TS Issac, 2012 season

[OTTB]

Can I get that PM too raptor? I don't have much in the way of disposable income for either fuel or the gennie but I recognize that I need both for hurricane season and bad thunderstorms.

[Vicarious_Lee]

Can I get that PM too raptor? I don't have much in the way of disposable income for either fuel or the gennie but I recognize that I need both for hurricane season and bad thunderstorms.

I'd send it to you, but I actually never got it either.

[raptor]

PMs sent


BTW right now would be a terrible time to buy a generator. They are in great demand and the prices just went up. Wait a little while. You may be able to pick up a good used one.... or better yet wait until December 31, 2012...there will be a bunch for sale when people realize that the TEOTWAWKI did not occur.

[SiXiam]

http://news.yahoo.com/no-water-no-power-means-days-misery-la-072436522.html

Robbie Daniel, 55, an industrial engineer, and his wife, Kathi, a retired school teacher, live in a house on the Tchoutacabouffa River in Biloxi, and hadn't left home since Tuesday. Their house is on stilts and was surrounded by chest deep water.

Kathi saw online Thursday that casinos could be opening so they hopped in a kayak, paddled to their car on higher ground and drove to Island View Casino Resort in Gulfport.

That's the preparedness I like to see!

[JTNieman]

Might I get a PM as well?

My preps so far have been more about remaining comfortable during power outages, rather than getting power. I've always been simple and just dealt with it - but that's from growing up in Missouri in the middle of nowhere. We never had gennies and we'd have power out in the winter sometimes as long as a month. Summer outages were not rare either. We managed... /shrug.

A/C would be nice though, these days. A window unit A/C and closed-doors should be a nice bump, in addition to a couple luxuries.

[Cybrludite]

Hey Raptor, I just remembered......NO has their annual Labor Day festival this weekend. Do you think the city can handle those big crowds in it's current state?

Are you kidding NOLA cancel a party...never...Laissez les bons temps rouler

This festival has a parade but no king...(just queens ) and Grand Marshalls

http://www.southerndecadence.net/


gaytravel.com voted it the #1 end of summer event.

The city always welcomes visitors and will use any excuse to throw a party.

Hell, they held Decadence after Katrina.

[raptor]

Hell, they held Decadence after Katrina.

QFT!

For 2005 Southern Decadence was officially canceled as a result of Hurricane Katrina; however, a very small group of residents who still remained in the French Quarter celebrated the event anyway. An abbreviated parade took place in the French Quarter with some two dozen participants. Most were French Quarter hold outs; there were also at least a couple of people who had to wade in through flooded streets from other neighborhoods to get there. As the city was officially being evacuated at the time, a police officer at first attempted to stop the small observation of tradition, but one of the participants was able to produce the parade permit issued pre-Katrina showing it was a scheduled legal event, and the small procession was allowed to continue. National media reporters noted the event. It was the first parade in New Orleans after the hurricane,

Any group with such joie de vivre is OK in my eyes....no I will not be attending the festivities... but they earned the right to parade and have fun.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Decadence

[yale]

No power at my home since wednesday at four am. Didn't get a genny and hoped lights would be on by now. Battery operated fan doesn't help much. Home located in Saint Gabriel, La. No water or roof damage. Just lack of power. Gonna empty out fridge and freezer when I get home from work this morning.

[Horatio_Tyllis]

No power at my home since wednesday at four am. Didn't get a genny and hoped lights would be on by now. Battery operated fan doesn't help much. Home located in Saint Gabriel, La. No water or roof damage. Just lack of power. Gonna empty out fridge and freezer when I get home from work this morning.

How much food did you lose? Any of the freezer stuff still ok? Big neighbourhood bbq?

[yale]

No power at my home since wednesday at four am. Didn't get a genny and hoped lights would be on by now. Battery operated fan doesn't help much. Home located in Saint Gabriel, La. No water or roof damage. Just lack of power. Gonna empty out fridge and freezer when I get home from work this morning.

How much food did you lose? Any of the freezer stuff still ok? Big neighbourhood bbq?

Looks like I'm not going to loose much. The bucket trucks pulled onto my street just about 1pm. Started woring on the lones. Power came on at 2:15. I checked the freezers and fridges and looks like most of it stayed cool enough to keep. Prepped by stuffing freezer with 2 liter bottles of water which froze. All that ice, and not opening the fridge or freezers keept the stuff cool enough. We tossed some milk and other stuff in on fridge but most of the stuff in the freezers looks useable.

Other lesson learned... I didn't get a genny but used my deep cycle battery which is my backup power on my ham radio desk to run a fan. I plugged a cheap Radio Shack inverter into the deep cycle battery and plugged in the fan. The fan ran for right at 12 hours before the voltage dropped below 12.4volts and the inverter cut off. I can still run my Yaesu 8500 Vhf/Uhf radio on the battery but the inverter wants more juice to run.

