Threads the need of Port Fourchon.
An OIL PORT by the way....
Cat 4 - HURRICANE IDA
150 MPH - 930 MB.
Close to Cat 5 Status, still intensifying.
This is the not same hurricane that people in it's path saw when they fell asleep finally last night. Sad, but true in that Ida chose a rancid time to do her Rapid Intensification dance last night after cliniging to Cat 2 status for most of the day yesterday looking a big ragged. Ida doesn't look ragged now, pretty much as close to perfection on all levels in that this is a perfect diasaster scenario. Close to Category 5!
People who fell asleep sure that this was over hyped and a busted forecast hopefully did not gamble with their lives and got out of town if their town was low lying and prone to flooding. Yes, the NHC did say it could be a Category 4 on landfall and they always say to prepare for a category higher and that only leaves Cat 5 to prepare for and in the path of a Cat 5 there is only one way and that is to get out of town unless you live in a structure tested and built to take a Category 5 Hurricane. It's a moving buzzsaw carrying with it the devatation seen in a nuclear explosion, without of course the radioactivity, but nothing will be normal for a long time trust me.
All the discussion on it rapidily developing early yesterday morning raised expectations too high and Ida chose the worse time to intensify. I knew she'd intensify on landfall, I've been doing this a long time and this was classic "as it approaches the coastline" but still I was up last night until the 5 AM advisory came in waiting to see what the NHC would do after the recon plane had to turn back for technical problems and they were using good but lesser grade data than that which they receive from the dropsonde dropped into the storm with other assorted data it relays to them. Reminds me of when the radar dish on top of the Hurricane Center blew away as Andrew was making landfall and Bryan Norcross asked the Director on air live where exactly the eye was and he replied he wasn't sure because their radar dish just blew away. Everyone in Miami at the same time collectively cursed. Yes, Ida is one of those Andrew like hurricanes!
Not much else to say except to pray. It's too late to say more right now for those in the path of the strongest weather, but if you live further inland watch it carefully. The forecast for how strong it stays further inland keeps changing and it's a rainmaker, a heart breaker and it will be a flood maker. Concerns on inland flooding down the road all the way to the Atlantic are on the table.
So I'll update later but that's it for now. Always incredibly humbling to watch a hurricane do RI late in the quiet hours of the night with Twitter exploding as everyone is sharing data and watching each new image coming in leaving you almost speechless but not quite. This is the nightmare we thought it would be and the nightmare is descending onto Louisiana as I type.
Check back later........
Ps. The one coming off Africa is a problem.
New area just off the coast of North Carolina.
Will update in real time 1 PM ... August 29th on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina a stronger Hurricane IDA makes landfall in Louisiana at the astonishing strength of 150 MPH. Reports from the people that stayed in Grand Isle show a wild disaster like movie scene with the water rising and cameras that were filming going underwater. The Port is a huge OIL PORT so that and the other oil rigs involved here will make a financial impact beyond the beautiful bayou towns along the waters edge that have now gone underwater in a high storm surge pushing inland. Inland towns such as Houma are next in the path as is Morgan City and New Orleans is already having power problems so this has only just begun as a long siege of Louisiana by a historic Hurricane Ida. I'll update later... trying to pass along information on Twitter in real time that will hopefully help someone in the path of the storm.
iCyclone is in Houma.
Jim Williams is in Lake Morgan.
Stay tuned.......
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