Katrina Archives

The television continues to show the suffering from Hurricane Katrina. While what we do will is only a small part in the entirety of all the needs, the little we do does make a big difference in the lives of those help.

We are in contact with Ken Giese in Houston and Paul Kieffer in Mobile, Alabama about urgent needs. We learned of an urgent need for wheelchairs for those in the Astrodome and LifeNets is immediately shipping ten wheelchairs from Indianapolis and places such as Georgia and California.

Ken Giese and the United Church of God volunteers are going to be distributing the first needed personal care items in a shelter along with working shifts in the Houston Astrodome today.

Just for everyone's information, CLOTHING is NOT needed in the Houston area. The Giese's have contacted the Red Cross and the Salvation Army - both have told us they do NOT need or want clothing donations - they have a warehouse FULL of clothing items. However, there is a need for knapsacks and suitcases. Most people came with nothing to put items into.

Keep checking this blog continually for updates. We have not even begun to assess what our part is in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Ken Giese also reported of Louisiana UCG members trapped in the attic of their home. They had no ax to break through the roof and waited for the waters to recede and then were brought to safety.

Paul Kieffer contacted me and said that they just had their power restored. Their telephone has been working and so he's been able to send out updates on on his blog at http://www.ucog.org/blog/ They have been going over to a neighbor's home to recharge their laptop computer's battery.

Thanks to everyone for contributions that have come online and through the mail. We are making certain that we fill urgent human needs immediately as is in our power.

Thanks to all who have given help. All financial donations are going to be used as quickly as possible to provide for necessities. Ken Giese in Houston is coordinating efforts to help Hurricane Katrina victims. As far as members of the United Church of God, he says, "it appears that no one is seriously injured, but many have property damage. We don't have specifics as yet but I hope to travel to Baton Rouge next week to meet with Rick Avent and Andy Burnett and discuss specifics. It looks like electric generators may be an item that could be used by several, but much depends upon the availability of fuel. Thanks again for your help and we will try to stay in touch.

Today we made our first $3000 contribution towards immediate relief of hurricane victims. All money collected will be used directly for relief and reports will be given to our readers and supporters as to how it's being used.

We have been in touch with volunteers from Mobile, Alabama in the east to Houston in the west trying to find what initial course of action to take to help hurricane victims. Yesterday's contributions were in excess of $2500 and came mostly online.

We believe that we have found the best venue where to start helping immediately. We spoke with Kathy Giese, wife of pastor Ken Giese in Houston. She informed us about the following.

Many other displaced people are being housed in churches, businesses and warehouses and other shelters. They are in need of basic necessities. There has been a need for the following items:

LifeNets decided to send our first $3000 to Houston for purchase of many of the above items and distribute them on Labor Day.

We have received offers from people to ship clothing and other goods. Most of the refugees are people below poverty level. Extra-large clothing is needed along with children's clothing. We need to count the cost of shipping versus obtaining the items locally, however, we are looking into shipping options.

At LifeNets we have been receiving many phone calls and email messages of support for us to effectively help the needy. One of my friends Debbie McKee who helped us by driving a U-Haul to Ground Zero in New York City in September 2001 (how quickly time has passed!) has a running blog and mentions us.

This morning I went to Rotary Club in downtown Indianapolis. We meet in the Red Cross Building. The entire discussion revolved around Katrina and what Rotary should do. In the Red Cross building where we met, 25 families from New Orleans were brought up for temporary resettling. More are on the way. No one seems to know where the bottom of this disaster is. People are still trying to find one another.

The immediate needs are for food, fuel, ice -- basic necessities and cash to purchase those items what we want. About $2000 has been donated to LifeNets in less than 24 hours. A few Rotarians wrote checks to LifeNets this morning.

LifeNets will find a way to distribute directly to the needy and will develop that process shortly.

Here is more from Paul Kieffer's blog about recovering in Mobile. You can go directly to his blog at http://www.ucog.org/blog/

Katrina hit the US Mainland Monday morning August 19th and wreaked havoc through Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Perhaps thousands are dead. Damage is inestimable. This will not be just another recovery.

LifeNets wants to do its part in helping to relieve suffering and we are still assessing what we can and should do.

We have reports from two of my friends Jerold Aust and Paul Kieffer who lived through the sustained 100 miles plus winds in Mobile, Alabama. Both feel fortunate that they suffered as little as they did compared to people around them.

As we start our relief efforts we will run this blog to tell you the story about what we are going to do. At this writing we have no idea about what to do, but since we initiated this effort about $500 in donations have been made to start. Thank you!

August 31, 2005

Hi! Vic,

Good to talk with you on the phone today. For me at this time, a phone or phone system is a luxury. As you know, we weathered Hurricane Katrina in Mobile. Mobile was some 70 + miles from the Eastern edge of the eye of the storm (the eye was about 30 miles wide and pretty tightly formed, which makes for a much greater force). That means we were on the "Beast" side of the storm, which pretty well characterizes the East side of a hurricane. The "Beast" side of this hurricane was relentless and without any partiality, believe me.

