The (*OFFICAIL HURRICANE*) Ivan thread.....

[Tom [Giants fan]]

It was suggested in the other thread that one of these be made. And since this is going to be a huge topic of conversation for at least the next week, I thought it deserved it's own thread even at this early stage.

Is anyone here in the possible path of this thing?

And I would include all the area from South Florida up to the Carolinas. Who is possibly going to be directly effected by this monster?

Pay close attention to Ivan the Terrible as it makes it's way towards the Bahamas and eventually somewhere along the east coast of the U.S.

[Chopper Dave]

Yeah, I was wondering how long it would take for someone to dub it "Ivan the Terrible". Just imagine if it was named "Vlad".

[Brave]

Originally posted by Chopper Dave

Just imagine if it was named "Vlad".

Yeah ... we could have called it "Hurricane Dracula!"

[Chopper Dave]

Or "The Impaler".

[BG]

Why do these hurricanes keep F*CKING UP MY WEEKENDS!!!!!!!!

Four. Coutn 'em. FOUR hurricanes/major sotrms, in four weeks have completely f*cked my weekend plans up. Two gigs, Miami/Fla st. game and a trip to Atl.

Tired of this. But glad there haven't been any serious injuries that I've heard of or deaths. I did hear about a drowning last week during Gaston. A surfer who apparently had epilepsy, was found washed up a few blocks down from where eveyone surfs here and thank God, she was revived.

I don't think Ivan will threaten any of us here. Maybe it makes it to the gulf, but it should be much more powerful by now and it's only a cat 2.

[Tommy-the-Greek]

If we ever got to the letter V florida would be back in the stone age.:doh:

This one deserves to be watched closely. It went from 60 mph to 120 in 24 hours and still has a long way before it gets to the caribbean. I wonder how strong it will be by the time it gets to cuba?

[Ghost of]

Ivan to Florida: I must break you.

[Pete]

Ya just had to do it...........didn't ya Tom:laugh: :laugh:

I like "Crazy Ivan" from the movie Hunt for Red October. You know, steady course, and all of a sudden, a sharp turn......to the north with any luck.

Like the local weather man said tonight. When you think Ivan, think happy thoughts:doh: Was he implying we need to make like Peter Pan, and fly the hell out of here.

[Mickalino]

Last I checked on Ivan, he was headed the direction of the Gulf.

But there is good news. They expect the friction from it's projected path over the land of Puerto Rico and the other isles of the Carribbean, to slow it down before it hits the mainland. Then again, that's not to say it won't pick up strencgth again.

[Mickalino]

Another good thing about this storm is it's moving about 4 times as fast as Frances, which keeps it from developing as much power. Also it's much smaller than Frances

[terpfan44]

Originally posted by Brave

Yeah ... we could have called it "Hurricane Dracula!"

back when Bonnie and Charlie were active...I thought the weather service blew it whan they could have named Charley..Clyde.

[Coach Williams]

Well my florida neighbors "brace for impact #3."

this blows.......:puke:

[BG]

looks like it got sheared up a bit.

Still projecting it heading towards the gulf, but that path looks strange........

[Skins24]

Shear is gone now. Winds are back up to 115....

Barbados and the other windwards are getting pounded now.

Latest track:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ftp/graphics/AT09/refresh/AL0904W5+GIF/071503W5.gif

It could pull a Charley and hit the lower to mid gulf coast of Florida, or it could keep heading north and hit either the panhandle of Florida, Mississippi, Ala., or Louisiana. It's way to early to tell now but definately looks like something that needs to be watched closely.

And just because.....

Yet another tropical depression is starting to form behind Ivan

http://www.goes.noaa.gov/browsh2.html

(fyi - Sept. 10th is the historical peak of Hurricane season, that's why there has been alot of activity lately. After the 10th, things usually start to slow down a bit. That's not always the case however....)

[riggins44]

I am getting tired of these official Hurricane threads. Enough of these storms already!

:doh:

[Posse81]

Looks like 1) it GAINED strength over Grenada, 2) it's following a path similar to Charley's, and 3) the US will be hit again...

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WEATHER/09/08/hurrican.ivan.ap/index.html

Hurricane Ivan devastates Grenada

Storm strengthens as it heads for Jamaica

Wednesday, September 8, 2004 Posted: 3:23 PM EDT (1923 GMT)

ST. GEORGE'S, Grenada (AP) -- Hurricane Ivan made a direct hit on Grenada with ferocious winds, causing "incalculable damage" and killing at least nine people as it turned concrete homes into rubble and hurled hundreds of the island's trademark red zinc roofs through the air, officials said Wednesday.

