Good afternoon, I’m still reporting on disaster.
One of the most interesting thing about the United States is its diversity of weather.
In the spring, the middle of our nation can be savaged by mile-wide F5 tornadoes with wind speeds exceeding 200 mph – that’s 322 kilometers per hour.
This is enough to completely level every house in its path.
But as the summer months begin to fade, then comes hurricane season, and this year more hurricanes then usual have been forecast and now, the first major hurricane to hit the U.S. is forecast to hit tonight along the east Texas coast.
When Hurricane Laura left the west coast of Cuba and headed into the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, it was forecast to be a small hurricane, but in the last 12 hours has suddenly blown up to be a major hurricane generating headlines like these:
Unsurvivable: Hurricane Laura Reaches Catastrophic Category 4 Power, 20 foot storm surge expected.
And that headline was generated by this really unprecedented warning by the National Hurricane Center.
“Unsurvivable storm surge with large and destructive waves will cause catastrophic damage from Sea Rim State Park Texas to Intercoastal City, Louisiana, including Calcasieu and Sabine Lakes. This surge could penetrate up to 30 miles inland from the immediate coastline.”
I’ve never seen the word “unsurvivable” included in any kind of an official government weather statement before.
Why? Because people are hard-headed. Having been through hurricanes before, you just don’t want to leave your home, until it gets really bad, and then you can easily become trapped on roadways jammed with other late evacuees trying to flee.
So this story is to generate some degree of warning to these in the extreme tip of south western Lousiana and the south-eastern tip of Texas. The coastal areas have very little height to them and a storm surge of 20 feet doesn’t mean the waves will be 20-feet high, it means the ocean will be 20 feet high with waves above that. In other words waves higher than a 3-story building.
Unfortunately, the residents of this area are not going to have much time to get out of there, and so the roads will be jammed, especially as night falls.
Most of us have been completely consumed with some of the best television viewing in … well, forever – the Republican National Convention. So the destruction this hurricane brings to this area will be a complete surprise to many because most of us had dismissed it as a minor U.S. weather event over the weekend.
However, as senior hurricane specialist Stacy Stewart was quoted by CBN News:
"Some areas, when they wake up Thursday morning, they're not going to believe what happened."
We pray for the people of this area for God to put out his almighty hand to slacken this storm, and spare the Americans of this area.
I’m still reporting from just outside the citadel of American freedom. Good day.