Crap Throwing Monkey

It won't be a hurricane any more by then. Lots of rain, though.

I didn't say they'd give us a break. I said they'd act in their own self-interest...which is being reported as keeping oil prices from getting any higher. Just because their self-interest happens to correllate with ours, it doesn't mean they're cutting us a break.

Yes, pressure gradient. Showoff.

It's complicated. Pressure's about the same in the 11pm report (904 mb). But they're getting different wind readings from different sensors, and since they measure wind speed from a plane at altitude they have to adjust that to surface wind speeds...so until the storm hits land and surface instruments can directly measure, wind speeds are just an estimation, and there's questions about the adjustment factor in this case. Plus it looks like it's starting an eyewall replacement cycle, which typically weakens a storm temporarily (basically, it's taking a last deep breath, and can't blow as hard while it's inhaling). So there's a lot that goes into wind speed...but pressure's a fairly consistent and independent measure of storm intensity, and the pressure hasn't materially changed, so they'll say it's maintaining its strength.

The movie also speculated some sort of OPEC boycott, as I recall. In this case, the exact opposite's likely to happen. Stories were run this weekend about how worried OPEC is about high oil prices, and how much the want to lower them. Given that, you'd think they wouldn't exploit the situation.

Eastern Great Lakes and the Ohio River valley are projected to get 4"-8" of rain from this storm. And of course, all that rain that falls in the Ohio ultimately finds its way into the Mississippi, hence to New Orleans. And probably floods it more. Kind of makes you wonder if we're going to see a modern metropolis be abandoned completely...

1000 years from now, with all that debris washed into the delta, that's going to be an archeologist's wet dream.

But again...that's for the extreme tip of the delta. There's got to be maybe three household appliances in that whole parrish.

C'mon, stojan, you're smarter than that. Do the math. A jump from $65 to $70 is about 8%...I topped my tank off today at $2.73/gallon...add 8% for a first approximation - about 22 cents. For a second approximation...the oil and gas markets aren't going to price rationally by supply and demand this week. Prices are going to be driven by greed and fear - mostly fear, obviously. A lot of the price increases lately have been driven by the fear that we'll run too low on available gas as national stocks on-hand decrease. Now they're going to decrease even faster, since we're getting no oil from the Gulf, no product from the refineries in the New Orleans area, and little transportation of petroleum products on the lower Mississippi for the near future. All that's going to feed the fear and drive prices what's beyond a rational reaction. I'll say flat-out that I expect gas to hit $3.00/gal by late Tuesday (I actually expect it'll hit that tomorrow evening), but given the fear that's going to run rampant in the market in the morning, if it hit $3.25 by Wednesday morning I wouldn't be all that surprised.

The caveat being that that's not for New Orleans, it's for the lower delta, about 90 miles away. And fortunately, that's mostly swampland, so there's not a hell of a lot there to be levelled (trees and such aside). Even so...I had no idea NOAA would issue a warning worded like that. When I first read it, I thought it was a hoax.

The market in Sydney, Australia's already open...US Gulf crude is already trading above $70. I'd bet when New York opens in the morning, it'll be in the $72-75 range, and could be $80 before the week's out.

Introduce me to the chick in your avatar and I'll consider it. Oh, wait...damn, I'm married. Never mind.

More like 30-40k. The stadium's at sea level, though (built on a hill, basically), and much higher than the flood will get. They expect the field to flood...but everyone sheltering in it is doing so in the higher rows and upper deck. And the Superdome can probably withstand the flood, given it's a solid concrete structure that's probably open at the ground level to let water flow through and around (much like the Indian Ocean tsunami didn't destroy pillared structures, as they let the water flow through). I'd worry more about the roof. Unsupported roofs over wide areas are usually weak spots in a structure, and anyone who's ever been at RWS knows how bad even a moderate breeze is swirling in an open stadium. They say the Superdome will withstand 200mph winds, though...

Say hello to the Los Angeles Saints...

But let's not forget...Urlacher's pretty damned good. It's not like Shelton was going up against some undrafted free-agent camp fodder scrub.

The Labor Day hurricane was wicked. People caught out in the open by it were actually sandblasted to death - nothing found of them but any metal objects they had on them (e.g. belt buckles) and slivers of bone. The wife went through Andrew, ten miles from the eye. That storm actually wrecked the bank she managed including the bank vault. Anyone have any idea what it takes to destroy a bank vault?

Too late now. Anyone who leaves now gets caught on the road by the storm.

They'd arguably be worse than the storm itself. Just imagine 40k people stranded in the Superdome with water and sewer systems wiped out by the storm, and the graveyards flooded. NO could legitimately become uninhabitable.

Really...when you think about, this was an incredibly stupid question.

Yeah. That would REALLY screw up the oil companies.

It needs more cowbell.

A million barrels a day of domestic oil production have already been shut down because of the hurricane. The refineries along the Gulf coast and Mississippi will be shut down next. And the Mississippi is a major transportation route for oil and gas (part of the reason for the spike in gas prices last year was that an accident on the Mississippi messed up shipping of gas). Yeah, oil's going up. I expect it'll hit $70 well before lunch tomorrow. I already filled my tank, and identified the oil-sensitive stocks I'm shorting.

Or Ray Lucas. He had two really good games for the Bills a few years ago. Of course, he was technically on the Dolphins' roster at the time...

They're telling people to bring blankets and "food for five days...and you WILL be uncomfortable".

Oh, good... 1m bbl/day of Gulf of Mexico oil production is already shut down, and will probably stay that way for 5-10 days. That's about 20% of US production, and 10% of consumption. And that's even before you consider the refinery production that's shutting down as well, and any damage to the port facilities that offloads the oil... Everyone go out and fill their gas tanks today?