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OT: "unsurvivable" storm surge projected to hit Lake Charles, La.

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duke4heisman said:
I was heading down to Hialeah to get some 22" rims and Katrina had just passed through there. It didn't do much, I think it was just a 1 but the power was still out, so I was at home watching on TV. It was slowly gaining but nothing alarming, as we all know, most didn't listen to the evacuation order.
I'll never forget watching live on the news, the people stuck in high floor buildings, screaming for help. The water standing through like 3 floors and cars floating around like toys in a bathtub.
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Yea, it was tragic. I did a lot of volunteer work in the Lower 9th when I got back to school and it was eerie. Houses literally on top of one another. Cars flipped over in a pile. House foundations with no houses nearby. And no birds anywhere. No sounds of nature. The most deafening silence you could imagine.

The thing is, in my time in school there alone we evacuated 5 times in 3 years up to that point. And every time it was going to be the storm of the century. And it wasn't. So people tuned it out, and by the time they realized they had to go, I-10 was at a complete standstill. That is the only road out of the city. This was days before, so there really was no other choice at that point. That and a lot of people, especially in the poorer parts of the city that are vulnerable to flooding, do not have cars to get out. The "crescent" part of the city (FQ to Uptown) really did not flood.

My parents actually drove from Miami to Orlando to fly up with my sister, and then got on the last flight out of New Orleans.
 
They said the storm surge could reach 30 miles inland. Unfathomable destruction.
 
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rok said:
A storm going from cat 1 to 4 over the course of 1 day is something out of The Day After Tomorrow
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hurricane michael did basically that not long ago

I figured this was gonna happen, I giggled at people saying it was gonna be cat 2

no way I said, no way it was gonna cross the huge expanse of water in those super hot areas and be a cat 2

I figured probably high cat 3, very decent chance for cat 4, and maybe a mid cat 4.
 
Laura is coming hard, rain and winds have already started in my area and I'm like 80 miles east of Lake Charles (bout 15 miles north of Lafayette, LA)... This chick Laura is not to be taken lightly!!
 
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Storms in the Gulf are always bad news. They can't get out without hitting someone. Difference between one coming in here off the Atlantic and off the Gulf is the slope of the seabed. Ours drops off to deep water and theirs has nice gentle slop for long distance. Storm surge has long run in up there to build and build. Here, not so much. Pray for those people and for the storm to weaken suddenly.
 
point break GIF
 
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337CaneNation said:
Laura is coming hard, rain and winds have already started in my area and I'm like 80 miles east of Lake Charles (bout 15 miles north of Lafayette, LA)... This chick Laura is not to be taken lightly!!
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If possible would go more east.. Storms have large radius, if it hits lake charles the strong side of storm would be on east side I think.. Not gonna be a fun night.. If you plan to ride out, get a nap in now.. Might have to be ready for emergency all nite long
 
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last year my wife and I were in Bermuda when Humberto hit the south side of the island( where we were staying right on the coast). That was a strong 2/weak 3. We were in our AirBnb huddling in the kitchen when I watched the roof start flying off. Ridiculously surreal, like it was a movie. We then moved to the bathroom and got in the shower stall, when the chimney got ripped off the house. At that point I knew we had to get out of our quarters.

Going outside was the worst. The salt spray/sand blasted you in the face. Luckily the host lived downstairs and we wound up spending the rest of the night in their living room.

Put us up in a beautiful hotel for the last 3 days of our vacation on their tab, they were incredible.

Just can't even imagine a storm more powerful.
 
I survived Hurricane Charley Cat 4 (Tennessee and Clemson wind stress tests said the winds were more like a Cat 5) holding a broken-off door over a broken bedroom window trying to keep the wind from lifting my roof off. The eye-wall was about a 100 yards out in the Peace River when it came upon us. Charley was a tight little ***** of a storm Eye only 5 miles across, Donna when I was a little kid was massive - both were Cat 4s. Lost the house anyway, took a year to rebuild from the studs out.

But on those sharp right turns up Charlotte Harbor like Donna too, we don't get the big push of water like the catcher's mitt of the Gulf does, where this one is heading with all that water in front of it. Thoughts and prayers to those poor souls. Took seven years to rebuild Charlotte High in Punta Gorda, had three sons there over the entire seven years.
 

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