I should have included Comcast (History Channel and the Weather Channel) with Home Depot ...

Quote:

Keep in mind, Florida and the gulf coast has seen many many hurricanes and have developed building codes to match them. The buildings that did not meet them over time have been washed away in one storm or another.

Florida has some of the toughest building codes around now, but it wasn't always that way, and there are still plenty of older buildings which would get absolutely trashed if serious hurricane came through. The house I'm sitting in right now is an example; it built in 1991, which was before the building codes were revised. It's 150' from the ocean, 10' above sea level. It's not in a particularly hurricane-prone area (20 miles south of St. Augustine), but I know damn well would be gone if a big storm came this way.

-Uwe-

You'd be surprised.

Provided the roof has clips and doesn't get blown off, and your windows and GARAGE DOOR do not get violated, you've got a damn good chance.

10' ABSL? ....it's not the wind he'll be worrying about.

Hurricane Ike's surge scoured the Bolivar Peninsula almost completely clean:

(The one remaining house is gutted except for the attic.)

- - - - -

Irene is 6mph away from cat-4. Told ya.

(She'll develop a huge doughnut eye overnight, and look appropriately Hugo-ish tomorrow.)

Do you guys really think that the housing boom construction was done to code? I seriously doubt it - with all the Chinese drywall problems it is pure wishful thinking to believe that's the only thing that got cut quality in the rush to build bubble properties.

We were vacationing at the NC OBX last year, and that place looked like it was still in full on 'bubble' times. I suppose in such places, it never ends. I was astounded at all of the newly built places and ongoing new construction. They have to know that it's only a matter of time until a storm comes through and trashes it all. Hell, in many places the land between the Sound and the Ocean is so narrow(with vacation homes and businesses covering every inch of it), a big hurricane would easily swallow it all up.

We talk about Black Swans a lot here- but if this thing were to make a direct hit of Wall Street as Cat 3 or above wouldn't that be something truly out of the realm of Blackswan talk- and more like if suddenly a flying Dinosaur appeared out of nowhere?

Poer, it would be exceedingly difficult for a hurricane to make a direct hit on lower Manhattan at that intensity, and it requires almost unique circumstances for a storm to arrive at the position without either traversing land in the Virginia/New Jersey region, or colder water. The would need to come screaming north over the outer banks with a forward speed of over 60mph, then shank left into the city before weakening appreciably.

Thanks Bezzle
I remember the feeling of late summer in 2005 when Katrina hit New Orleans almost like it was bearing down on them like they had a bullseye
I know it is far off and still uncertain but there is something about this one that has a similiar eerie feeling of impending doom.

I am reminded of Hurricane Isabel (2005) which came out of nowhere, became a monster storm, and did an almost direct hit on Washington DC.

@cnnbrk: Dare County, NC officials ordered a mandatory evacuation for tourists in preparation for #Hurricane #Irene http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/0....

Please correct me if I am wrong, but "the cone" in the NHC model just shows the area of a possible direct hit? The storm is approx the size of one of those square grids in the model.
Bez, how much further to you think it might shift west in the next 2 days?

I was there for Isabel.

By the time it hit NOVA, it was 65-70 MPH, barely if even a Cat-1 (I think).

It still did at lot of damage from both the wind, the surge and rain in many areas (I was in Herndon).

If Isabel had been a Cat-2 or worse by the time it rolled over DC it would have been really bad

poer wrote..

I remember the feeling of late summer in 2005 when Katrina hit New Orleans almost like it was bearing down on them like they had a bullseye

except it actually hit Mississipi instead and the worst of the storm was well NW of New Orleans. Dont that get in the way of your memory tho...

Quote:

Wxrisk.com
‎***12Z EURO ALERT... European Models SLOWS Irene approach to the coast down and is ALSO closer to the coast More west ... Goes over HATTERAS due North CRUSHING HIT to VA eastern shore and Lower MD eastern shore ... OCEAN CITY MD gets really wiped flat. Irene turns DUE NORTH up the 75 west long line. Complete Disaster for Manhattan and New York.

