Rita sets record for 3rd place in Atlantic for intense hurricanes

HURRICANE RITA INTERMEDIATE ADVISORY NUMBER 17A
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
7 PM CDT WED SEP 21 2005

...CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE RITA CONTINUING TO DEEPEN...
...NOW THE THIRD MOST INTENSE HURRICANE IN THE ATLANTIC BASIN ON RECORD...

PRESSURE HAS BEEN FALLING RAPIDLY DURING THE DAY AND THE LATEST MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE RECENTLY REPORTED BY AN AIR FORCE RECONNAISSANCE PLANE WAS 898 MB...26.52 INCHES. THIS MAKES RITA THE THIRD MOST INTENSE HURRICANE IN TERMS OF PRESSURE IN THE ATLANTIC BASIN.

Hurricane Rita to effect Oklahoma?

Hurricane Rita is now on it's way to becoming another monster hurricane like Katrina was less than a month ago. This time possibly affecting the Gulf Coast further to the west than Katrina. With Rita's projected path, Oklahoma could see some effects from the remenats of this hurricane (see pictures above). Forecasters are saying that by late Wednesday, Rita (currently a strong catagorey two) could reach categorey 4 status.

HURRICANE RITA ADVISORY NUMBER 14

NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL

11 PM EDT TUE SEP 20 2005

DATA FROM THE KEY WEST NOAA DOPPLER RADAR AND AN AIR FORCE RESERVE UNIT RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT INDICATE MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS HAVE NOW INCREASED TO NEAR 110 MPH...175 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER GUSTS. RITA IS A STRONG CATEGORY TWO HURRICANE ON THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE. ADDITIONAL STRENGTHENING IS FORECAST DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS...AND RITA IS EXPECTED TO BECOME A CATEGORY THREE HURRICANE WEDNESDAY MORNING... AND REACH CATEGORY FOUR STRENGTH BY WEDNESDAY EVENING.

Is Google Getting Political?

From:

By John Gibson, Fox News

"Go to Google, type in "failure" and up pops George W. Bush with a link to the official White House Web site bio of President Bush.

But go back and it appears to also link the word failure to MichaelMoore.com."

- Full Story

- Watch the Video

See for yourself!

Amateur Radio Earning Praise, Respect in Hurricane Katrina Relief

Ed Compos, K5CRQ (left), and Mark Conklin, N7XYO, were among Oklahoma amateurs helping out at the Camp Gruber sheltering operation.

"Amateur Radio operators concluded a shelter support operation at Oklahoma's Camp Gruber. "We were the communications backbone between responding agencies," said Mark Conklin, N7XYO. "We also passed tons of traffic, ranging from requests for water and food, supplies and bedding. In fact, Amateur Radio was the 911 system on Camp Gruber for many days." -ARRL

(Full Story)

NOAA AND PARTNERS CONDUCT FIRST SUCCESSFUL UNMANNED AIRCRAFT HURRICANE OBSERVATION BY FLYING THROUGH OPHELIA

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Tulsa Forecast Office KML (XML) Files

The NWS Tulsa FO now has KML files available for Max Temp, Min Temp, Precip Hrs 1-4, Current Conditions, Warning Polygons, Local Storm Reports, and Storm Spotters (APRS). Pretty cool. Really nice to use in conjunction with Google Earth.

A dream reminded me how much I dislike idiots

It's been my experience in life so far that common sense isn't very common. I had a dream last night that almost had be cussing when I woke from it. In a nutshell:

I was driving around dusk by a school (like a community college, I guess) and there were two busses on the side of the road against the curb on the school side (the side I was on). As I was approaching (doing the speed limit, 35-40mph) I noticed there was a group of people, looked like employees or students, crossing the road (a 5 lane road). As I got close, they just kept coming across the road and I had to hit my brakes. Being the courteous person I am, I kept moving (didn't come to a stop), but they just kept walking across the road and started looking at me like I was doing something wrong. There wasn't any sort of cross-walk or pedestrian signs. Now in real life, I would have stopped until they crossed or stopped to let me pass, but this was a dream. For some reason I got really ticked off because they were acting like they owned the road. So I turned and jumped the curb into the field across the street from the school where they were walking and gave them a little scare. Then my alarm went off (as usual, at the best part).

