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Rad Community Non-Technical Discussion Boards >> The Water Cooler >> Pesky, How's the water level in the Big Easy?
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Message started by Rad on Sep 1st, 2008 at 8:47pm

Title: Pesky, How's the water level in the Big Easy?
Post by Rad on Sep 1st, 2008 at 8:47pm
How's it looking down there?

You okay?

Title: Re: Pesky, How's the water level in the Big Easy?
Post by El_Pescador on Sep 2nd, 2008 at 7:12pm
Other than no heavy weapons mounted in their turrets, Interstate 59 in Pearl River County, Mississippi looks like HBO's 'Generation Kill' with all the National Guard HumVees headed down to the Gulf Coasts of Mississippi and Louisiana to perform rescue and relief work.  As strange as it may sound, watching the seemingly endless convoy made for one of those rare moments when I never felt prouder to be an American (lump in the throat and all that).

My wife and I took shelter with our eldest daughter outside Picayune where most everyone continues to enjoy electric power in their homes.  Our slab-on-grade brick home in Slidell is absolutely unlivable today without climate control as I was reminded today during a brief recon with my Toyota 4x4 to assess damage.  We had very minor wind damage and no flooding at all.  Although I have a gasoline-powered generator, informal contacts inside the local electric company assert that service will be restored to my residence in short order.  The hassle and hazards of temporarily cooling our home with emergency power offer no temptation when restoration is a matter of hours rather than weeks as was the case with Hurricane Katrina.

Here on the Northshore of Lake Pontchartrain we managed to dodge the bullet because dry air to the west and stout winds aloft sapped Gustav of its fury to generate the predicted storm surge.  However, the warm and beautiful populace of lower Lafourche and Terrebonne Parishes were absolutely devastated.  I spent 33 years of my service in government to preserve and enhance both the economy and culture of such coastal communities, and I am heartbroken.

El Pescador

Title: Re: Pesky, How's the water level in the Big Easy?
Post by Nigel Bree on Sep 3rd, 2008 at 8:46pm
Thanks for the good news, Pesky.

The generator thing was the big lesson we learned last year when a tropical storm took out the power and roads for our section of New Zealand for a several days. As most rural households we're pretty self-sufficient, and we don't have any problems with home cooling in our latitude, but what we didn't have covered was a power supply for the pumps from the rainwater tanks (arranging sufficient gravity-fed water storage isn't practical). I'd wanted a generator anyway, but that taught me we simply had to have one to deal with longer-term civil emergency situations. And the bonus is being able to run a refrigerator to stop all the food spoiling without needing to cook it all straight away; now I'd say we could go for about two weeks off-grid for next time. Covering the HVAC needs for where you are seems like it'd be really hard, though.

It was good the storm weakened instead of gaining strength before landfall this time around; that seemed like a lucky break - I hadn't seen much detail on the sea-surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico beforehand but it looks like the storm path took it over some (relatively) cooler water in the gulf which also helped stop it strengthen.

Hopefully enough reconstruction funds become available soon, and the work gets underway pronto.

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