ike's damage

In it's wake, Ike has left a Texas-sized disaster. AIR Worldwide, Inc, is estimating that total insured damage in Texas and Louisiana will be $10 billion. An additional $3.4 billion in damage was likely done in the Gulf of Mexico, due to wind and wave damage to oil platforms and the indirect loss of revenue attributable to reductions in oil and gas production. Using the usual rule of thumb that total hurricane damages are double the insured damages, the price tag for Ike will be about $27 billion. That would make Ike the third costliest hurricane in history. Only Hurricane Katrina of 2005 and Hurricane Andrew of 1992 did more damage than Ike has. So far, the death toll from Ike has been remarkably low, considering the level of damage this storm inflicted. Let's hope it stays this way.

ike 9-13-08, Galveston, 2am CST

Ike - 9 12- 08

Ike - 9 11 08

GTT

Folks finally figured out that there were no claims in North Carolina. So I am headed back to Texas by way of Charleston and Savannah. Waiting on the last best hope for 2008-Ike.

Econolodge
843-875-3022
110 Holiday Rd.
Summerville, SC 29483
Rm 115

ike - back over the water

ike - steering

In addition to the high pressure ridge steering Ike, which is now slowly retreating eastward, there's a low-pressure system moving south along the east coast that will complicate matters (possibly by allowing another high pressure ridge to build in its wake), as will a Pacific cool front forecast to reach the Texas coast this weekend.

ike

Ike moves into the Gulf and scares the bejezus out of everyone, then encounters shear and dry air. Eventually it heads ashore in Texas at category one, and drops rain on droughty areas inland. Best case. And it could happen.

the most favored solution is a strike on the upper Texas coast. Be advised that computer models have five-day errors that regularly exceed 400 miles, so it's not time to panic. But within the next five to six days Texas could be facing a serious hurricane.

hanna - ike

We are staying in Raleigh one more night. Monday will tell whether Hanna generated any claims. The only claims possible are "no claims". One more day should tell the tale on Ike.

Most forecasters are not bullish on Ike. Going across Cuba should knock it down and it is not likely to recover after that.

Ike will be covering more of Cuba than Gustav did and the water in the Gulf is not as hot as it was for Gustav. Also there is a patch of dry air waiting for Ike when it comes off Cuba.

Ike will be the peak for the hurricane season. It's down hill after this.

Looks like 2008 season is a bust

sunday night - raleigh

changed hotel


Days Inn
6619 Glenwood Ave
Raleigh, NC 27612
919-782-8650

ike

Ike is staying to the south and moving into the gulf. Florida is no longer the target. There is no reason to stay in Raleigh waiting to see if we will deploy to the Florida Coast. There is a meeting tomorrow morning. After that, we will go back to Birmingham to see if Ike is coming north or into Mexico.

hannah

hannah was a fast mover. It came in light and quickly moved to the north. No damage to NC, no power down, no trees down.

saturday night - Raleigh

Days Inn-Raleigh Airport
Interstate 40 - Exit 284

1000 Airport Boulevard
Morrisville, NC 27560
919-489-8688
Room 134

We left Birmingham Saturday morning for Raleigh. Arrived Raleigh 1;30 pm.

birmingham - thursday night

Days Inn South

www.daysinn.com

1535 Montgomery Highway
Hoover, AL 35216
(205) 822-6030

8: Merge onto I-459 N via EXIT 106 toward GADSDEN/ATLANTA. 15.1 mi
9: Merge onto I-65 N via EXIT 15 toward BIRMINGHAM. 2.2 mi
10: Take the COLUMBIANA RD/US-31 S exit, EXIT 252, toward HOOVER. 0.2 mi 11: Turn LEFT onto US-31 S/MONTGOMERY HWY/AL-3 S. 0.2 mi
12: Turn LEFT onto LORNA RD. 0.0 mi
13: End at 1535 Montgomery Hwy Birmingham, AL 35216-4527

Estimated Time: 10.0 hours 18 minutes Estimated Distance: 673.06 miles

10 hours 18 minutes, 666.73 miles to birmingham

http://www.mapquest.com/mq/6-Yd3X1mLc

15: Merge onto I-459 N via EXIT 106 toward GADSDEN/ATLANTA. 10.6 mi
16: Take the AL-150 exit, EXIT 10, toward HOOVER/BESSEMER. 0.4 mi
17: Merge onto AL-150/JOHN HAWKINS PKWY toward HOOVER. 3.2 mi
18: Turn SLIGHT RIGHT onto MONTGOMERY HWY S/US-31 S/AL-3 S. Continue to follow US-31 S/AL-3 S.
2.3 mi
19: Turn LEFT onto VALLEYDALE RD. 0.3 mi
20: Turn LEFT onto BUSINESS CENTER DR. 0.0 mi
21: End at 144 Business Center Dr Birmingham, AL 35244-2018

