CAT 4 Hurricane Dean (150 mph sustained, min. cent. press. 929 mbar)

[jpak]

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

[trayted]

1. I have loved hurricanes since I bought a book about them from the "Book Fair" when I was 12

It's pretty hard for most people to "fear" things that they know well.

Satellite Imagery
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/float1.html

[aquart]

2. Where do you live?

How many times has your home been destroyed? Right now, 100 percent of Martinique's banana crop is destroyed and 70 percent of its sugar. That devastates the island's economy and doesn't do us a lot of good, either.

But you keep right on enjoying.

[ananda]

3. God, Dean's a monster!

It was all the news coverage on Hurricane Carla, and then Camille,
that has given me a very healthy respect for hurricanes.

During Alicia, a direct hit on my area, a huge tree was blown over
in my front yard and I had to go without water and electricity for a
week. The phone was out several days too, and in those days,
cell phones were still a dream of the future.

Going without a/c in August for a week was no picnic, let me tell
you.

Sue

[trayted]

5. By 5pm, it'll be a Cat 5. The eyewall replacement cycle is almost complete, and the "reds"

are really beginning to flare up on the right side of the storm. It's getting even better organized, and by 5pm, maybe 8pm, it'll be upgraded to a 5...I think.

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/flt/t1/loop-rb.html

[jpak]

10. It's going to hit Jamaica as a strong CAT 4 or 5 - unprecedented in modern history

goodie goodie!!!1111

:bounce:

:bounce:

[trayted]

14. Looking at the latest satellite imagery and "symmetry" of the core, it'll be a 5 shortly

This won't be "goodie" for Jamaica.

[trayted]

4. North Carolina. Been through plenty of hurricanes. I love hurricanes, just like meteorologists do

Even though I'm not a meteorologist. It's just a hobby of mine to research them.

Our problem is our development patterns. If people want to settle in danger zones, I'm not going to blame hurricanes, which have been hitting the coast of the United States since before it even existed.

[jpak]

6. One word

Katrina

[trayted]

7. Yeah, and I enjoyed tracking Katrina, and watching the satellite imagery of it. Beyond that, we can

do nothing about storms like this. They talk about experimenting with cooling the ocean waters or seeding clouds, or trying to alter the atmosphere to create low pressure systems to push storms away or make them hit "less populated areas," but I think much of that is fantasy.

Katrina caused a lot of damage, but less damage than development patterns, marsh destruction, and Bush administration negligence did.

Why would I blame the storm? Hurricanes have been hitting the United States forever.

I still like Hurricane Season. It's a rush. Now, I'm terrified of tornados.

People fear things they don't understand. Hurricanes, you have weeks to track most of them. Tornados just spring up out of nowhere. We need to rebuild natural barriers to prevent storm surge, and rethink development patterns. If people want that prime real estate on the coast, then it comes with a price.

[jpak]

8. Yeah - I enjoyed Katrina too, the bodies floating in the streets

the dead bodies in lawn chairs

the desperate people begging for help at the Superdome

the desperate children trapped on overpasses

the Greta police refugee blockade

the demolished LA, MS and AL coastal cities

the ferocious racism that bubbled up in White America

it was way fucking cool

[bananas]

12. ...

[trayted]

13. There's a difference between the damage, that I addressed, and the "tracking" of the storm

Surely, even you understand the difference.

Care to agree about our settlement choices? You think it's a good thing to keep moving closer and closer to the shoreline, since we can't control the weather?

Do you think those bodies in the street were more of Katrina's fault, or Bush's for not evacuating the people before the storm, even though FEMA was supposed to send buses down, and we do have a certain thing in this country called passenger rail and "airplanes"? The same way they got them out after the storm's damage, they could have gotten them out before.

Hurricanes cause damage. We can't stop hurricanes from occurring, but we can stop setting ourselves up for damage, by not getting in hurricanes' way. We can stop destroying the wetlands around New Orleans.

I didn't enjoy seeing the "aftermath" of Katrina, but most of the damage was caused by "us," our public priorities, our policies, and our government's lack of urgency.

Clearly, you don't see the difference between tracking storms and what the storm does. Same with the tsunami. If there was no money-making vacation spot there, how many people would have died? Tsunamis have always been around, which is why the word "tsunami" exists. We didn't just create it on December 26, 2005. Tsunamis have hit that area before. You can't do anything about it, but just "hope" that it doesn't, but when it does, what are we going to blame, "the earth" for quaking? Seismologists love their jobs. They love studying earthquakes. Loving their jobs doesn't mean that they love the destruction that the earthquake causes. Loving hurricanes doesn't mean that meteorologists, or storm chasers, or trackers, love the damage that they cause.

But I understand. Some people can't understand that.

[Igel]

9. I have no trouble fearing something I understand well.

Somehow, I have this squirrelly idea that acknowledging the existence of irrational fear of the unknown is completely unrelated to the rational fear of something that's very dangerous and well known.

I also have the squirrelly idea that the acknowledgement of only one of the two kinds of fear is, well, also irrational.

[trayted]

16. Well, if someone had a gun to my head, I'd be afraid, because I know what a gun can do

So, clearly you chose to see that statement the way that you did, whereas, I thought you would be smart enough to weigh it correctly.

[applegrove]

11. CBC News says it is predicted to become a category 5 hurricane.

[trayted]

15. Well, you don't have to predict it. All you have to do is look at the satellite imagery and

surrounding conditions.

If there is nothing impeding it, it will strengthen. It is in open water, warm water, in favorable conditions. I wish "The 11th Hour" was around here. I wanted to go see it yesterday, but I'm not in NY or LA.

It went from this.


To this. See the better "symmetry" around the eye. Better organized means intensification.

[philb]

17. The Oil Patch Cheers On Hurricane Dean: any excuse to raise oil prices and rip off the public

(according to Huffington)
The Oil Patch Cheers On Hurricane Dean: any excuse to raise oil prices and rip off the public
http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20070818/cm_huffpost/060848