Hurricane Wilma: The Latest Via Blog

Brendan Loy , self-described weather geek and blogger ( Irish Trojan Blog ), was online Monday, Oct. 24, at 1 p.m. ET to discuss the latest on Hurricane Wilma.

Read More: Brendan Loy, the Guy of The Storm (Post, Oct. 23)

Three days before Hurricane Katrina struck, Loy wrote in his blog: "At the risk of being alarmist, we could be three to four days away from an unprecedented cataclysm that could kill as many as 100,000 people in New Orleans."

According to Blog Pulse, which measures blog links, Loy's was the most frequently cited non-news source among hurricane-related blogs. And day before Katrina struck his blog was ranked 14th of most frequently linked-to sites.

A transcript follows.

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Brendan Loy: Hi everyone, welcome to the chat! Sorry I'm a couple minutes late -- I was just grabbing a sandwich at Quizno's. Ah, the life of a law student/part-time law clerk/full-time blogger! :) Anyway, I look forward to answering your questions. I'm keeping an eye (so to speak) on the latest news and weather information on Wilma and Alpha, so I'll try my best to answer questions about the storms... and I can definitely answer any questions you have about my blog, blogging in general, etc. Only one caveat: remember, I'm not a trained meteorologist, I'm just a weather geek! Okay, on with the show...

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Los Angeles, Calif.: As a fellow USC grad, I thought you would be the one to ask: What are the chances of a hurricane hitting L.A.?

Brendan Loy: I'll start with this one, because it's easy and it mentions USC. Fight on!! Anyway... the chances of a hurricane hitting L.A. are virtually nil. The ocean west of southern California is way too cold to support a hurricane, so any hurricanes that attempted to come up that way would quickly fall apart over the cold Pacific water. Really the only way it could happen would be if you had an extremely powerful hurricane down in the warm waters off central Mexico, and it was moving quite fast, so that it wouldn't have time to weaken too quickly. Even then, it would probably weaken to a tropical storm or tropical depression, or even dissipate entirely, before it could reach the coast. Bottom line... I wouldn't worry about. Angelinos have enough to worry about with earthquakes and wildfires!

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Harlingen, Tex.:

Wouldn't it be better to find a better phrase than "Mandatory Evacuation?" Obviously it isn't mandatory in any meaningful sense -- people, as far as I know, don't get thrown in jail or fined if they don't evacuate.

Maybe something like "Category One Evacuation Alert" with a footnote that says, "This means you could die if you stay, but it's your decision?"

Brendan Loy: Hello Texas! To throw in another gratuitous USC reference, I look forward to meeting your state's team in the Rose Bowl! :) Anyway, about your question. You know, that's not a bad idea. I wouldn't use "categories," because people might confuse it with the hurricane categories, but it's certainly true that "mandatory" doesn't really mean "mandatory" -- perhaps "evacuation red alert" or something? I don't know what the best terminology is, but what's important is that people really need to realize they're risking their lives if the authorities tell them to leave and they decide not to. I understand that something like 90% of the population of the Florida Keys didn't evacuate for Wilma, and I gotta tell you, that's distressing. As it turns out, the death toll probably won't be too bad, if Wilma had moved a little further to the south, it could have been worse... and people need to realize that we simply do not have the technology to accurately forecast those last-minute wobbles. Just because you got lucky in one hurricane doesn't mean you'll get lucky in the next! Don't even get me started on how much *worse* Katrina could have been! Anyway... hurricanes fascinate me, as you know, but if I were in an evacuation zone, I would absolutely get out, no matter what they call it. It's not worth the risk.

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San Francisco, Calif.: My daughter is supposed to travel to the Dominican Republic on Saturday. I've read about the "Alpha" storm that has hit there and I am concerned about her going. What do you think?

Brendan Loy: I'm not sure, to be honest, what the local conditions are like in the Dominican Republic. My understanding is that Haiti was more at risk of severe mudslides due to Alpha's rains than the Dominican Republic because of deforestation. Certainly Alpha's winds were not a big issue -- it's floods and possible mudslides from the rains that you need to be worried about. My advice would be to have your daughter call her travel agent and/or the hotel where she is supposed to be staying and try to get an idea of what the conditions are like. Whatever damage Alpha was going to do, it's already been done by now, so if things aren't too bad now, you should be OK. But flood damage can be extremely localized, so you'd really need to get an idea from someone on the ground there.

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Baltimore, Md.: Several years ago the Weather Channel used to run commercials depicting "fans" of weather. In one of these spots, they showed two men in a bar, each dressed and with faces painted in favor of high or low pressures, cheering on their favorite weather event. So, my question to you is: Which do you root for, high or low pressure?