Estimated Time: 10.0 hours 18 minutes Estimated Distance: 666.73 miles
144 Business Center Dr, Birmingham, AL 35244-2018

deployment - Arthur's Conference Center

View Larger Map

Birmingham, Friday morning, 7am,

Arthur's Conference Center
www.eventective.com

144 Business Center Dr
Birmingham, AL 35244
(205) 982-6338

camera
cell
ladder
computer
truck

$6 to $10 billion damage

clipped from: www.nola.com

The California risk management consulting firm Eqecat Inc. estimated Monday that Hurricane Gustav would generate $6 billion to $10 billion of insurance claims, primarily in Louisiana, after making landfall.

The California insurance consulting firm Risk Management Solutions Inc. issued even lower projections Monday evening of $3 billion to $7 billion in insured losses on land from Gustav.

Meanwhile, the Boston consulting firm AIR was working on downgrading its initial estimates issued Sunday of anticipated losses of $11 billion.

That means Gustav is no Hurricane Katrina, which generated an estimated $43 billion in damage in 2007 dollars, but it still could be a big storm. Two Category Two hurricanes have made the insurance industry's top ten most expensive hurricane list: Hurricane Georges, which hit Mississippi and Louisiana in 1998, and Hurricane Frances, which hit Florida in 2004.

State Farm, the state's largest residential insurer, had 12 mobile catastrophe vehicles ranging in size from a van to truck trailer, 33 satellites, global positioning system devices and laptop computers with air-cards to adjust claims quickly.

Allstate, the state's second largest insurer of homes, said it had stationed 15 mobile response units around the area, with satellite phones, wireless data access, generators, bottled water and teddy bears for kids.

underwater pipelines

clipped from: www.nola.com

The price of crude oil fell to its lowest point in months Monday as a weaker-than-anticipated Hurricane Gustav moved through the Gulf of Mexico. Although Gustav traveled right across an area of the gulf that is heavily populated with oil and gas rigs and platforms, its Category 2 winds were not enough to cause Wall Street to react with concern about the potential for prolonged disruptions in service.

The California consulting firm Risk Management Solutions estimated Sunday that Hurricane Gustav would likely cause $2 billion to $7 billion of damage to offshore oil and gas installations. The firm now believes that damage to offshore energy installations is likely to be on the lower end of that scale because the storm weakened before making landfall.

Although indications are that rigs and platforms escaped the storm largely unscathed, there still is the possibility that underwater pipelines and onshore refineries and natural gas processors have been damaged.

Following Rita, pipelines were found to have been damaged when rigs lost their mooring and dragged their anchors along the buried lines. There also is the worry that underwater tsunamis caused by the storm twisted and tangled lines.

It also is unclear what type of damage, if any, was sustained at Port Fourchon, a hub for the offshore petroleum industry and for oil imports. Gustav slammed into Port Fourchon before coming ashore in Cocodrie.

"Hopefully we don't have any major infrastructure problems that we can't access the port," Port Fourchon director Ted Falgout said. "If that shut-in lasts three or five days then you'll see some major energy issues in the country."

Oil had reached a record high of $147.27 a barrel July 11 and is now trading at its lowest since April. Natural gas for October delivery dropped 5.5 percent, to $7.51 per million British thermal units. October gasoline fell 10.42 cents, or 3.7 percent, to $2.75 a gallon on the Nymex.

All 1.3 million barrels of oil produced each day in the Gulf of Mexico remained shuttered at mid-day Monday. According to a report by the Minerals Management Service, the federal agency that oversees drilling, 95 percent of the 7.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas produced in the Gulf each day was also shut in.

With oil prices falling when the storm hit, Bob Hartwig, an economist who is president of the Insurance Information Institute, said that the financial markets are clearly expecting the disruption to the oil and gas industry to be minimal. By contrast, Hurricane Katrina caused $2 billion in offshore energy damage, and Rita caused $3 billion, Hartwig said.

Ninety percent of the oil and gas industry is serviced by Port Fourchon, said Loren Scott, a Baton Rouge economist, who released a study in April documenting the impact a three-week closure of Port Fourchon would have on the national economy.

"Even if you can get the workers out to the rigs, it's going to be tricky to keep them there if Port Fourchon is down for any amount of time," Scott said. "It's like a small city down there, you're going to have to wait to see what happens."

According to Scott's study, released in April, if Port Fourchon were closed for three weeks, the resulting impact would be a loss of $9.9 billion in sales at U.S. firms and a $2.8 billion decline in household earnings. The closure could also result in the loss of more than 77,000 U.S. jobs.

cocodrie landfall - 72 miles from New Orleans, 20 miles from port fourchon

clipped from: www.nola.com

Although New Orleans escaped serious damage from Hurricane Gustav on Monday morning, winds of the Category 2 storm pushed a 12-foot storm surge into the Industrial Canal, sending waves sloshing over the western wall and triggering minor flooding in the Upper 9th Ward.

