Some of our readers have questioned why we are posting about the weather and asking if it is some way political. Well, speaking for myself I have been posting because I think TMV is here to bring our readers news and information and when natural disasters threaten our fellow citizens it is worth reporting. I realize that we are all increasingly partisan these days but I think there are certain areas where we put those issues aside.
In that vein, also want to say how proud and pleased I have been to see Independents, Republicans and Democrats come together to help out the people in the path of Gustav. The Obama and McCain campaigns also deserve kudos for putting politics aside to urge everyone to donate their time and money to help out.
Don’t forget to go to Red Cross.com to help out.
Unfortunately it looks like things are far from over though we do have good news with Gustav.
Gustav has now been officially downgraded to a Tropical Storm and is expected to bring rain to the states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, Kansas and Missouri. However the worst does appear to be over and, while there were some close calls with a few levees near New Orleans, it now looks like those levees have been saved.
Obviously over the next few days we will see reports of flooding and storm damage but CNN and MSNBC have been making their way into the coastal areas of Louisiana and are finding that even there the damage is not as bad as anticipated. Power lines are down, some buildings either damaged, destroyed or flooded but overall things look pretty good considering what we were worried about.
The chart below shows the closing path of TS Gustav and we can all bid him a not-so-fond farewell.
But as soon as we start to move past Gustav, it is time to pay attention to Hanna. As I previously discussed it does not look like Hanna will become too strong of a storm. It is not expected to enter the Gulf of Mexico and as a result it is unlikely that it will threaten to become a Category 4 or 5 storm.
However, it will be impacting an area that may not be quite as ready for the storm and that could potentially make it worse than Gustav. At this point, though, it looks to be avoiding both Savannah and Charleston in terms of a direct hit so that will help out.
Hopefully in fact we will find Hanna has the same story as Gustav, lots of wind and rain, localized flooding and some property damage but nothing on the level with Katrina or Hugo (the last storm to really slam the SC region).
As shown on the chart below, it looks like impact will be sometime during Friday. This gives residents and authorities 3 or 4 days to make evacuation decisions. I would expect us to hear reports of decisions being made and evacuations being ordered.
If I can briefly dip into politics, this storm is also potentially going to impact the GOP convention as right now Senator McCain would be giving his acceptance speech Thursday but at that point the storm would be off the Florida coast and so I wouldn’t be surprised if tomorrow we learn that they are moving things back to Wednesday so it could be a 1 day event for the Republicans.
As if Gustav and Hanna were not enough we now have Tropical Storm Ike to keep an eye on. At this point Ike is still well out into the Atlantic and even the five day track doesn’t get it past the Bahamas before Saturday. However it does seem to be taking a track that could either cause impact with Florida or worse yet another venture into the Gulf of Mexico and a track for landfall along the Gulf coast sometime next week.
It should be noted that we are approaching the peak of hurricane season and so it is not entirely unusual to have several hurricanes floating around at the same time but the prospect of 3 storms making landfall in the US during the span of one week is out of the ordinary. Hopefully it will not be a record we have to worry about.