Brendan Loy: Haha... well, I suppose when it comes to my own weather, I usually root for high pressure, since that means sunny skies and beautiful days. (I'd love some sunny skies here in South Bend, Indiana, so I can get better pictures of the fall foliage!) But low pressure is certainly more entertaining. I'll put it this way: I'll root for the occasional low pressure system, so long as nobody gets hurt. I love massive Category Five hurricanes that look pretty on satellite pictures and STAY OUT TO SEA. It's the ones that hit land that create problems...

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Washington, D.C.: You've gotten some good press and some good numbers on your blog for hurricane coverage. Do you consider yourself in competition with the mainstream press? How reliable is your information and where do you get it from? Are you a budding meteorologist?

Brendan Loy: Well, I get my weather information from publicly available sources like the National Hurricane Center and the various computer model charts, so that's as reliable as anything the MSM (that's mainstream media, for you non-blogospheric types) is reporting. Occasionally I will engage in rampant speculation (like when I talked a few days ago about Alpha and Wilma combining to form "Perfect Storm II" -- something that doesn't look like it's going to happen, though they *will* create an interesting Nor'easter), but I try to make clear that it's speculation when I do that. As for my news information, I get most of it from the MSM! I don't really consider myself in competition with them -- I think blogs can provide a valuable *addition* to the news landscape. They can't replace the MSM, because most of us are just sitting on our butts typing into a computer, not going out and doing "real reporting" (as Wonkette would say). What we're good at, I think, is primarily analysis, context and opinion. And in the case of bloggers, you KNOW it's opinion (as opposed to opinion passed off as news), which is a good thing.

Regarding your last question... no, I'm not a budding meteorologist. In fact, I've never taken a meteorology-related class in my life! I'm a law student with a B.A. in political science and print journalism. Weather is just a hobby for me. But I've been watching The Weather Channel and reading about weather for long enough that I know a fair amount about it, and I like to think I do a decent job of explaining it to lay people -- since I am myself a layperson!

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Bethesda, Md.: Are you getting any consensus from the scientific community as to whether the hurricanes we're seeing this season are the result of global warming? Is there any way of proving/disproving this?

Brendan Loy: There are conflicting opinions about this. Some scientists think what we are seeing is merely the upside of a multi-decade "cycle" of hurricane activity. Others acknowledge the cycle, but think global warming is making it worse. I don't pretend to know who is right, but let me point out several cautionary points. First of all, our hurricane data prior to the satellite age is suspect and incomplete, so we don't really know the full picture of what happened back in the first two-thirds of this century, let alone previous centuries. Secondly, it's always tempting -- but unwise -- to project out from a particular storm and say "this is global warming!" Weather is extremely complex and you can't blame a particular storm or set of storms on a single cause. But that said, there is no doubt that if the ocean temperatures continue to rise, hurricanes will have the potential to get worse. Whether we're seeing the beginning of that now, or just a brief blip on the historical record, only time will tell. I know that's a long-winded yet ultimately unsatisfactory answer... sorry! But it's the best I can do.

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Charlotte, N.C.: So where did Wilma exit Florida? Who got the eye?

Brendan Loy: The eye passed over a pretty wide swath of southern Florida, because it's so large. It was basically on the border of Palm Beach and Martin counties when it exited the state and headed back out over the Atlantic. You can see its current location here:

Radar Map_______________________

Alexandria, Va.: Brendan --

I'm not sure where you are so forgive me if you can't answer, but how much of a storm surge is happening in Naples, Fla. My parents own a winter home/condo down there and it's on the ground floor about 10 feet above sea level. They were on their way down there this weekend but have been stalled in my house while they wait for news!

Brendan Loy: I'm in South Bend, so I don't have any first-hand information, sorry to say. But here is what the NBC 2 blog (http://www.nbc-2.com/Blogs/wilma.shtml) reported at 8:57 AM:

"David Sutta reports waves are coming down 5th Avenue as storm surge rushes in from the Gulf of Mexico. The water hasn't reached any stores yet, but it has filled the street and is coming up into yards."

If anyone has any more updated or detailed information, please feel free to "ask" it (bonus points if it's phrased in the form of a question) and I'll post it.

More generally, here is a great list of Wilma-related blogs and news resources:

Hurricane Wilma Roundup

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Beaverton, Ore.: Is that your real hair color?

Brendan Loy: Yes, and I was born with a full head of it. Seriously. I have baby pictures to prove it. :)

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washingtonpost.com: Hurricane-Related Blogs

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Atlanta, Ga.: Brendan,

Can you really sleep at night after knowing Reggie Bush cheated to win the game for you? Just kidding, great game, but in all seriousness, how do you keep up with a rigorous law school schedule and still manage to update your blog as much as you do?

