 with Katrina and Rita, the large amounts of deep, warm water brought into the Gulf of Mexico by the Loop Current can help intensify hurricanes to Category 5 intensity. As explained in my Loop Current tutorial, the Loop Current is an ocean current that transports warm Caribbean water through the Yucatan Channel between Cuba and Mexico. The current flows northward into the Gulf of Mexico, then loops southeastward through the Florida Keys. The Loop Current commonly bulges out in the northern Gulf of Mexico and sometimes will shed a clockwise rotating ring of warm water that separates from the main current. This ring of warm water slowly drifts west-southwestward towards Texas or Mexico at about 3-5 km per day. This feature is called a "Loop Current Ring", "Loop Current Eddy", or "Warm Core Ring", and can provide a key source of energy to fuel rapid intensification of hurricanes that cross the Gulf. The Loop Current itself can also fuel rapid intensification, such as happened with Hurricane Charley in 2004. When a Loop Current Eddy breaks off in the Gulf of Mexico at the height of hurricane season, it can lead to a dangerous situation where a vast reservoir of energy is available to any hurricane that might cross over. This occurred in 2005, when a Loop Current Eddy separated in July, just before Hurricane Katrina passed over and "bombed" into a Category 5 hurricane. The eddy remained in the Gulf and slowly drifted westward during September. Hurricane Rita passed over the same Loop Current Eddy three weeks after Katrina, and also explosively deepened to a Category 5 storm.

This year, we had another Loop Current Eddy break off in July. This eddy is now positioned due south of New Orleans (Figure 2), and this eddy has similar levels of heat energy to the 2005 eddy that powered Katrina and Rita. Should Gustav pass over or just to the left of this eddy, we can expect the storm to significantly intensify. There is also a weaker eddy present in the western Gulf; this eddy broke off from the Loop Current in April, and is much cooler then the eddy that broke off in July. Should Gustav pass over the April eddy, it shouldn't make much difference.

Labels: hurricanes, John McCain, Katrina aftermath