The hell with Manhattan and New York...Lower MD eastern shore is me. I really hate hurricanes. The surge is going to be screaming hell here.

Quote:

Wxrisk.com
‎***12Z EURO ALERT... European Models SLOWS Irene approach to the coast down and is ALSO closer to the coast More west ... Goes over HATTERAS due North CRUSHING HIT to VA eastern shore and Lower MD eastern shore ... OCEAN CITY MD gets really wiped flat. Irene turns DUE NORTH up the 75 west long line. Complete Disaster for Manhattan and New York.

Great. Pulled everything in from the yard to the garage and shed.

Isabel was not so bad.

All of the batteries were sold out at Wegmans. They still had toilet paper and water though.

From what I am seeing New England seems to be possibly badly hit.

Irene is my confirmation name. Sigh.

Nova

I'm worried about my parents, they're on Long Island, about 3 miles inland. At least the barrier beaches are still there and aren't real developed in many areas but if that thing comes in with a good storm surge my parents are going to be in their attic as they're about 2 feet above sea level, if that.

Whoever is running that Wxrisk.com website needs some serious tech help

Apparently NWS offices in the eastern half of the country are now flying weather balloons every 6 hours to get atmospheric soundings ahead of Irene.

They are not ****ing around here. O_o

Folks, Sry, been out Most of the afternoon...
i'm CERTAIN to a degree if Model Ensembles holds..
LI will get a near direct hit..
The ground are nearly already saturated, With Irene pushing surge inland and funneling, in addition to the Tides Predicted + new moon, the WORSE CASE SECENRIO is very likely going to unfold..
Worse than 1938...

This is a MASSIVE Cyclone...
PRO meterlogist(s) are getting down-right , is fearful? the right word?
We could very possibly Witness the Biggest loss of Property Damage, Epic flooding W/rain(15" possible if not more than that just on LI), with aforemention storm surge on top of it, EVER witnessed in the Mid-Atlantic.
The Picture Bez posted? The "Hamptons" will look simiular.. As will OBX.

This Could be the "Black Swan" that Collaspes the Economy..
Wall street WILL be closed Most; if not ALL next week..
Homes/Property/CR isn't even built "to Code", I mean, Codes like We've Got down South, (As Karl Mentioned), Cane Straps, and the like..
HUGE Insurance Losses for Insurers that have a big Market Share in the Upper-Mid ATL.
(not trading advice, though I'd look to short(s)/buy some lotto tickets on them).

not putting up any Model Maps @ this time.
I expect this Cane to reach/ Hit, LI/et al at LEAST a Cat 2, with a Mid to high level Cat 3 in the cards, they are there...
Lizard Queen, PLEASE take My Advice, If the Runs are consisant, over the next Couple Runs.. GET them to get out of LI....
I'll leave for a bit, leaving this Artical..Credits Ruters......

Threat of Irene exposes New York's vulnerability
* Latest track models suggest Long Island hit on Sunday

* 1821, 1938 storms show potential for severe loss

* Some already warning of $10 billion-plus disaster

In the annals of natural disasters, it doesn't get much worse than a major hurricane directly striking New York City and Long Island.

Hurricane Irene is on a course that will take it up the East Coast from the weekend. While there is still uncertainty about where it will hit and when, the forecast models increasingly suggest some parts of the greater New York area will face some type of storm or hurricane impact.
According to New York City's Office of Emergency Management, the last hurricane to pass directly over the city was in 1821 -- and it caused tides to rise 13 feet in one hour, flooding all of lower Manhattan to Canal St.
(MY EDIT: it was LOW tide when this occured!)

But for Long Island, the threat is much worse. People still talk about the Long Island Express of 1938, a Category 3 storm that the U.S. government has said would cause $40 billion in damage if it hit today.

Meteorologists say the risk appears most acute for areas like the Hamptons, an eastern Long Island playground for New York's rich.

"If the storm followed the exact track of it, there could be considerable wind damage and tidal flooding out in those areas," said James Aman, senior meteorologist with WeatherBug. "There potentially could be some storm surge problems out around the eastern tip of Long Island, Rhode Island, Cape Cod, some of the areas around Boston that face Massachusetts Bay."