The most powerful storm to hit the Caribbean in 14 years reportedly devastated Grenada's capital, St. George's, and damaged homes in Barbados, St. Lucia and St. Vincent. Thousands were without water, electricity and telephone service just days after Hurricane Frances rampaged through.

"We are terribly devastated here in Grenada," Prime Minister Keith Mitchell said in comments broadcast Wednesday by radio stations in Barbados. "It's beyond any imagination."

The prime minister, whose own home was destroyed, spoke from aboard the British naval patrol vessel HMS Richmond, apparently by satellite telephone.

Ivan strengthened even as it was over Grenada on Tuesday, becoming a Category 4 storm. It got even stronger as it headed across the Caribbean Sea, passing north of the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao.

Mitchell said at least nine storm-related deaths had been reported and he feared the toll would rise.

"If you see the country today, it would be a surprise to anyone that we did not have more deaths than it appears at the moment," he said. "I don't think anyone expected the kind of damage that they saw."

Sporadic looting also was reported in St. George's, a British Royal Navy spokesman said on condition of anonymity, speaking from London. HMS Richmond and a British supply ship were providing disaster relief to the former colony, he said.

The storm was threatening to cross right over Jamaica by Friday morning or Saturday, and then Cuba, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida, said.

"After Jamaica, it's probably going to hit somewhere in the U.S., unfortunately," said meteorologist Jennifer Pralgo of the Hurricane Center. "We're hoping it's not Florida again, but it's taking a fairly similar track to Charley at the moment."

Hurricane Charley killed 27 people in southwest Florida last month and caused an estimated $6.8 billion in insured damage.

Ivan terrorized Grenada for about two hours, said Hugh Cobb of the Hurricane Center.

"They took a really bad beating," he said, adding this grim warning: "Whoever gets this, it's going to be bad."

Ivan's sustained winds were clocked at 120 mph as it raced through the Windward Islands. But it strengthened to 140 mph with gusts just over 160 mph.

Cobb said Ivan would be the first Category 4 storm to hit Caribbean islands since Hurricane Luis in 1990.

He said that if Ivan hit Jamaica, it could be more destructive than Hurricane Gilbert, which was only a Category 3 storm when it devastated the island in 1988.

Howling winds raged through the hilly streets of St. George's, Grenada's capital, trashing concrete homes, uprooting trees and utility poles, and knocking out telephone service and electricity. The islands were cut off and transmission was halted from the Grenada Broadcast Network.

ChevronTexaco said it evacuated nonessential staff from a natural gas well off Venezuela's Atlantic coast.

The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency based in Barbados said St. George's "suffered incalculable damage" and Grenada's emergency disaster office, at the 19th century Great House at Mount Wheldale, was destroyed. Grenada's airport also was damaged and an air charter company in Barbados said it was refused permission to fly in.

The Barbados agency said it was sending a relief team to Grenada.

St. George's main hospital also was damaged, the agency said, as were some shelters. "The population in public shelters is 1,000 and climbing," the agency said.

No news could be had from other islands in Grenada, which has about 100,000 residents and is best known for a 1983 U.S. invasion following a left-wing palace coup

There were unconfirmed reports that storm damage allowed prisoners to escape Grenada's crumbling and overcrowded 17th century prison, a zinc-roofed stone edifice on a hilltop. The prison has held former Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard and 16 others convicted of killings in the 1983 coup.

Two private boats near Grenada have sent out distress signals, according to the U.S. Coast Guard in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It had no details.

Cobb said Ivan's heaviest rains likely will sweep the southern peninsula of Haiti, where deforestation and shacks make any excessive downpours deadly. Heavy rains in May triggered floods that killed 1,700 people and left 1,600 missing and presumed dead in Haiti and neighboring Dominican Republic.

Haiti posted a hurricane watch for its southwest peninsula Wednesday.

At 2 p.m. EDT, Ivan was centered about 105 miles northeast of Bonaire and was moving toward the west-northwest at nearly 16 mph. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 70 miles and tropical storm-force winds another 160 miles. The storm raised battering waves that the Hurricane Center warned could cause storm flooding of 3-5 feet and above normal tides with 5-7 inches of rain that could cause flash floods and mudslides.

