Gustav: A Matter of Where, Not When

Good grief. Just when we thought that our "Chocolate City" had seen enough drama, this happens. Thankfully, according to an article on Bloomberg.com, NOLA residents are taking a life-threatening Category 4 hurricane seriously this time. A local business owner was quoted as saying, "The hurricane isn't even in the Gulf of Mexico and the town is a ghost town." GOOD!! IT SHOULD'VE LOOKED LIKE THAT WHEN KATRINA WAS ON THE WAY!!! But I digress... Read the article here. I expect that we'll get some rain out this, too, if we're lucky. We could use the precipitation.

This map can be found on the NOAA website. I think these guys have such cool jobs. I've always had a real fascination with weather, weather patterns, and catastrophic weather events. I wouldn't be good at doing any of the math, but I sure do enjoy the science behind meterology.

Regardless of the fact that the eye is not predicted to pass directly over NOLA, they are most definitely on the more dangerous side of the hurricane. Quoted from the website HurricaneTrack.com,



"The maximum effects of a hurricane are usually felt within what is called the right-front quadrant. Here the winds are (typically) strongest, storm surge is highest, and the possibility of tornadoes is greatest. It is important to know whether or not your area will be affected by the right-front quadrant. It could mean the difference between maximum hurricane conditions or a glancing blow."

Unfortunately, if you superimpose this map over the predicted landfall of Gustav, NOLA falls directly in this quadrant of the hurricane, so it doesn't look good.

I won't comment on politics or personal opinion right now, because I'm sure you all know exactly how I feel about the Katrina debacle by now. (And if you don't, you probably don't want to know.) Let's just all pray for every man, woman, child, and animal fighting to survive right now. And let's please not focus just on NOLA. True, the squeakiest door gets the majority of the grease, but let's cast our eyes a little further west. People living in Cameron and Calcasieu Parishes will likely lose everything they have in this hurricane. They were directly hit by Rita three years ago and were almost wiped off the map then. (FYI: Lake Charles is in Calcasieu Parish, for a frame of reference.) There are plenty of low-income families living there, farmers, etc., who took a massive hit. There were even reports of flooded cemeteries with caskets floating like macabre driftwood in Cameron Parish. And we can't forget S4J and several other of my peeps in that neck of the woods, as the eye is predicted to more or less pass directly over them.

Praising God that His hand is already on this... Praying for leaders to do the right thing for their constituents... Praying for people to take initiative...