Gustav's landing point was 72 miles away near Cocodrie, a low-lying fishing community in Cajun country. Cocodrie is about 20 miles from Port Fourchon, a vital hub in the energy industry where huge amounts of oil and gas are sent inward via pipelines to refineries. There had been fears of extensive damage.

By mid morning, water was splashing for several hundred yards over the western side of the Industrial Canal's floodwall near North Claiborne Avenue, said Jerry Sneed, New Orleans' director of homeland security and emergency preparedness.

patterns and rules in hurricanes

The most dangerous part of the storm, when it comes to a hurricane, is always going to be the eastern side. One of the reasons why is simply because a lot of these tropical storm systems, they carry the greatest amount of wind, the greatest amount of storm surge, the heaviest rainfall ... on the right side of the storm simply because of the counterclockwise rotation.

Storm surge, What happens is when you have strong winds that spin around the center of circulation from these tropical systems, the wind is so strong that it actually causes the water to pile up. The stronger the winds, theoretically, the greater the storm surge.

Say, for example, with a storm like this one, which was a Category 3 storm [it came ashore as a Category 2], you could have a storm surge that would be, say, 10 to maybe 15 feet higher than normal.

A Category 4 storm would have a storm surge that would go up to, say, 18 feet. A Category 5, the most devastating, would have a storm surge in excess of 18 feet.

Tracking, they form over open water. It's not like having a bunch of thunderstorms in the central Plains where you have radar stations all over. You have to really rely on what we refer to as remote sensing -- satellites -- and satellites can only you tell you one part [of the story]; they tell you what's happening from way high above in space.

You have to have something go in there and get some information from inside the storm. To do that, you have these C-130s, the aircraft that go out there and they drop these little things of instrumentation they refer to as dropsondes.

As they drop through parts of the hurricane, you can pick up barometric pressure, wind speeds, moisture content, stuff that's very crucial for scientists to get a good idea of when the storm is going to strengthen or weaken.

Tornadoes, they're relatively weak, of the F0 to F1 variety [on the Fujita tornado damage scale]. Very, very weak tornadoes.

They normally form in the upper right or northeast quadrant [of the storm].

6 inches in the upper ninth ward

clipped from: www.nola.com
As much as six inches of flooding has been reported in the Upper 9th Ward from water splashing over the western side of the Industrial Canal floodwall
Water is overtopping for several hundred yards on the Upper Ninth Ward side of the canal on both sides of the Claiborne Avenue bridge.
levees were standing strong along the Industrial Canal in the Lower 9th Ward.

eye on franklin

In the Eye | 12:19 p.m. This morning, Alex Berenson, a New York Times correspondent, interviewed people in from Franklin, a Louisiana town in the path of the storm. Outside Franklin Foundation Hospital, people seemed calm, he said. One local, Barry Levet told him, “You’ll see us screaming and yelling if it get to 120 miles-per-hour, but in general people are not worried.” At a bar near by “they had beer flowing and everything,” he said. “That’s south Louisiana.”

propoganda blitz continues

Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain packages disaster supplies for Hurricane Gustav in Waterville, Ohio, September 1, 2008.
(John Gress/Reuters)

the atlantic hurricane basin

At the National Hurricane Center in Miami, meteorologist Brian Mayer examines a video monitor, Monday, Sept. 1, 2008, that displays an enhanced satellite image of the Atlantic Hurricane Basin and showing, from left to right, Hurricane Gustav, Tropical Storm Hanna and newly named Tropical Depression Nine.
(AP Photo/Andy Newman)

industrial canel

the industrial canel is being overtopped

The city's levee system has been only partially rebuilt since Hurricane Katrina struck three years ago. Wind-driven water was topping the Industrial Canal floodwall, but it had not breached.

"We are seeing some overtopping waves," said Col. Jeff Bedey, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers' hurricane protection office. "We are cautiously optimistic and confident that we won't see catastrophic wall failure."

cocodrie

357
WTNT42 KNHC 011454
TCDAT2
HURRICANE GUSTAV DISCUSSION NUMBER 32
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL072008
1100 AM EDT MON SEP 01 2008

THE CENTER OF GUSTAV MADE LANDFALL ALONG THE LOUISIANA COAST NEAR
COCODRIE ABOUT 1430 UTC.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Gustav hit just before 10 a.m. Monday near the community of Cocodrie, the heart of the state's fishing and oil industry.

