Gustav: Landfall within 12 hours

I'll admit this to you now: until now I've kept hoping this storm would somehow magically blow apart, get deflected, die down... anything but hit New Orleans. But it just keeps going on towards NOLA. This is like watching a car crash in slow motion.

Paradoxically, I was looking at some old photos of where we used to live and thought how much I miss New Orleans. Don't tell Sònia; she'll have me locked up.

Gustav: Bush visits HQ/Bee sting on the behind

I'm at FEMA Headquarters. We're all preparing for the long haul, getting in additional personnel, calling people off of their leave, having meetings... There is still hope that this thing could weaken a lot before hitting, but we're trying to be realistic. It could still be really bad, and no one wants to be caught off-guard (again).

In that spirit, the President came to headquarters. I really don't have much to say about that. It certainly was the right thing for him to do.

This morning I went out and did 100 burpees in 14:25. It kicked my butt. About halfway through a bee came and stung me on the behind. I'm not kidding. Actually, it wasn't as bad as I remembered bee stings to be. It's bothering me now, though.

Gustav hits Cat 4

Gustav was upgraded to Category 4 just a couple of hours ago, and it looks like nothing is in its way except a warm Gulf of Mexico. I think about the folks in Cuba and shudder.

It is so odd to be here at FEMA Headquarters, seeing the sun shine. I keep thinking I should remember this moment. All is uncertain right now-- but certainty has a way of creeping up on you. Soon we will know just how bad (or not) Gustav is going to be.

My friend Ruth is in town with her husband. We had to cancel getting together because I'll be working (who knows how long?). She said she'd be praying for the people of the gulf coast. I just thought, we're going to be working our tails off to help those people. A little prayer sure couldn't hurt.

Gustav, Hanna, and the view from FEMA Headquarters

FEMA headquarters is pretty alive today. That's good; I'd hate to think we'd all be taking a three day weekend with Gustav breathing down the Gulf Coast's neck. There is a palpable sensation here that the three year anniversary of Katrina was just yesterday, two potential threats are too close for comfort, and we may have to do our jobs.

Oddly enough, three years ago today, Sonia, Daniel, and I were in Lafayette with Beau, Elena, and Luis (see http://timothychenallen.blogspot.com/2005/10/how-we-evacuated-from-hurricane-katrina.html). Right now, the forecast has Gustav rolling right into Lafayette.

Just to get my mind off of things, I went out for a 70 minute run this morning. You know, I really hope nothing happens. But the chances of that are really getting very slim.

Perl: Make KML from NOAA Forecast

I wanted a simple way to make GoogleMaps KML to show forecasted storm tracks. The forcasted storm tracks can be downloaded from the National Hurricane Center and generally look like this. This is today's forecast for TS Gustav:

INITIAL      27/1500Z 18.8N  74.0W    50 KT
12HR VT     28/0000Z 19.0N  74.8W    55 KT
24HR VT     28/1200Z 19.2N  76.0W    60 KT
36HR VT     29/0000Z 19.3N  77.5W    70 KT
48HR VT     29/1200Z 19.9N  79.4W    80 KT
72HR VT     30/1200Z 21.5N  83.0W   100 KT
96HR VT     31/1200Z 24.5N  86.0W   100 KT
120HR VT     01/1200Z 28.5N  88.5W   100 KT

So I wrote a Perl program to translate that into a KML file. The program looks like this:

use strict;
#Get the storm name from the user
print "Storm Name? ";
my $storm = <STDIN>;
chomp($storm);

#Print out the KML header
print << "STARTLINE";
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.2">
<Document>
 <name>$storm</name>
 <open>1</open>
 <description>NOAA $storm track</description>
 <Folder>
   <name>Placemarks</name>
   <description>$storm</description>
   <Placemark>
     <name>$storm</name>
     <LineString>
       <tessellate>1</tessellate>
       <coordinates>
STARTLINE

# Build kml stanzas for the line and forecast markers
my $line = "";
my $points = "";
while(<DATA>) {
chomp;
if (m/^ *(INITIAL|\d+HR VT) +(\d+\/\d{4}Z) (\d+\.\d+)N +(\d+.\d+)W +(.*)$/) {
 $line .= "-$4, $3\n";
 $points .= << "HERE"
   <Placemark>
     <name>$1, $2, $5</name>
     <Point>
       <coordinates>-$4, $3</coordinates>
     </Point>
   </Placemark>
HERE
}
}
# Print everything out, including the end of the kml
print $line;
print << "FINISHLINE";
       </coordinates>
     </LineString>
   </Placemark>
FINISHLINE
print $points;
print << "FINISHPOINTS";
 </Folder>
</Document>
</kml>
FINISHPOINTS
__DATA__
INITIAL      27/1500Z 18.8N  74.0W    50 KT
12HR VT     28/0000Z 19.0N  74.8W    55 KT
24HR VT     28/1200Z 19.2N  76.0W    60 KT
36HR VT     29/0000Z 19.3N  77.5W    70 KT
48HR VT     29/1200Z 19.9N  79.4W    80 KT
72HR VT     30/1200Z 21.5N  83.0W   100 KT
96HR VT     31/1200Z 24.5N  86.0W   100 KT
120HR VT     01/1200Z 28.5N  88.5W   100 KT

As you can see, I copy and paste the NOAA storm forecast into the program. The resulting GoogleMap looks like this:

View Hurricane Gustav Forecast in a larger map
Oh my, that looks uncomfortable for New Orleans. Keep your fingers crossed.

Hurricane Gustav: Yikes!

I've been looking at Hurricane Gustav. Right now it still hasn't made landfall in Hispaniola, but it's already made Category 1 and has a whole big, hot Gulf of Mexico in front of it. Given how flat-footed Katrina caught me, I just thought... what if?

So I'll be keeping an eye on this one. The gulf of Mexico is hot, right at 86F (you can look at this at http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/dsdt/cwtg/egof_tmap.html). Let's hope for the best! But one piece of advice: if you have to evacuate, don't just bring an extra shirt and your guitar like I did.