So my deal is, I really dislike idiot people that don't use common sense or follow the rules of the road. Take turn signals for example. I used to not mind driving Tulsa during the day, but it's gotten so bad (or I've just gotten older) that I hate it. People in this town don't seem to know what that little stick on the side of their steering column is for. I almost rear-end at least 3-5 cars if I'm driving during the day because they just like to slam on their brakes and turn. Also, some local drivers like to pull out in front of you without judging the speed you are coming at. Oh, and my favorite, people that run red turn signal lights. If my lights green, I'm going buddy. Now I won't hit someone (since I'll get ticketed for failure to yield), but I won't sit and wait for them to clear the intersection they can't wait 2-5 min to cross. If I was rich I would hit them. People like that just piss me off. And no, there can't be that many people in a situation that need to run a light like that. Not trying to be a hypocrite, cause I've done it once or twice, but it was usually in an emergency situation, not just because I was in a hurry to catch the end of breakfast at McDonalds. I just don't understand why people drive like they own the road.

Well, that was my rant.

Now I really understand slow response to Katrina

After volunteering time at Camp Gruber (near Muskogee, OK) where approximately 2,000 Katrina victims are sheltered, I now understand how chaotic it must of been in the days following Katrina for rescue personnel.

With little time to prepare, agencies from around Eastern Oklahoma set up at Camp Gruber to receive some 2,000 displaced families from Louisiana after hurricane Katrina. I arrived Friday night (2300 9-2-05) with another HAM radio operator (ED K5CRQ) to setup communications with the American Red Cross at Tulsa. In the hours that followed, I now understand how bad it really was (and still is) for communication networks.

The busses (approx. 40 of them) were supposed to arrive around 0200 9-3-05. From our little room in the corner of the Command Post, we watched and listened most of the night. It seemed that there was no interangency communication at all. Everyone was doing their own little thing and the incident command structure was barely present at the time. Everyone in the incident command was trying to micro-manage everything instead of delegating it out to others to handle it. After the initial incident commander went home and was replaced, we got word the busses weren't on their way and might not be coming. In the chaos of trying to get everything organized, some of the agencies left (to resume their normal operations while on-call for Camp Gruber). So now the little structure that was present was smashed into small pieces. Later that day (9-3-05), we heard that the busses were on their way from Dallas, TX. So everyone started to get ready again to receive the displaced residents from Louisiana in a matter of hours. By that time, tempers among agency leaders had run out and some of the minor agencies commented that they were leaving, not to return.

By the time the busses arrived, incident command had been established and re-worked and functioned well once the busses began to unload. There was still a lot of communication problems (none critical) left however. It seemed most of the people were using cell phones to communicate with each other, which was causing problems of people getting information from numerous sources and orders from different people without the command structure knowing about it. So when the command called on those people, they were either not in the right place or doing something they shouldn't have been assigned to do. By the time everyone got radios (we got one of each), we had about 4 units on our desk for all of the agency groups. It was quite amusing listening to all of them and hearing a lot of redundant orders, but like I said, in the end it worked.

Just being able to witness all of this made me appreciate the use of interagency radio networks and also how chaotic it must have been on a coastline without power for any normal radio use. Thankfully HAM radio operators across the country have volunteered for all aspects of communications to help out in search and rescue, recovery, welfare, and all other types of traffic in the hurricane Katrina aftermath.

Some pictures from Camp Gruber:

Some of the busses left from the inital 39

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A few of the multiple ambulance companies that showed up

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Red Cross and Army personell unloading supplies