port fourchon

clipped from: www.2theadvocate.com

Study: Port Fourchon crucial

Interruption of service would cost U.S. economy billions
# By TED GRIGGS

Port Fourchon services 90 percent of the deepwater rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, and even a brief interruption of services would cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars and thousands of jobs, a study released Thursday shows.

help convince Congress to fund upgrades and repairs to the area’s levee system and the $250 million shortfall for an elevated highway and bridge from Golden Meadow to Port Fourchon

Conservatively, the shutdown would result in the loss of:

* Nearly $10 billion in sales at U.S. firms
* $2.89 billion in household earnings
* 77,740 jobs nationwide


Today, the loss from oil and gas would be close to $1 billion a day in the Lafourche Corridor

in 2006 about $63.4 billion worth of oil and natural gas was tied to Port Fourchon via LOOP and the offshore platforms the port helps to service. In addition to the deepwater platforms, the port services around 45 percent of all shallow-water rigs in the Gulf.

When hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck, shutting down production from wells in the Gulf, the price of gasoline shot up an average of 75 cents per gallon. The wellhead spot price of natural gas jumped from $6.48 per thousand cubic feet in August 2005 to $8.96 in September, $10.35 in October and to $9.91 in November.

show me the money

Property damage from Gustav could total $8 billion, just 25 percent of Sunday's estimate, according to a federally supported computer projection issued Monday morning. Sunday's estimate of $32.8 billion in property damage was based on winds of 126 mph.

The projection now says about 78,036 buildings will be moderately damaged and 13,286 buildings destroyed. It estimates Gustav will leave behind 13 million tons of debris, less than half of Sunday's projection.

gustav slams oil hub in southwest louisiana

PORT FOURCHON, Louisiana (CNN) -- Hurricane-force winds slammed into oil terminals around Port Fourchon, southwest of New Orleans, as the eye of Category 2 Gustav was churning just off the Gulf shore Monday morning, according to radar.

Port Fourchon is packed with oil terminals and distribution facilities. It is the terminal for tankers bringing oil to the U.S. from overseas. The U.S. Department of Energy says 56 percent of the imported and Gulf of Mexico oil entering the United States passes this point.

The U.S. Geological Survey says Gustav has already caused a nearly 9-foot storm surge in Pointe a La Hache, Louisiana, about 40 miles southeast of New Orleans. Another 1 to 3 feet of surge could occur, the USGS said.

Gustav's center was about 85 miles (137 kilometers) south of New Orleans and about 20 miles south-southeast of Port Fourchon, Louisiana, at 6 a.m. (7 a.m. ET), the hurricane center said.

going across timbalier island headed toward cocodrie

Kennerta Watson, 2, sits on the lap of family friend Pleshette Short, along with Rose Taylor, 18 months, as they wait to board a bus while evacuating from the approaching Hurricane Gustav at the Greyhound Bus and Amtrak station Sunday, Aug. 31, 2008, in New Orleans.
(AP Photo/Rob Carr)

a propoganda operation fizzles

A television monitor near the floor of the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota shows U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain as he speaks about Hurricane Gustav and changes in convention plans August 31, 2008. Event planners have changed the agenda as Hurricane Gustav bears down on the Louisiana coastline, with some Louisiana delegates returning to their home state.

gustav begins to fizzle

Gustav comes into Grand Isle and Port Fourchan and then moves northwest parallel to the coast, skirting the coast of LaFourche and Terrebonne Parish

the rnc and the corporate media need to tamp down the FUD and the hype

This morning, as Hurricane Gustav nears Louisiana, its eastern eyewall — normally the fiercest part of a hurricane — has vanished, along with much of the rest of the storm’s eastern and southern core. This is, again, the portion of the storm that will come closest to New Orleans.

OBSERVATIONS FROM AN AIR FORCE HURRICANE HUNTER AIRCRAFT INDICATE THAT GUSTAV IS NOT STRENGTHENING.

THE EYE WALL IS OPEN OVER THE SOUTHERN SEMICIRCLE…PERHAPS DUE TO THE MID- TO UPPER-LEVEL DRY AIR INTRUSION FROM THE SOUTH

Gustav is, in fact, weakening. The Hurricane Center’s 115 mph estimate is, as they say, “generous,” and frankly, although I’m generally reluctant to criticize the NHC, I’m not sure what purpose is served at this point by continuing to pretend Gustav is a major hurricane. This is a Category 2 hurricane, as it has been for most, if not all, of the last 24 hours.
That said, Gustav will still bring significant storm-surge flooding to the Houma area and environs along the east-central Louisiana coast. It may yet cause some flooding in New Orleans, particularly on the West Bank, depending on how the levees hold up. And it’s not like Category 2 winds are a pleasant day in the park. This will be a hellish morning and afternoon for folks in southeastern Louisiana.