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Hurricane John


LS-One

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I have been watching this Cat III Hurricane, "John" down in Baja Mexico. Its expected to turn west soon.

I couldn't help but think though, what if ? I'm not aware of a hurricane ever hitting Los Angeles, but that would truly be a mess of New Orleans proportions. Shocking.gif

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Why do you think it would be New Orleans proportions? There's no dams or levees to speak of and the building construction is no different than anything on the Eastern Seaboard.

Just curious.

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Why do you think it would be New Orleans proportions? There's no dams or levees to speak of and the building construction is no different than anything on the Eastern Seaboard.

Just curious.

Building construction is different, I also think the drainage systems would be overwhelmed. Evacuations would be almost impossible because of total freeway gridlock. You probably couldn't go south so that only leaves North and East. Imagine all of LA trying to evacuate on only a few freeways. Since its never happend many would stay behind which would attribute to an extremely high death toll.

Edited by LS-One
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FWIW, there would NOT be "an extremely high deathtoll" unless people were idiots and went outside during the storm. The only reason death tolls were high in N.O., as Mike pointed out, was due to the flooding (aka levee breakages, etc.).

I live in Charleston, SC - I hate to say it, but Hurrican Hugo was a much more powerful storm that Katrina when it hit us in 1989. The death toll from that storm was 76. That was 76 people - majority of whom were in mobile homes that were blown apart, smashed by trees, or carried away in the storm surge.

Los Angeles has a much different landscape, land move rapidly above sea level and storm surges would have little impact. The only flooding would be due to drainage issues, and even those would alleviate themselves shortly after the storm (unlike N.O.).

But rant off - has any hurricane ever hit LA? According to a google search, "the only time in history a hurricane with winds over 100 miles per hour has struck Los Angeles was on August 23rd, 1838" I never said it couldn't happen though. Who knows? I could just be ignorant. :)

JZ

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Why do you think it would be New Orleans proportions? There's no dams or levees to speak of and the building construction is no different than anything on the Eastern Seaboard.

Just curious.

Building construction is different, I also think the drainage systems would be overwhelmed. Evacuations would be almost impossible because of total freeway gridlock. You probably couldn't go south so that only leaves North and East. Imagine all of LA trying to evacuate on only a few freeways. Since its never happend many would stay behind which would attribute to an extremely high death toll.

Granted there'd be a lot of residential homes with roof damage and probably a lot of blown out windows but a frame house is a frame house. As far as commerical buildings go, the high rises in LA are built to withstand high winds, but probably some glass damage. I just don't see the catastrophic potential like New Orleans

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You also need to take into account the amount of power the storm would lose traveling over land towards L.A. Aside from New Orleans, what did most of the damage to the Gulf Coats (Note, the New Orleans mess wasn't from the power of the storm itself. The day after the storm, New Orleans was actually OK, it was the Levees breaking that did the most damage), was the storm surge. Water was making it from the ocean miles into shore. That was what took out most of the houses. In New Orleans itself, it was due to the flooding. New Orleans didn't get 20ft of rain from the hurricane. They had most of that water already sitting over their heads. That's why many have said that the city was a disaster waiting to happen.

Once these storms hit land, it's amazing how much they weaken. You might get a lot of rain, but I don't think the flooding would be close to what happened with New Orleans.

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Interesting article about a 1997 El Nino powered storm in SoCal. This meteorologist seems to think it would have been a catastrophe if it hit LA. I'm no expert, so I have no clue what it would do to LA. What I do know is that Hurricane John is going to encounter pretty cool ocean temps as it moves further north, thereby weakening it and probably brushing it out to sea...at least that's what the forecast is. Without the warm waters of an El Nino, the hurricane has no way to hold it's strength, so it "should" be a non-event.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elnino/dispat...atch980211.html

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Interesting article about a 1997 El Nino powered storm in SoCal. This meteorologist seems to think it would have been a catastrophe if it hit LA. I'm no expert, so I have no clue what it would do to LA. What I do know is that Hurricane John is going to encounter pretty cool ocean temps as it moves further north, thereby weakening it and probably brushing it out to sea...at least that's what the forecast is. Without the warm waters of an El Nino, the hurricane has no way to hold it's strength, so it "should" be a non-event.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elnino/dispat...atch980211.html

I rest my case...

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Biggest threats to LA

1. Terror attack

2. Earthquake - just like us here in Nor Cal.

3. Tsunami - Major amounts of people live relatively close to sea shore. A huge wave would take out hundreds of thousands.

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I think the buildings would be ok. There would be plenty of houses with roof damage (many houses especially in the 40's - 60's just laid the tile on the roof w/o nails). I think the earthquakes of the last 15 years have knocked down most poor foundations / construction, so wind would not be a major issue.

The worst would be heavy rains on the nearby mountains causing flash flooding that could cause mud slides on hills that in recent years had fires. Runoff from the mountains would overwhelm storm drains in the LA basin and cause local flooding, but nothing too bad IMO.

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A hurricane is the last thing LA needs. That would basically give it every conceivable natural disaster risk like fires, mudslides, earthquakes, tsunamis, and Mothra. I'm sure a volcano will pop up at some point also. I'd hate to be an insurance agent in California.... Crazy.gif

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