Jerold Aust

It hammered Mobile and we didn't take as hard a hit as did Biloxi and Gulfport in Mississippi. Of course, New Orleans suffered most from storm surge and the counter-clockwise wind motion that whipped giant Lake Ponchatrain over the levee (South side of the lake) into the sunken bowl of what is New Orleans, the city's North side (this city is dangerously below sea level). New Orleans remains "dry" if, if the levees hold against either Lake Ponchatrain or the mighty Mississippi. The levees are about 10 feet high, but they are no match for the North to South winds of powerful Katrina, whipping the lake over the levee and breaching parts of it. The sad stories are still coming out of New Orleans, for some 70, 000 remained within the city to ride out the storm (N.O. has about 450,000 residents and the officials feel that about 380,000 fled before the storm hit).

The Biloxi area (includes Gulfport and other coastal towns) were perfectly situated for the Northeast quadrant of the eye of Katrina. That's the worst side of a hurricane for the winds are strongest coming from the South to the North in a counter-clockwise motion. Some (all?) of the casinos (some very large and high structures) are situated on barges (the hotel sections are on land), rose with the storm surge and were literally moved to Highway 90, just North of their locations (a weird site, by any standard). The winds were so powerful (upwards of 145 mph) that ordinary wooden-framed homes disintegrated. They were pulverized; they appeared to explode, judging by the aftermath of what was left. The Ponchatrain bridge, linking the land mass North to New Orleasn, was nearly demolished, mostly by an immense storm surge.

Katrina had sustained winds, at one point of 175 mph (gusts of 200 mph), while still out in the Gulf some miles from New Orleans. It hit land at about 145 miles mph. Remarkably and as a side note, the winds aloft are very powerful and they are brought to the surface by the rain. I hadn't known before but that's how we get the brunt of the high wind velocities. Katrina was a Category 5 hurricane, powered-up by the warmer waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The setting for Katrina was perfect to build from a Cat 1, that hit Southern Florida, to a Cat 5 as it hit the much warmer Gulf waters. I'm not so sure that global warming was responsible for the slightly warmer Gulf at this time of the year, although it might have been. What I did hear from the professional weather-people is that like most natural disasters, they run in cycles. Some professionals say that this cycle occurred some decades past, the unusal warming trend of Gulf waters. Incidentally, the Gulf waters are usually always warmer than the Atlantic temperatures. Heat is the catalyst for great hurricanes. That is precisely why Katrina built up the great velocity and its enormous size. Local meteorologists often explained (during the TV updates that I got over an old battery-powered 5" B&W TV) that this is why Katrina became a Cat 5. The conditions were perfect to generate such a monster. Personally, I think that this year was part of a systemic cycle for hurricane conditions in the Gulf. Could be wrong, but from the reports that I heard, most of the climatic variables point to this phenomenon.

My wife and I experienced sustained gusts of from 70 to 100 mph, although we had many gusts from 50 to 60 mph. Again, we were on the East or "Beast" side of the hurricane. Try and imagine a few railroad trains coming through your living room and you'll come close to the incessant loud noise of the relentless winds beating against your house. It can unnerve you, believe me. Prayer comes to mind during those times. Sometimes the house creaks and you wonder whether it will collapse. When you see rain moving by your window horizontally, you know you've got problems.

We lost many oak tree limbs, some fairly big. I have a couple of giant pines in the back corner of our lot and I wondered whether they would either snap or uproot (incidentally, for those who might think, "well, hey! why not just remove those trees..." you should know that it costs about $500 a tree just to bring it down and another $300 to have it removed). Had we gotten more rain, that would have weakened the root system of the bending trees, now in soggy soil. Were that the case, I have no doubt they would have come down. Thankfully, the ground wasn't over-saturated. Staying on the subject of trees, the wind came from the SSE, so if the giant pines had up-ended, they would likely have landed toward a wooded area in the back of our area where a small, secreted creek normally trickles. I did witness a giant pine (60 feet high, perhaps) on our neighbor's property that came down with a giant thud, not more than 30 feet from our property. So the wind will scare you to death and if you can still move after hearing sustained winds of 80 mph or more, then you should run like lightening from rising flood waters. Thankfully we were high enough above sea level where rising flood waters is not a threat. We live about 6 miles from Mobile Bay and the storm surge of some 20-30 feet, flooded downtown Mobile a few blocks West of Mobile Bay. The waters there rose to about 12 feet and damaged a lot of old Mobile buildings (Mobile was first settled in 1699). I'm not sure how far West the waters flooded, but there are many antebellum homes (built around 1840, give or take 10 years) situated on Government Blvd., running East/West. These old homes have giant oak trees that line the Blvd., so much so, they sometimes form a canopy over the street. They are impressive and we hope they weren't damaged.

