Hurricane Gustav

[Zirax]

I have been casually following this over the past few days with growing interest. Just the shear scale of this beast is something else.

Take a look at this video on bbc.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7590332.stm

Now if Brown stood there and openly said "Get Out" backed up with my own research around the net and on weather sites, I sure as hell wouldn't be staying here. It seems that some people are.

I suppose the continual "you are gonna die" from tornado/earthquake/hurricane must have numbed some people. I've pulled up Katrina from wiki for you to have a look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina

Now I am aware there is some ass covering going on here. However given the above, given its current strength, given that New Orleans is forecast to hit on the East side (the worst), given what happened when Katrina hit..... would you stay?

edit:- Thanks mods

[Feek]

I'd be outta there, rapidly.

[Mark]

I'd be out too.

Some people either just don't care, refuse because they think it's cool, refuse because they want to shove two fingers up the nearest official, or think they're cleverer than Mother Nature. They're the sort that usually end up winning Darwin Awards.

[petemc]

Theres a part of me that would want to stay and photograph it, but realistically I'd chicken out. I only heard about this today. Its got to be terrible for them. If it hits as a cat4 its not good for that city.

[Zirax]

Hmmm, may or may not be a cat 4. Time will tell, they were expecting cat 5

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at2+shtml/205241.shtml?radii#contents

[petemc]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26295161?preferredName=Gustav

[Mark]

They quite often pick up strength over water, so may end up as a Cat 4. Katrina was predicted to be stronger than it ended up but it still did a lot of damage, much of which hasn't been repaired (or only partially repaired).

[Zirax]

Thats a cracking link, follow to cuba and then onto the slide show of pics of the aftermath

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26486029/

[petemc]

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=gustav

http://hub.metblogs.com/group/neworleans/forum/topic/show?id=2188078%3ATopic%3A3790

[Matblack]

Its raining

http://www.nola.com/bridgecam/

MB

[Zirax]

Pretty much on the coast now and it appears to be a category 3. Seems that Cuba was blasted harder than New Orleans. Depends now on just how badly this compromises the defences given their already weakened / partially repaired status.

[Zirax]

Caught the news this morning and it seems that it was not as bad as they feared. Just luck for the people who were stayed as after passing Cuba it calmed down. However when the authorities had to make the call it was a category 4 letting rip past Cuba with more than enough potential to reach category 5.

[Mark]

Seems to have blown itself out. Often they strengthen over water and they rightly had to plan for that or face another Katrina, but this one seems to have done the opposite.