NBC Blog: NWS Message Predicted Devastation

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.thewbalchannel.com/news/4939779/detail.html

On the blog of NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, he recounts a message he received from the National Weather Service on the eve of Hurricane Katrina's landfall.

Williams wrote the weather message was so incendiary that NBC's New York producers thought it was a fake message or a rogue piece of text. It turned out that the National Weather Service was very real.

The words, issued by the NWS at 10:11 a.m. on Sunday, August 28 -- nearly 20 hours before Katrina's landfall -- predicted in unbelievable detail the level of destruction that was on the way.

Here is the text of the NWS warning:

URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA 1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

...DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED...

HURRICANE KATRINA...A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER.

AT LEAST HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED...ALL WINDOWS WILL BE BLOWN OUT.

THE VAST MAJORITY...OF TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

[Misunderestimator]

1. Good... now it's getting more exposure!

Unfuckingbelieveable.

[Dunvegan]

2. Thank heavens...

...finally a mediaphile has picked up on that.

I was following the Nat'l Weather Service advisos here at home all weekend...how is it Bush and FEMA couldn't have done the same?

Who could have known...
...they were so cruel and negligant?

*We did.*

[hatrack]

3. Posted these bulletins through Saturday and Sunday as Katrina got worse

If lil' ol' me can access and disseminate NHC updates and the nearly apocalyptic tone they took (which is very unusual for a federal scientific agency), how could the clowns at the helm NOT have been aware of what they were facing?

[JerseygirlCT]

4. Honestly

That's what I want to know, too.

If we can get that information, how in the world can Brown and Chertoff and the rest claim "we had no idea!"?

It's simply untrue. And it cannot be allowed to stand.

[RedEarth]

6. Yep, I read your posts

and your comments.. or perhaps another duer who said "I've never seen a warning like this". I read the warning and told my wife this is going to be devastation like our country has never experienced.

[Pirate Smile]

7. I read them. We all knew.

[bpilgrim]

9. here is a copy of the NOAA web page ----------- ------------ > LINK

http://news.globalfreepress.com/katrina/noaa/warning.html

more katrina media...
http://news.globalfreepress.com/gallery/index.php?cat=19

peace

[berni_mccoy]

5. The Daily Show Last Night had a video of a woman in a raincoat

Predicting the devastation as she was directing traffic for people leaving the city.

[bpilgrim]

10. here is a clip ---------- -------------- ------------- > VIDEO

http://news.globalfreepress.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=lastup&cat=0&pos=4

more katrina media...
http://news.globalfreepress.com/gallery/index.php?cat=19

peace

[Yavin4]

8. The Prediction Was Historical. Right?

"Hurricane Determined to Strike in America".

[Turbineguy]

11. No flight- or seat number

that was the problem

[leftchick]

12. and don't forget

"who could have predicted"? Has condi said that yet? :puke:

[supernova]

13. I think Bushie said it this time

:puke:

Here it is:

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." –President Bush, on "Good Morning America," Sept. 1, 2005, six days after repeated warnings from experts about the scope of damage expected from Hurricane Katrina

:banghead:

[SemperEadem]

14. If the producers thought it was a fake, then why didn't they

have the desk call down to the NWS---or better still, call up their meteorologist on staff at WNBC to ask him if he got the same message on the wires? That's what news organizations do--they check out the facts.

They have the numbers to every single gotdamn agency known to man at their fingertips--there is no excuse for them to not have called SOMEONE to verify this.

When a message comes across the wires with URGENT or BULLETIN on it, it's to be taken very seriously.

[mike_c]

15. that was the most extreme NWS bulletin I've ever seen...

...and when Katrina was downgraded to cat 4 just before landfall, I wondered if it's author would be called on the carpet for its tone. Now, of course, events have proven him entirely correct.

[supernova]

16. This isn't the full NWS warning.

The excerpt on NBC doesn't do it justice. Somebody posted a link to the full text. And honestly, I don't know how much more horrifying a goverment warning can get.

Can someone help me find it? I unfortunately didn't bookmark it.