Earlier Tuesday, Ivan damaged 221 homes in Barbados and left many residents without water and electricity, the Caribbean disaster agency said. It had reports of one death in Barbados, but could not confirm it was hurricane-related. Power was being restored Wednesday.

In neighboring St. Vincent and the Grenadines, more than 1,000 people were in shelters, 19 homes were destroyed by storm surges in coastal areas, and another 40 homes were damaged, the agency reported. It said the country remained without electricity Wednesday.

A half-dozen houses in St. Lucia and two schools in Tobago lost their roofs.

Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao were under a hurricane warning, a hurricane watch and a tropical storm warning remained posted for Colombia's Guajira peninsula and Venezuela's northern coast, and a tropical storm watch covered the southwest coast of the Dominican Republic.

Ivan became the fourth major hurricane of the season Sunday, coming hard on the heels of Hurricane Frances, which killed two people in the Bahamas and 14 in Florida and Georgia.

[Skins24]

Florida should move...

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ftp/graphics/AT09/refresh/AL0904W5+GIF/082053W5.gif

[Chopper Dave]

To quote Scarface:

"F*ck."

[Pete]

This sucks.

I can tell that my wife and daughter are very stressed over this. I could hear the fear in my wifes voice when we spoke this afternoon. I can't blame them though, It's been a long few weeks.

If this thing is gonna follow Charley, I have to seriously think about buggin out. This is so tough. You have to wait so long to figure out where it's gonna go, and where you should go.

Do I just get in the van friday night and drive north? Fly the wife and kid to NJ, and ride it out with the dog at the house? Fly them out, and drive north with the dog? Ride it out again with the family?

Gonna have to hash this one out tonight after the kid is asleep. Don't want to scare any more then she already is.

I'm gettin too old for this shlitz. I need a cold one.

So, how far north do I have to go till I can pick up the Skins game on a battery powered five inch B&W TV;)

[Chopper Dave]

The thing is bigger and stronger than Frances was at its peak. If it were to hit Naples (pretty much directly across the state from me), we'd still get pummeled.

[twa]

Your best hope is it continueing west,not that I want it here in Texas but ya'll could use a break.

[Duke]

A scary prediction hurricane's path...

...right on my backyard...

*edit* forgot the link

http://tbo.com/

[steveo21]

he is a CAt 5 now. I pray it won't hit Florida.

[visionary]

Ah Crap!

Hurricane Ivan death toll in Grenada now 15

Prison destroyed, freeing convicts; Category 5 storm heads west

The Associated Press

Updated: 2:28 a.m. ET Sept. 9, 2004

ST. GEORGE'S, Grenada - Hurricane Ivan devastated Grenada, pummeled Barbados and other islands and set its deadly winds and rains, blamed for at least 15 fatalities, on a direct course for Jamaica, Cuba and the hurricane-weary southern United States.

The most powerful hurricane to hit the Caribbean in 10 years damaged 90 percent of homes in the "spice isle" of Grenada and destroyed a 17th century stone prison that left criminals on the loose as looting erupted, officials said Wednesday.

Some escaped convicts included politicians jailed for 20 years for killings in a 1983 left-wing palace coup that led the United States to invade.

American medical students fearful of marauders armed themselves with knives and sticks.

"We are terribly devastated ... It's beyond imagination," Prime Minister Keith Mitchell told his people and the world -- from aboard a British Royal Navy vessel that rushed to the rescue.

Death and devastation

Before it slammed into Grenada on Tuesday, Ivan gave Barbados and St. Vincent a pummeling, damaging hundreds of homes and cutting utilities. Thousands of people remained without electricity and water on Wednesday.

In Tobago, officials reported a 32-year-old pregnant woman died when a 40-foot palm tree fell into her home, pinning her to her bed.

In Venezuela, a 32-year-old man died after battering waves engulfed a kiosk on the northern coast.

A 75-year-old Canadian woman was found drowned in a canal swollen by flood waters in Barbados. Neighbors said the Toronto native, who'd lived in Barbados for 30 years, had braved the storm to search for her cat.

Details on the extent of the death and destruction in Grenada did not emerge until Wednesday because the storm cut all communications with the country of 100,000 people, and halted radio transmissions on the island.

Mitchell confirmed that prison escapees included some of the 17 people jailed for life for killings during a 1983 Marxist coup, but he didn't know who they were or if they included former Deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard.

