Isaac Updates and AAR's

[qrprat77]

My parents reported a lot of wind today. Light rain. Tonight the bad weather is supposed to hit.

[tech]

Today alone we got over 11 inches of rain. Winds have died down to under 20 mph, but many trees took out power lines throughout the area. Over 500,000 without power. Some flooding due to storm surge combined with wind-driven tides backing up into the many waterways, and rainfall that can't escape. No power = no local gasoline or other stores open...although a Home Depot had their doors open (and not by looters LOL).

All in all, a much better official response to the storm than 7 years ago (to the day!) - and goes to show that you don't need a strong storm to cause widespread damage.

...btw, we're just fine :)

[Grand58742]

Great to hear you made it through okay!

When you get the chance can you toss out some lessons learned and what worked for you preparedness wise?

[tech]

Great to hear you made it through okay!

When you get the chance can you toss out some lessons learned and what worked for you preparedness wise?

Sure thing! Just got the small tree debris cleared up, so here goes....

First thing is to keep a close eye on issues that could potentially cause you to enact your contingency plans. In this case it was a tropical system that was forecast to develop into a storm and was located where it could enter the Gulf of Mexico. This is where several people made a big mistake. They didn't take the opportunity to obtain fuel, water or any other supplies when they were still readily available. In our case, we made sure that all vehicles were fueled up and filled a couple fuel cans. This would turn out to be important.

Second is to have a plan and then follow the plan. Some folks had a basic plan, but failed to follow through. Whether this was a result of them not having fuel or because they got flooded became immaterial - they made mistakes. Fortunately, our plans survived the impact.

Back ups, back ups, back ups. I can't emphasize this enough. We lost grid power early in the storm, but our solar powered system performed just fine. Lights, fans, refrigerator....good to go. For comfort, I pulled out a small genny (tested earlier) and got it fueled up. All was well until the fuel petcock broke off the bottom of the tank. *sigh* Moved it out of the way and set the next genny up...again, just recently tested. No spark!!! *double sigh* By this time, one of the feeder bands decided it was a good time to open up. Grabbed an extension cord and plugged into a 1800 watt inverter in one of the cars and used that to run a room a/c unit for the night. The next day, I found that the back of the shut-off switch had come loose and shorted the ignition to ground. A quick fix, but was not practical at the time of the initial failure. So remember, one is none, two is one, etc.!!!

Communications. No phones, no Internet, cable (so I heard) was down. Satellite tv and OTA (off the air) tv worked ok, but the government's mandate for digital format really made for poor viewing. Pixilization and freezing was common during the heavier rain squalls. Amateur radio worked flawlessly. Our UHF, VHF and HF all worked just fine. Packet VHF carried lots of traffic to and from the parish (county) EOC, freeing voice modes for other traffic. Also allowed other packet-equipped hams to access info without tying up the air. Battery power was great...uninterrupted service.

Government actually did a competent job this time. Police and Guardsmen worked hard getting people moved out of dangerous areas, cordoning off flooded roadways and nabbing idiots. In my opinion, you should not expect this...this area was impacted hard by Katrina and many folks - local officials included - may actually have taken a lesson from that incident. Other areas may not have this "luxury." Speaking of comms, ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service) has been pushing hard for hams to learn at very least, the Incident Command System method of operation. This also has been stressed by the Parish EOC and the Governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Planning (GOHSEP)...along with increasing cooperation between area ham radio clubs (as in NO infighting, just working to make the system better). Google ICS100 for more basic info. It's available online as a free course.

Food and water...we didn't go running around much but the day the storm was scheduled to impact, Sam's parking lot was overfilled with cars. I would not have wanted to face that mess. We hardly made a dent in food stores and ate well throughout. Well water system worked fine and even powered down for a day still had pressure. A few years ago, I had installed a second pressure tank on the discharge side and an extra check valve on the input side of the pump. The only real test had been turning on all of the faucets and letting the water run for 1 1/2 hours...and still had plenty of flow. Apparently this works (for us, anyhow).

The one biggest thing that I feel helped to make a difference was getting out and making contacts, and actively working with the community to enable a spirit of cooperation and preparation. This has to be done subtly and slowly to allow authorities to see the benefit of changes that have been implemented, but IMHO it made a huge difference in the response. So get out there, befriend folks that are in a position to make changes...or take a more active role and BECOME one of the ones to make changes!

I hope and pray that others in Issac's path have similar or better anecdotes to pass...be safe!

[Matt In Oklahoma]

Waveland, MS area has about 7 feet of storm surge on the gulf side currently best I can tell by the pictures my little brother is sending. But the "Bay" and bayous are worse off... The wind and storm surge not letting the rivers "empty" out like they should, then add that at one point they were getting almost an inch of rain an hour and finally add high tide just pasted some areas are seeing 12+ feet of water.

My parents reported a lot of wind today. Light rain. Tonight the bad weather is supposed to hit.

Whats the last word on you 2?

[qrprat77]

My dad reported a lot of wind, minimal rain. They stayed on the west side of the storm the whole time. They had .5 inches since 10pm last nite as of about 11am.
Over all more wind than rain, they came out ok. I do have one pic from them on Tuesday where the trees were leanin' all one way.
altogether, their plan of 'sit, wait, ride it out, and be ready to put up kinfolk' worked real well.

[qrprat77]

Great write up Tech!

[Grand58742]

Awesome write up.

How's everyone else doing in the path of the remains of the storm? I.E. our Arkansas and Missouri neighbors?

[Not_Yet_Prepped]

Family had about 10'-11' of water in their yard (so 12' to 13' above the norm.)... The house was on 12' tall stilts so no real damage to the structure. Had some eletrical issues and needed a new water pump for the well and the storage room under the house needs to be striped and redone. They really lucked out.