[subchicagogal]

17. Here's the full text.....

DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED
HURRICANE KATRINA

A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL OLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED.

AN INLAND HURRICANE WIND WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR HURRICANE FORCE...OR FREQUENT GUSTS AT OR ABOVE HURRICANE FORCE...ARE CERTAIN WITHIN THE NEXT 12 TO 24 HOURS.

ONCE TROPICAL STORM AND HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ONSET...DO NOT VENTURE OUTSIDE!

[samsingh]

18. i remember this warning.

[electron_blue]

19. yep, I saw that NWS warning on aug 28. I was freaked.

don't know how Bush, Chertoff, and Brown managed to miss that.

Hmmmm, hmmmm, hmmmm.


Seriously, people - they didn't miss it. They knew the hurricane was coming. Let's call it like it is - they intentionally ignored it.

What next?

[donheld]

20. "New York producers thought it was a fake message"

Did they do anything to try to verify this message? I thought that was their job. I know, I'm funny that way, expecting the media to do their jobs.

[Dem Agog]

21. Rachel Maddow called this on her morning show last week...

Before going to do the Al Franken show, Rachel pointed out that the NWS message was almost over the top in its seriousness. She said that this was not a group that usually issued such intense statements, and that the hyperbole alone proved how serious this was.

Meanwhile Nero fiddled... or strummed a guitar, or whatever it was Boy Hitler was up to that day.

[iverglas]

22. and for anyone who missed them - LSU hurricane center's repeated warnings

Also very important reading. Van Heerden was interviewed on MSNBC on Sunday.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9113550/

Hurricane could turn city into toxic cesspool
Experts warn ‘incredible environmental disaster’ is possible

Updated: 12:33 p.m. ET Aug. 29, 2005 <Monday>

... Experts have warned for years that the levees and pumps that usually keep New Orleans dry have no chance against a direct hit by a Category 5 storm.

Katrina reached Category 5 level Sunday before weakening just slightly to a strong Category 4 storm early Monday. But with top winds of 150 mph and the power to lift sea level by as much as 28 feet above normal, the storm threatened an environmental disaster of biblical proportions, one that could leave more than 1 million people homeless.

“All indications are that this is absolutely worst-case scenario,” Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, said Sunday afternoon.

'A refugee camp of a million people'
The center’s latest computer simulations indicate that by Tuesday, vast swaths of New Orleans could be under water up to 30 feet deep. In the French Quarter, the water could reach 20 feet, easily submerging the district’s iconic cast-iron balconies and bars.

Estimates predict that 60 percent to 80 percent of the city’s houses will be destroyed by wind. With the flood damage, most of the people who live in and around New Orleans could be homeless.

“We’re talking about in essence having — in the continental United States — having a refugee camp of a million people,” van Heerden said. ...

So he exaggerated a bit that time. He was getting desperate.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9178501/

What's more, it appears that the federal government did not follow up on an exercise last year that mostly predicted what happened in New Orleans — devastating flooding and hundreds of thousands stranded.

The scenario was dubbed Hurricane Pam: 120 mph winds, a massive storm surge, 20 feet of water in the city, 80 percent of buildings damaged, refugees on rooftops, possibly gun violence that would slow the rescue.

"What bothers me the most is all the people who've died unnecessarily," says Ivor Van Heerden, a hurricane researcher from Louisiana State University who ran the exercise.

Van Heerden says the federal government didn't take it seriously.

"Those FEMA officials wouldn't listen to me," he says. "Those Corps of Engineers people giggled in the back of the room when we tried to present information."

One recommendation from the exercise: Tent cities should be prepared for the homeless.

"Their response to me was: 'Americans don't live in tents,' and that was about it," recalls Van Heerden.

There are no excuses.

[peacetalksforall]

23. First the goat book...now the fiddle, I mean guitar.

Bush strummed while citizens died.

[daleo]

25. Katrina was just the long version of the Pet Goat book. n/t

[drhilarius]

24. "Katrina Determined to Attack within the United States"

Maybe if that had been the title...oh wait, nevermind.

[kestrel91316]

26. We all read it right here on DU.