Maybe I am being too picky, maybe I have too much time on my hands because I am on vacation, but not much appealed to me on television today. But, I have spent a lot of time watching The Weather Channel http://www.weather.com/ coverage of Isaac, which is just a tropical storm, but moving slowly, and causing its own share of havoc because of the wind and deluge of rain.
I think that the pressure is on for The Weather Channel. They missed the storm surge significance of Katrina http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina in 2005. They down played the danger from Ike http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Ike in 2008, and like the Galveston Hurricane in 1900, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1900_Galveston_hurricane, Ike was devastating to Galveston.
Unlike what happened in 2005 with Katrina, instead of waiting for the disaster and request for emergency services, the current plan is to put the emergency services in place ready to respond. Evacuations are being called for early.
The Army Corp of Engineers http://www.usace.army.mil/ has re-developed levees and gates and expresses confidence that they will hold. As one of the forecasters has said, no matter how strong the gates and levees are, and no matter how well the pumps are working, if the storm stalls and drops enormous amounts of rain, the pumps will not be able to keep up.
The amount of effort, energy and money it takes to be prepared for a storm like this is unimaginable. But if all that saves one life, it is well worth it.
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