Hurricane Isaac

[Lord Paul]

Figured some weather nuts like me would be interested in what happened. :D

 

Hurricane Isaac made its second landfall at 2:15 AM in Port Fourchon, LA before crawling inland. Interestingly enough, it was around the time of landfall that we clocked our highest gust @ 52.2 mph (84 kph). When it's pitch black outside and all you have is a flashlight, it is both exhilarating and frightening to be crouching (standing up straight becomes difficult) outside on the street while the wind is howling. What surprised me the most was that the wind can change speed and direction so quickly. We'll be standing there in 25 mph sustained blowing against our sides, then get a gust to 35 hit our backs and then have it die down to 15 mph all in the matter of seconds. Rain stings like crazy as well. My face feels like it's sun burnt. Makes it difficult to anticipate anything. (Yes, we are slightly crazy for going out at that hour.)

 

The storm officially passed 1.5 miles south of our house, and we were in the eye of the storm for approximately 5 hours. It was amazing to go from sustained 20 mph from the NE to dead calm to 20 mph from the SW as the eye passed over us. Unluckily for us, we never did see tropical force sustained winds, despite getting the eyewall. That's still a bit baffling, since Isaac was still a hurricane when it passed over us and we should have gotten hurricane force gusts at the bare minimum; we really should have seen hurricane force sustained.

 

As for damage around us, it was surprisingly very little. We have plenty of trees at our house, and we only lost a few limbs, with the biggest being a few inches in diameter-- most were just small branches and twigs. As for storm surge, the water did not rise very high. We have a bayou (a river basically) that borders our property, and it only rose 2 feet or so.. not much compared to other storms. We also didn't have very much rain compared to other places; only 7". Then again, before Isaac, Louisiana was one of the few states not in a drought. We were one of the few places to only have lost power for ~30 hours and Internet for ~2 days. I never would have thought I'd be posting so soon.

 

There really aren't very many interesting pictures to post, since the strongest winds occurred from midnight to 3:00 AM.

 

 

 

The edge of the bayou is usually a foot past the fence.

 

The morning after the storm. Spending half the night out in the wind all tensed up leaves you a bit drained. :P

 

Don't know how they survived, but the hummingbirds went crazy once the winds died down.

 

All of the stuff that was down in our yard. Not very much compared to Katrina/Rita/Gustav/Ike.

 

We were on the western side of the storm, so (relatively) very little rain compared to the monsoon that hit New Orleans. Was actually more rain than Katrina.

 

 

 

Inb4 jokes about being stupid Cajuns. :P I would gladly do it again. Glad to be back at any rate.

[decebal]

Hope you're not crazy enough to do that while within a Cat 5 hurricane :wink: .

[stevepole]

I think you'll like this map Paul, http://hint.fm/wind/

[Low Levelled]

Lol anytime I see anything Cajun, I think of Waterboy.

[Lord Paul]

Hope you're not crazy enough to do that while within a Cat 5 hurricane :wink: .

 

Stay home? Yes.

Go stand out in the middle of the street? Hell no. I would probably poke my head out of the door for a few minutes and then go hide inside.

I think you'll like this map Paul, http://hint.fm/wind/

 

:o That is very epic, thank you!

[Hedgehog]

It rained a lot here :/

[Lord Paul]

Brb, reverse engineering where you live... o wait, that could be from Haiti to Missouri.

NVM

 

I'll figure it out yet!