If you travel through Mobile today, as I did much further West from the downtown area, you will see many, many trees uprooted and multi-tons of limbs strewn everywhere. Some large trees and large limbs were blocking streets and sometimes, here and there, they crushed roofs or pierced them. Many power lines were torn down by fallen trees and you must make your way through those areas, carefully. Alabama Power trucks are all over the place as are Bell South trucks. The Salvation Army and Red Cross and other service-oriented groups are presently giving out ice, water and food. No power means hot and humid homes and no lights at night. Today the sun is shining and I saw many people clearing their yards of much debris. Even today, many people bolt to buy generators that can give some sort of reprieve from the heat. The word is, as of a few hours ago, that there is no gas to buy in Mobile and no power to pump the gas that might still be available. One day before Katrina hit, I filled up our little Toyota and we are using our fuel very circumspectly. I'm actually using the University of South Alabama's high speed service to type this. In order for me to finish some GN articles, I must also use the university's media center. I'm grateful for this option. I have no cable connection at home any longer, perhaps for a week or so.

All-in-all, we are thankful to make it through this great hurricane. Only at the last hour or so can we know whether a hurricane will turn our way or stay on course. They are very unpredictable. Had Katrina made an abrupt right turn before land fall, there would have been no time for us to escape the storm. Mobile could just have easily been in the position that Biloxi was.

As you may know, President Bush is visiting the Gulf Coast areas today, the ones that were worst hit (New Orleans and Biloxi area). The people in Biloxi and New Orleans need the most help but few people, other than government and service agencies in Louisiana and Mississippi, are allowed in. We will not appreciate the enormity of this great storm for another few weeks and perhaps a few months. Mobile will be without power for another week at least. But it will be a few months before people in New Orleans and Biloxi will see any sense of normalcy. They will remain in need of help for months to come. There are so many sad stories that have only begun to surface.

Best regards,

Jerold Aust

Paul Kieffer

From Paul Kieffer in Mobile, Alabama

You can go directly to Paul Kieffer's blog at http://www.ucog.org/blog/

Hello Katrina! – Sunday, 10 a.m.

I missed meeting Ivan last year by one week. At the beginning of July I missed Dennis by 24 hours. It looks like I picked a dandy for my first Gulf Coast hurricane, Katrina.

hurricane shutters My brushes with bad weather on the Gulf Coast over the last 30 years of visiting Mobile were limited to a couple of tropical depressions and one tropical storm. Last year I missed Ivan by one week, having returned to Germany exactly 7 days before Ivan made landfall just east of Mobile. In July some friends and I made it to Mobile one day after Dennis made landfall, so our flight from Atlanta was not disrupted.

Katrina appears to be headed for New Orleans, already a category 5 hurricane, packing winds over 170 mph (270 kmh) and due to make landfall tomorrow at noon. So it is time to put up the corrugated aluminum storm shutters on the south (Gulf) side of the house. The wind has already picked up a bit, making placement of the longest pieces (at 14 feet) a challenge. The storm surge is what could affect us the most, since we will be east of landfall. The water in the yard is already up about 10 feet from shoreline, and that will increase as the day goes on. Once we get all the shutters up, store water and get the electric line ready for hook-up to an emergency generator, it will time for Katrina to "bring it on". The way things look, she won’t need any encouraging!

Hello Katrina! – Sunday, 4 p.m.

Part of the procedure in preparing for a hurricane is to anticipate the potential damage. That means getting our basement ready for a flood surge.

When a hurricane makes landfall on the Gulf Coast, the northeast quadrant of the storm with its counterclockwise circular movement has the highest winds and storm surge. So if you are east of the point where landfall occurs, you are especially in harm’s way. My father-in-law built his house 14 feet above median high tide, so an awful lot of water has to back up Mobile Bay before it would ever get to the level of the house proper. But our basement floods on occasion, and so far the worst hurricanes for flooding were Camille in 1969 and Georges in 1998. Both went ashore in Mississippi. Of the two, Georges was worse water-wise, putting about 47 inches of rain in the basement.

Actually, it was originally not a full basement. It was simply the space under the house, since the house is built on an incline and the incline is part of the elevation needed to be well above median high tide level. When the house was built in 1964, only about the first 40 feet of the basement away from the south entrance were excavated, providing an area where my father-in-law – an architect – could store his tools. The rest of the basement to the other side of the house was just a crawl space of sorts, and dirt at that. When my father-in-law retired, he made one of his first projects the "completion" of the basement, which he accomplished by carting out all the dirt to make a stand-up basement under the entire house. Then he put a concrete floor in with a spacing for ground water to seep up during heavy rains. Knowing how high the flooding was with Camille and Georges gives us a measuring stick, so we just put everything valuable higher than 47 inches, stacking it on shelves or on my father-in-law’s old workbench, like you can see in the picture. Once that is done and the house is shuttered up, you have done everything you can do to be ready – this time for Katrina.

http://www.debspage.org/blog/archives/2005_09.html

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