[yale]

My sister evaced her home east of Ponchatoula due to rising flood waters. The Tangipahoa River is in her back yard now.
One of her daughters had a house in Ponchatoula which flooded too. They all are camping out in an apartment in West Baton Rouge Parish.
I'm a member of Louisiana Open Carry Awareness League and we have canceled our upcoming monthly meeting in LaPlace this coming Wednesday. Out Treasurer got flooded out of his home in LaPlace. It's been rough for lots of people. This Cat 1 storm was certainly was no Katrina but it effected plenty of people.

[RickOShea]

This Cat 1 storm was certainly was no Katrina but it effected plenty of people.

Yeah, those slow moving TS and Cat 1s are their own special hell. We've had a few over the years that dumped a ton of water on us. And even when they didn't knock the power out, we had to turn the power off to several flooded areas as a safety precaution......Which didn't endear us to those customers.

Now, we won't turn the power back on until the water recedes from inside the houses AND the owners sign a liability waiver. Even then we strongly recommend that they check all their outlets and breaker boxes to make sure they're nice and dry before they throw their main breaker back on......We were sued many years ago because of a couple of house fires that started after we turned the power back on after some floods.

[SiXiam]

No power at my home since wednesday at four am. Didn't get a genny and hoped lights would be on by now. Battery operated fan doesn't help much. Home located in Saint Gabriel, La. No water or roof damage. Just lack of power. Gonna empty out fridge and freezer when I get home from work this morning.

How much food did you lose? Any of the freezer stuff still ok? Big neighbourhood bbq?

Looks like I'm not going to loose much. The bucket trucks pulled onto my street just about 1pm. Started woring on the lones. Power came on at 2:15. I checked the freezers and fridges and looks like most of it stayed cool enough to keep. Prepped by stuffing freezer with 2 liter bottles of water which froze. All that ice, and not opening the fridge or freezers keept the stuff cool enough. We tossed some milk and other stuff in on fridge but most of the stuff in the freezers looks useable.

Other lesson learned... I didn't get a genny but used my deep cycle battery which is my backup power on my ham radio desk to run a fan. I plugged a cheap Radio Shack inverter into the deep cycle battery and plugged in the fan. The fan ran for right at 12 hours before the voltage dropped below 12.4volts and the inverter cut off. I can still run my Yaesu 8500 Vhf/Uhf radio on the battery but the inverter wants more juice to run.

Sounds like a dc car fan would work well here. That way you wouldn't need an inverter and it would last longer.
Something like this: http://www.12volt-travel.com/12-volt-fan-2speed-black-metal-p-15113.html

[raptor]

This is a video from a smaller rural area in Louisiana. The town of Braithwait was flooded and remains flooded. Their non federal levee failed. I post this for the simple reason that if you are in such an area this is the emotional and mental state of the people you will have to deal with.

The residents have been barred by the authorities from launching their own boats to go retrieve whatever they can. This restriction was put in place to protect them and to prevent looting. You can argue all day about whether this right or wrong... but it was done.

These hot, frustrated, worried and most likely emotionally devastated people as several large airboats with large groups of press made repeated trips into the flooded subdivision all the while they were barred from entering to access their property. Again you can argue all day about press access and whether or not it makes sense.

The key take away though is that people in a disaster zone will be hot, angry, frustrated and generally in a foul mood. They may vent at you like these people did...be prepared.

Scroll down to the middle of the page to see the video.

http://video-embed.nola.com/services/pl ... NwjG28SO_r

[SiXiam]

This is a video from a smaller rural area in Louisiana. The town of Braithwait was flooded and remains flooded. Their non federal levee failed. I post this for the simple reason that if you are in such an area this is the emotional and mental state of the people you will have to deal with.

The residents have been barred by the authorities from launching their own boats to go retrieve whatever they can. This restriction was put in place to protect them and to prevent looting. You can argue all day about whether this right or wrong... but it was done.

These hot, frustrated, worried and most likely emotionally devastated people as several large airboats with large groups of press made repeated trips into the flooded subdivision all the while they were barred from entering to access their property. Again you can argue all day about press access and whether or not it makes sense.

The key take away though is that people in a disaster zone will be hot, angry, frustrated and generally in a foul mood. They may vent at you like these people did...be prepared.

Scroll down to the middle of the page to see the video.

http://video-embed.nola.com/services/pl ... NwjG28SO_r

Obviously we have a long standing tradition of embedding journalists with emergency services. Just because the press has access doesn't give the residents a right to go. Of course that may seem unfair on the ground. Law enforcement has a right to close down any transportation route, from roads to waterways and everything in-between. From an emotional aspect I understand these people want to go to their homes and see what is salvageable. From a practical perspective this seems dangerous letting people go around in a hazardous area just to see the damage done. Besides you can't salvage many of the items from your home in a small boat anyway.

Now that guy getting yelled at... awesome! That's the way to be: calm, cool, collected and just silent, giving them time to vent!