Hurricane Ida (and Aftermath) Thread

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At this point, Hurricane Ida is hitting Louisiana, but damage and loss of life aren’t yet fully predictable. “Catastrophic” does however seem likely to be a constantly used description.

Will the Biden Administration handle the aftermath any better than George W. BUSH’S FEMA did after Katrina hit? What will what looks to become the worst hurricane landfall in over 150 years cause? How can we help those who live there?

I propose using this thread to discuss events and the aftermath, share resources, encourage those of us in this monster’s path, and hopefully, more.

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If you feel the need to donate something, donate cash. Don’t donate canned food, bottled water, or old clothing. Don’t travel to give help unless requested. Don’t become part of the problem.

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Ida turned back towards New Orleans during today and has slowed down.
Grand Isle was wiped out again; ~75 people stayed but the only road to the island is under more than 6 feet of water so hopefully they can ride it out. The eye made landfall in Lafourche Parish, but all of southeast Louisiana is being hit really hard.

My parents stayed (in New Orleans), as they have for every hurricane of the past 50 years except Katrina. The power and landline are out but the cellular phone has a little bit of service. Enough to learn the roof is leaking, the tree in the back yard fell, and this is the strongest storm they’ve seen, but they’re ok

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I just heard from my Mom, apparently the rain didn’t really make it to Lafayette. She checked in with family still in NOLA who are out of power but fine.

I just texted my father to see how he fared, I heard from him yesterday. I believe he is still in Independence and still staying in a trailer but I’m never sure with him, he’s not great at updates.

Checked in with some friends, but still have one my partner still needs to text.

Edit: ok one of my other friends was doing something that required crossing town during the storm but that’s very on brand for him, I guess we will hear how that went later.

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The northshore is better than south of the lake, but I would not like to be in a trailer there tonight. Hope everyone makes it through ok

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That’s crazy. The picture is of Rampart st. a few blocks uptown of the Saenger theater. That whole block is part of the historical registry. Louis Armstrong used to hang out in that building 100 years ago. From the damage, I wonder if it was a tornado

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The core of the storm will be passing right over my brother’s house early Monday morning, according to the NOAA tracking map. I hope his family has a house to return to.

Still, he’s in much better shape than some folks…

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This slow weakening is in stark contrast to a typical hurricane. Based upon a simple model for a landfalling hurricane, a storm like Ida would have been expected to drop from 150 to 100 mph after four hours, and to 70 mph after 10 hours. So why did Ida maintain its devastating intensity for so long?

Some of this is due to geography. The Louisiana coastland is largely made up of swampy, marshy land barely above sea level. Anyone who has ever driven Interstate 10 across Louisiana knows this. The lengthy Atchafalaya Basin Bridge between Lafayette and Baton Rouge traverses above seemingly endless swampy ground, and this region lies about 50 miles inland from the coast. As Ida approached Louisiana, its storm surge pushed warm water from the Gulf of Mexico inland. This allowed the storm to continue traversing “over water” even as it moved dozens of miles into the state.

Ida’s slow weakening was also fueled by the “brown ocean effect,” in which latent heat from very wet soils can mimic the moisture-rich environment of the ocean. The Southern Louisiana marshes are fertile environments for this kind of latent heating. Because of its relatively slow movement, less than 10 mph to the north, Ida spent several hours over the more ■■■■■ environment.

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So the coastal erosion is making storm damage worse in a new way. The loss of barrier islands and wetlands makes landfall worse because the storm surge hits inhabited areas much harder, and apparently it also causes the storm to weaken more slowly after landfall.

Redesigning the river levee to restore wetlands is very doable and has been discussed for over a century. Still I don’t see congress addressing the problems (the levee system is entirely federally controlled)

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Resources and more from a great organization:

Another Gulf Is Possible Collaborative is a women-of-color led, grassroots collaborative of ten members from Brownsville, Texas to Pensacola, Florida. We are built upon decades of organizing resulting in a strong and rooted ecosystem of relationships between individuals tied to a multitude of organizations, networks, communities, and alliances from the US Gulf South to the Global South.

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Wondering- are pagers working in New Orleans? Can Dr’s still get those messages?

Are they a good emergency communication option? Or is it only sat messengers that work?

Edit:

Apparently they worked fairly well in Katrina

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Well, both my brothers stayed put, but we think everyone’s okay. Younger brother lives further out, so he talked to my dad. The brother between us has a different phone carrier, but from what we got from a text using his neighbor’s phone, they’re doing okay but using generators for power.

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My partner had to take today off of work because he’s been distracted doom scrolling about the damage in LaPlace, where he grew up.

He never liked it there and the only family left there are the estranged parts he never had a relationship with anyway, but it’s still always upsetting and surreal to see really familiar stuff wrecked or underwater. Plus we all were pretty apprehensive about a storm coming in on the Katrina anniversary.

The LaPlace hashtag on Twitter has been full of people needed to be rescued from attics and such.

The off ramp where we always came in by the Waffle House looks like a lake.

I heard from the rest of my friends and they are fine even the one who decided to cross town in the storm. Haven’t heard from dad yet.

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