... a catastrophe for New Orleans. Ivan has consistently tracked south westerly of the projected storm track. First it went a bit south of Jamaica. Then a bit south west of the Caymans, then a bit west of the tip of Cuba. This storm was forecast for the tip of Florida at one point. They said it would be a direct hit on the Florida Key's. Now, they say it will hit the Pan handle. I'm looking at their consistent north easterly error, looking at the current track and thinking. If I was living in New Orleans, completely outside of the projected track, well. I'd be boarding up, no matter what the weather service says about Florida.

I have heard projected forecasts for other hurricanes that said they should expect a 15 foot tidal surge and it turned into 5 feet. I've also seen projections for Ivan which said 25 feet, and heard a BBC reporter say that people were running from the rising water in the Caymans, that they were stranded, flooded out on roof tops.

Ivan is truly a monster storm. I should know, I love hurricanes. I hope I can be in the eye of a hurricane before I die. but not Ivan. I've been out in 75-85 mph winds when Gloria came through. I was standing on the Guilford Green, the trees were bent over, tops hitting the ground at 75-85 mph, it was wild. tree branches the size of cars were being blown about like tissue. Ivan has wind speeds twice as fast, and due to the way the equation for force works, the power is probably at least one order of magnitude greater (and maybe more).

For a bit of perspective about how powerful this storm is, go to this link and look for the entry for Sept 11/2100 zulu through Sept 12 0600 zulu. Yes, that really does say that the top wind speeds were 200 mph. And, yes, 200 is almost as fast of the wind speed in a tornado. Not quite, but Ivan is almost as powerful as a 50 mile wide tornado. It has 75-85 mph winds, like I experienced in Gloria, extending outward for almost 100 miles. That means that both Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula will experience what I did in Gloria.

Hell Gloria almost killed me, well, no, I almost got killed because I was being a wild teenager, driving around in a little Toyota Celica while a friggin hurricane is raging outside, and a HUGE branch came crashing down in the road in front of me (huge, as in tree size, two feet accross, five feet from me). That's when I decided it would be a good idea to get back to the relative safety of a place without trees. Oh, and Gloria brough in a 10 ft surge, (maybe 15), that was really impressive. The whole town was submerged up to the rail road tracks. That's almost a mile inland!

So, yeah, I'd like to see the eye of a hurricane. But not this one. this is a true monster, and I hope New Orleans is ready. (New Orleans is 8 ft BELOW sea level!

UPDATE: I beat the news by 15 hours on this ... check out this story on the New Orleans News Channel