90 percent of homes damaged

Grenada is known as a major world producer of nutmeg and for the U.S. invasion that followed the coup, when American officials had determined Grenada's airport was going to become a joint Cuban-Soviet base. Cuba said it was helping build the airport for civilian use. Nineteen Americans died in the fighting and a disputed number of others that the United States put at 45 Grenadians and 24 Cubans.

Mitchell, whose own home was flattened, said 90 percent of houses on the island were damaged and he feared the death toll would rise. He said much of the country's agriculture had been destroyed, including the primary nutmeg crop.

"If you see the country today, it would be a surprise to anyone that we did not have more deaths than it appears at the moment," Mitchell said.

Within hours, Grenada's Police Commissioner Roy Bedaau raised the death toll to 12, in an interview with Voice of Barbados radio, but he provided no details.

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said virtually every major building in St. George's has suffered structural damage. Grenada's once-quaint capital boasted English Georgian and French provincial buildings.

The United Nations is sending a disaster team, Eckhard said in New York City. The Caribbean disaster response agency, based in Barbados, said its team arrived Wednesday afternoon along with U.S. aid and Pan American Health Organization officials.

Because of poor communications, it was not possible to reach any of them.

"It looks like a landslide happened," said Nicole Organ, a 21-year-old veterinary student from Toronto at St. George's University, which overlooks the Grenadian capital. "There are all these colors coming down the mountainside -- sheets of metal, pieces of shacks, roofs came off in layers."

Students arm themselves

Students there, mostly Americans, were arming themselves with knives, sticks and pepper spray against looters, said Sonya Lazarevic, 36, from New York City. "We don't feel safe," she said on a bad telephone line.

When Organ wandered downtown after the hurricane passed, she said she saw bands of men carrying machetes looting a hardware store. She said she saw a bank with glass facade intact on her way down that was totally smashed when she returned.

While the storm passed, students hid under mattresses or in bathrooms. "The pipes were whistling, the doors were vibrating, gusts were coming underneath the window," Lazarevic said.

"It was absolutely terrifying."

Bedaau said every Grenadian police station was damaged, hindering efforts to control looting. He said police were trying to set up a temporary post at St. George's fish market, and that Trinidad and other Caribbean countries were sending troops.

Elsewhere, Ivan pulverized concrete homes into piles of rubble and tore away hundreds of landmark red zinc roofs.

The storm strengthened early Thursday to become a Category 5 on a scale of 5. It packed sustained winds of 160 mph with higher gusts as it passed north of the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao.

Its howling winds and drenching rains flooded parts of Venezuela's north coast, but no injuries or major damage were reported from the South American nation.

Storm heading towards Jamaica

Helicopter charter companies were busy Wednesday ferrying evacuated workers back to offshore oil drilling platforms there.

Ivan is expected to reach Jamaica by Friday and Cuba by the weekend, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

"After Jamaica, it's probably going to hit somewhere in the U.S., unfortunately," meteorologist Jennifer Pralgo said. "We're hoping it's not Florida again, but it's taking a fairly similar track to Charley at the moment."

Hurricane Charley killed 27 people in southwest Florida last month and caused an estimated $6.8 billion in insured damage.

Another meteorologist at the Miami center, Hugh Cobb, added this grim warning: "Whoever gets this, it's going to be bad."

Cobb said not even a Category 4 storm has hit the Caribbean since Hurricane Luis in 1995.

He said that if Ivan hit Jamaica, it could be more destructive than Hurricane Gilbert, which was only Category 3 when it devastated the island in 1988.

Jamaica posted a hurricane watch Wednesday afternoon and ordered all schools closed and fishermen to pull their skiffs ashore and head for dry land. Haiti's southwest peninsula was on hurricane watch and the city of Les Cayes had already suffered hours of drenching downpours Wednesday night.

Les Cayes residents worried Ivan would bring disaster equal to May floods that killed 1,700 people and left 1,600 missing and presumed dead along the Haiti-Dominican Republic border.

The southwest coast of Haiti and Dominican Republic were under hurricane and tropical storm watch. Cayman Islands posted a hurricane watch. A hurricane warning remained in effect for Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao. Colombia's northeastern Guajira peninsula and Venezuela's north coast were under hurricane watch and tropical storm warning.

At 2 a.m. EDT (0600 GMT), Ivan was centered about 85 miles northeast of Aruba. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 60 miles and tropical storm-force winds another 160 miles. Ivan was moving west-northwest at 17 mph.

Ivan became the fourth major hurricane of a busy Atlantic season Sunday.

© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5927015/

[JJredskins00]

This is crazy.