tvc184

Its always better to be safe than sorry... This storm is right on our butts and could do anything! If it stays the course we could be greatly effected! If they continue to wait how would the elderly and special needs have time to do anything???? C'mon tvc,youre a cop,you know their job as elected officials is to protect the citizens of their counties and I think as of now theyre failing miserably! Yes and they did exactly that a few days ago for Gustav and everyone was up in arms because we didn't get hit. Gustav was very close. We got some heavy rains and some fairly strong winds out of it in parts of this area. That didn't matter. Many people seemed to be angry that their homes were still standing and they left "for no reason". AGAIN, if anyone wants to leave, then do so. There is no permission needed to evacuate. This isn't China where you need papers to authorize someone to leave the county. If they call an evacuation this afternoon for tomorrow morning and it hits near Corpus Christi, the exact same people that are complaining now, will complain again that we didn't get hit again.

There will be major traffic problems no matter when it is called. There is not much of a way to avoid it. They do try to stagger the people leaving but that is a joke. Sabine Pass and Port Arthur at 6:00AM, Mid-County at 8:00AM, Beaumont at 10:00AM, etc. That is yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded movie house and asking the first row to sit down for 2 minutes and wait their turn. It all makes sense but no one goes by it and everyone rushes for the exit. That always will happen with evacuations whether they call it for this afternoon or tomorrow morning.

If you want to leave, then do so. No one needs permission to get out of the area. They aren't going to call for an evacuation unless there is a good chance of major damage to the area. That may be the decision shortly but as of yet, that is not the predictions.

... also, they aren't going to evacuate just because we may get some effects from the storm.

Gustav was a lot closer to us according to the predicted path than Ike. If Gustav would have turned about 5 degrees to the west, we would have been hit. This storm has to turn about 45 degree to hit us.

Friday is too late. It will have to start on Thursday if the entire area is going to evacuate.

At 5:40PM, the briefing is still in progress.

The meeting usually is at 4:30PM.

If they had a good idea that it would be near here, they would. Right now the storm looks to land 200 miles away in Corpus Christi.

Coop, quit putting the exclamation marks (!!) by your statements. You're getting everyone excited!! ;D

I've sat in on a few of the weather briefings and decisions (and would be there today if I was working) and it goes a lot by what the National Weather Service/National Hurricane Center forecasts are. I have never seen it be a definitive answer such as, "if it crosses this line, we evacuate". It just depends on the circumstances, the predicted landfall, the certainty of the predictions, etc. Basically the decision is made by men and women with the available data, not by computers.

The 4:30PM meeting should be taking place right now. An answer may come from that but I am not at work today. I might call in a bit as see what is up with it. For THE MOMENT, no evacuations for the general public have been called either voluntary or mandatory. That of course, is subject to change at a moment's notice.

That said, what can we expect here in the triange if the storm hits in freeport??? Up to Category 1 hurricane conditions.

Rita did and I think it was Andrew in 1992 where we had our first mass evacuation as it was supposed to clobber us and it went so far east the last two days that we didn't get a cloud out of it.

Shades of Rita. In the words of Yogi Berra, this is like deja vu all over again.

There is no way to even guess when we can't know where the storm will make landfall. If it stays on the current predicted course, we could see Edouard like conditions around here and maybe a little worse. How much lost power back in August when it hit?

All that stuff is just gibberish. They don't show when they got those predictions as opposed to the time of landfall. Forty-eight hours before Rita landed, it was not predicted to his Palacios. If you want to go back in time, the predictions five days ago were for Ike to hit the east coast of Florida. So I guess you can say they have a 1,500 mile wrong prediction. I don't start paying attention to predictions until the storm is less than three days out. Anything other than that is just to get people alerted.

I expect that Port Arthur will probably call for a voluntary (or maybe mandatory) evacuation of Sabine Pass. Other than that..........

I don't think we will evacuate for tropical storm or Category 1 conditions.

Predicting hurricanes in the Gulf is kind of like watching a close football game. It adds to the excitement of it to speculate it coming closer.

IS THIS A JOKE? No it isn't! It is an official weather bulletin! :

Look for Sabine Pass to be evacuated for the same reason. It is right on the coast and a storm surge 150 miles away from the eye can still bring the water up into the town. It doesn't mean where the storm will hit but who will have an effect from it.

The is the first time that I have heard the term "common sense" used to describe where a hurricane will hit.

The next 48 hours are going to be interesting.

It is expected to speed up some over the Gulf. From what I just got from the briefing, the faster it moves, the better it is for us?