Right now the biggest concern is the Keys. |
Some areas of New Orleans that were flooded had nothing to do with breaks in levees. Neither did any of those on the Mississippi coast. |
That would obviously be terrible news for Mexico, but for the United States interests it means that we'll have a weaker hurricane coming out into the Gulf of Mexico and it will be slower in getting here. |
That's not good news, and that's why we need to be prepared. |
that's not the place to be. |
That's obviously a very grave concern. |
That's where people are going to die, |
That's where people are going to die. All these areas are going to get absolutely clobbered by the storm surge. |
The 1940s through the 1960s experienced an above-average number of major hurricanes, while the 1970s into the mid-1990s averaged fewer hurricanes. |
The 33 years that I've been at the hurricane center we have always been saying ? the directors before me and I have always said ? that the greatest potential for the nightmare scenarios, in the Gulf of Mexico anyway, is that New Orleans and southeast Louisiana area, |
The advice for folks in Florida is not to put away all those hurricane supplies yet. |
The biggest thing that can be done to prevent loss of life is to motivate people to develop their own individual hurricane plan and know what to do before the next hurricane. Some of these folks, take Mississippi in Katrina, they died because they didn't have a hurricane plan. |
The conditions have to be absolutely perfect to have a hurricane become this strong. |
The fact that we had a major hurricane forecast over or near New Orleans is reason for great concern. The local and state emergency management knew that as well as FEMA did. |
The last thing people up in that Navarre Beach and Pensacola area want to hear is we could have a hurricane headed in their direction. |