Estimating the damage such an impact would cause is difficult without knowing the storm's parameters, like wind speed, rainfall totals, direction and the like. Some are already taking a ballpark guess, though.

"If Irene hits Long Island or southeast Massachusetts, the storm has the potential to be a $10 billion disaster," Weather Underground's Jeff Masters said in a blog post Wednesday.

If Masters is right, that would make the insured losses from Irene some of the worst in history, at a time that insurers are already stretched by record-breaking natural disasters around the world.

DAMAGING THE RICH

High net worth insurers like AIG (AIG.N) and Chubb (CB.N) are big players in those kinds of upper-class regions, where insured losses can total up quickly due to high property values as well as extensive collections of art and jewelry.

They are scrambling now to warn their customers to be prepared, to take the kinds of precautions that people in places like Florida take for granted.

"Without the repetition of events like the folks in Florida benefit from, that preparedness is not front and center," said Michael Taylor, executive vice president for claims in the consumer unit at Chartis, the property insurance arm of AIG.

Taylor said Chartis has been in touch with its brokers, asking them to contact customers and remind them of hurricane preparedness tips that they already receive yearly but might otherwise disregard.

There is only so much preparedness can do, though. Taylor said even the homes of the wealthy sometimes don't feature things like hurricane-strength glass and wind shutters, which are standard in parts of Florida but less common in the northeast.

"These are things that will make homes a little more susceptible here, if we do have high winds," he added.

Those winds could be a problem for New York City in particular, a number of experts say.

Florida State University has created an online map that shows the track of 14 different models, two of which show the Irene plowing straight through New Jersey and putting New York City, Newark and other areas on the wrong side of the storm.

Given how compact Manhattan is, even tropical storm-force conditions could do serious damage.

"The water's got to go somewhere and the wind is going to hit something," said Lou Gritzo, research manager at insurer FM Global. "New York City becomes a wind tunnel when the wind whips between the buildings, so that's going to be a force that intensifies how projectiles are moving."

$100 BILLION DISASTER

In fact, ask any scientist who models catastrophes for a living what it would take to create a $100 billion natural disaster, and their list will almost always include a major hurricane (Category 3 or higher) hitting New York City.

"We haven't had a storm in this area for quite some time and it's difficult to say how tested some of these buildings are against hurricane force winds," said Matt Nielsen, product manager for the U.S. hurricane model at catastrophe modeling company RMS.

The city's emergency management office featured Irene front and center on its website Wednesday, urging people to know whether they were in a designated hurricane risk zone and to know the proper evacuation routes out of the city.

Even if Irene passes far enough away from the city and the New York region to spare a full-force impact, flooding can still be a significant problem, especially with tides expected to be high anyway over the weekend due to a new moon.

Four of the six most significant flood events of the last 30 years, based on the amount paid out by the National Flood Insurance Program in claims, included the New York region -- Hurricane Ivan in 2004, Hurricane Isabel in 2003, Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 and Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

Paid claims from those four storms, just for flooding, topped $3.5 billion, according to data compiled by the Insurance Information Institute.
maps/Disco up next on deck....

Bez wrote..

10' ABSL? ....it's not the wind he'll be worrying about.

Both actually. If the ocean comes across the dune in any serious way, this house won't be standing. It's a 2-story stucco over frame house built on a slab. The dune is 14-15' above sea level, and does offer a modicum of extra protection. Wind is also a concern. I just had a few windows re-glazed because they were constantly fogged between the panes and I'm singularly unimpressed with them structurally. There are no shutters. The garage door will probably be the last thing to fail; it looks like it was replaced at some point and is rated for 110mph. My wife and I are still debating exactly what we want to do with this place (other than enjoy it more or less as is for now). It's a vacation house, not our primary residence, so we're fully prepared to abandon ship on relatively short notice.

-Uwe-

and Brookhaven National Laboratory is located on Long Island...I doubt the facilities were designed for a hurricane.

I just talked to my sister. She talked to my dad this am - apparently he told her he's all prepped, with a fresh stock of Bourbon and pipe tobacco. Grrrrr..

Argh...

HurriKeynes