Brendan Loy: Haha... I can sleep at night because I know in my heart that, if the roles were reversed and the call *had* been made -- supposed Darius Walker pushed Brady Quinn into the end zone for the winning touchdown, and got called on it -- the same Irish fans who are screaming about the "Bush Push" would be screaming even louder, "How can you end a game on a cheap call like that? That penalty is NEVER called! You should let the players decide the game on the field, not have the refs decide it with the whistle!" etc. etc. :)

How do I keep up with my schedule? To be honest, sometimes I don't. But I'm pretty good at pulling things together at the last minute when it comes to exams and the like. I'm lucky that way; I've always had that ability, and I can't take credit for it; only God and genetics can. That said, one of my friends commented last semester, "If it weren't for the blog, you'd be on Law Review." Heh. That might be true -- but to me, it's worth it. The blog has opened doors and enriched my life in ways I never could have expected. Who needs Law Review anyway? ;)

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San Diego, Calif.: As a blogger who updates frequently throughout the day, what sort of impact do you think this will have on your professional career? For example, will future employers expect you to keep up your blogging, in order to attract business through name recognition? Or will they want you to stop completely, because they see it as a distraction from work and a possible paper trail? And will blogging be a higher priority in life than other, more boring, responsibilities?

Brendan Loy: Honestly, I don't know what impact it will have. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I do have one hard-and-fast rule, and that is: I don't blog about work. It doesn't matter if I'm a lawyer dealing with confidential client information, or if I'm working at Dairy Queen -- blogging about work is always a bad idea! And whenever my blog is discussed in law-firm interviews and the like (which frequently happens) I make sure to point out my "no blogging about work" policy to potential employers, lest they be nervous. Beyond that, I *hope* to be able to keep up the blog at some level as I enter the "real world," but I don't know if that will be possible. Certainly I will, of necessity, be less of a "hyperactive blogger" than I am now. My priorities are: family, work, blog. Or something like that. Anyway, family and work come first.

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Dallas, Tex.: Hello-

My wedding date is set for 12/17/05 in between Playa Del Carmen and Cancun at the Moon Palace. I have not heard how extensive the damage is to that property due to Wilma. Do you have any insight whether or not the place will be up and running by my wedding date?

Thanks!

Brendan Loy: First of all, congratulations! I'm getting married on December 30. It's exciting, isn't it? But wow, I'm sorry you have to deal with this on top of all the *normal* stresses of getting ready for a wedding.

I'm sorry to say I don't know too much about the damage in Cancun, except that it must have been quite extensive, considering how long they got battered by Wilma at full or near-full strength. I'm sure the Moon Palace will get up and running as soon as humanly possible, since their livelihood depends on it, but I don't know how much damage they sustained. Again, if anyone has details about this, please go ahead and "ask" it as a question, and I'll post it.

Hmm... I just did a Google News search for "Moon Palace" and found this:

Hurricane leaves trail of devastation (The Herald, Oct. 24)

Sandra Cassidy, 43, from Kilmalcolm, Renfrewshire, has been sheltering in the Moon Palace Hotel in Cancun for three days. She is one of many tourists who have missed flights home.

She shared emergency accommodation with about 2500 other tourists.

The NHS worker said: "The shelter just looks like hell, so God knows what it looks like outside."

"Roofs are flying off and crashing everywhere."

"Waves are crashing against the hotel. Everyone is very tired and the sun loungers on which people were sleeping have now been taken away.

"It is flooded and we are paddling through water," she added.

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Crofton, Md.: My brother and his wife are on their honeymoon in Cancun ... the airport is still closed and they probably won't be coming home anytime real soon. They left messages with family saying they are staying in a shelter so I suppose they're safe, but should I be worried about bacteria/viruses/parasites in the flood water they could be wading through? Any idea if there was major damage to the airports and/or when they will reopen? Most of the MSM focus is now on Florida so I'm not finding too much about Cancun.

Brendan Loy: Disease is always an issue with flood waters that stay in place for a long time, but it's important to realize that the situation is New Orleans is extremely unusual because the flood waters had nowhere to recede to; they had to be pumped out because the city is below sea level. So you had standing water (or rather, a "toxic soup" of water mixed with all sorts of nasty stuff) that wasn't going anywhere for weeks. I'm not too familiar with Cancun's geography, but I assume it's more of a normal storm-surge situation, where the water washes in and then largely washes back out after the storm passes. Flooding from rain could be more of an issue, but again, that's a very localized question that I don't really know the answer to... sorry!

I would suggest Google News searching. Also, I will try to post something about conditions in Cancun later today on my blog if I can find some more good info.

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Fairfax, Va.: So is Wilma done now?

Brendan Loy: Well, not quite. She's heading out to sea, and she'll be done with Florida within a few hours. But then she's going to combine with Alpha and a pre-existing non-tropical storm and form quite the Nor'easter off the coast of New England. Luckily she will stay offshore and move pretty fast, so it won't be "Perfect Storm II" as I speculated a few days ago. The Northeast can expect some wind and rain, though. Here is the forecast track:

Hurricane Wilma Path

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84, Pennsylvania: Hello Brendan, I followed your blog all during Katrina and have been an avid reader ever since. I admired your dedication and devoted up-dating of your blog when that was a project you did in your SPARE TIME, it was far superior to what the mainstream media was doing, especially in your (correct) estimation of the catastrophic scenarios which might play out, and did! All that time the MSM were parading their anchors around looking wind-blown in the weather: you were DOING JOURNALISM, they were doing info-tainment.

My question is: What, if anything, will act as a catalyst to prod the MSM into doing journalism again, or are we doomed to be fed infotainment by TV executives from the entertainment division?

Best wishes and kind regards.

Brendan Loy: Thanks, I love avid readers! :)

I agree that the MSM often misses the boat with these things. Showing people the conditions in a hurricane serves a purpose, but ever since Dan Rather was almost blown out to sea during Hurricane Opal (he was clinging to a lamp post), it seems like there's been more and more of a competition to get your anchors out in the thick of it, which serves less of a purpose. I can't deny I'm entertained by the absurd "info-tainment" aspect of it (like the Fox News reporter losing his shoe in Key West -- see link on my blog), but info-tainment is exactly what it is.

Regarding the failure to accurately predict Katrina's catastrophic potential, that is indeed a major media failure, and not just a finger-wagging complaint. It was clear by Friday morning/afternoon that Katrina was at least as big of a threat to destroy New Orleans as Ivan had been the year before, and it was clear by evening that it was *more* of a threat. Yet whereas the AP ran a major story two days before Ivan's landfall detailing the potential effects if it were to hit New Orleans, the focus with Katrina remained on the Florida panhandle for an unnaturally long time, and when it finally shifted to New Orleans, it really didn't take on the apocalyptic urgency it deserved until Sunday morning. By then, I think a lot of people had already made the (obviously incorrect) decision to "ride it out." I think the MSM felt they "already did that story" (with Ivan) and thus didn't emphasize the potential effects as much as they needed to.

It's important to recognize how much WORSE Katrina could have been. If the center had made landfall 30 or 40 miles to the west, and/or if she hadn't weakened from Cat. 5 to Cat. 3 in the final hours before landfall, you would have had a death toll in the tens of thousands, I am almost certain of it. There would have been no slow federal response to criticize because virtually all of those evacuees at the Convention Center and elsewhere would have drowned in the storm itself. There would have been no slow-motion flooding of the city -- the flood waters would have risen higher and MUCH faster, and whatever was above the water line would have been torn apart by the sort of high winds that Mississippi saw. What happened in New Orleans was bloody awful, but it could have been so much worse, and people planning for future disasters need to realize that. What I said about "100,000 deaths" turned out to be wrong by two orders of magnitude -- thank God -- but that was mostly due to random happenstance, not anything that was destined to happen.

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Seattle, Wash.: Brendan,

You have used the term nor'easter a couple of times now. I know you told me freshman year, but I have since forgotten and I'm sure other readers might not be familiar with it either.

Brendan Loy: Hi David. :) A nor'easter is a non-tropical Atlantic coastal storm that affects the New England states and/or the Canadian maritimes. It's called a "nor'easter" because the wind hits the shore from the northeast due to the counterclockwise rotation around the low-pressure system. The term is usually associated with winter storms (most major New England blizzards are nor'easters), but they can happen in the fall too, and basically Wilma and Alpha are going to combine and become extratropical (i.e., non-tropical) and help form a decent-sized nor'easter.

All right, the WaPo folks are telling me I gotta go, and my bosses would probably agree! :) Thanks for the questions, everybody! Don't forget to check my blog for the latest:

Irish Trojan's Blog

Before I go... WOW... unexpected breaking news! Wilma has restrengthened to a Category 3 over the Gulf Stream!

Hurricane Wilma Update (National Hurricane Center)

There will be a "special advisory" at 2:30 to discuss this. I doubt it has any serious ramifications except perhaps that the nor'easter will be stronger than expected, but it certainly does give folks like me something to talk about! The Gulf Stream is an amazing thing... it often plays a big role in strengthening winter nor'easters, and hurricanes love it too. This is just another example.

Thanks again, everyone!

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washingtonpost.com: Irish Trojan Blog

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