Hurricane Ivan Information

[CruiseFever]

If you have something you'd like to post or discuss concerning this weather event please post it here

[sue d. miller]

11 a.m. graphic. 5 p,m, should be along shortly!!

 

 

 

http://www.hurricanealley.net/images/09L.gif

[Host CJSKIDS]

The eye of Ivan just moved over Grenada. Wonder what it will be like for our visit in October, hope they're all okay down there.

[isujim]

The 5pm advisory is out and it is looking more and more like the Gulf of Mexico.....while still too early to tell 100%......the discussion supports the storm strenghening in the next couple of days and going over Western Cuba.......that would point it right in the middle of the Gulf.........a long way to go.......pressure has dropped since the last advisory and this one bears watching closely.

[sue d. miller]

The first report from Grenada is out!!!

 

http://www.stormcarib.com/reports/2004/grenada.shtml

[TinaLee]

Here's a 5 pm update, although the NHC one still isn't up... the graphic I mean. The update is there, they just haven't updated the graphic.

 

[earljr]

IVAN ---Hit the mountains and turn East! Or better yet - just turn East now!!! Enough already.

[WendyG]

Now the weather guys are saying the models are all out of whack. He said one is showing it going over the Bahamas (god I hope not) and the other one shows the gulf. He said it depends on how far north Frances is before they know where Ivan is headed (how that has a bearing on where Ivan goes is beyond me)

 

This time, I'm not worrying until the day before, at least by then they have some idea of where it's headed!

[sue d. miller]

Here is the 5 p.m. track....

 

http://www.hurricanealley.net/images/09L.gif

[lawofraven]

I have contacted TA and Travel Guard and it looks like we might cancel our Caribbean Princess cruise for 9/11. Wish I could get info from Princess on our exact itinerary but mum's the word. We are scheduled for Western and by the look of recent tracking model Ivan isn't getting out of way for that to happen. We'll just cruise another time but you can bet it won't be during Hurricane season. I pray for the health and safety of all who have been hit by any of these monsters.

Angie

[sue d. miller]

Sorry to hear that Angie. Thank goodness you are taking it with a good attitude. :)

[lawofraven]

We are thinking a week in Atlantic City will be a reasonable replacement :D

[sue d. miller]

Now that sounds nice!!!! ;)

[Seaside2358]

I'd go nuts spending a week in Atlantic City...After having gone to Vegas I have trouble going there even for a day. :eek:

[MNYTRPS2GO2]

If you are planning on heading to Atlantic City you may want to check out some of the other beach towns in the area. You can usually get some great prices after Labor Day.

[Host CJSKIDS]

Sue, I've got a great site to track the hurricanes, it shows all the sites almost at once. http://www.crownweatherservices.com

If you look, you'll see some projections coming right through Collier and Lee County, ouch.

Carolyn

[Host CJSKIDS]

Once at that site above, hit tropical on the right hand side and it will show what's going on in the caribbean and our way.

[sue d. miller]

Carolyn, I can't get it. It says unknown!! I don't lke the one that says Lee County!!! :eek:

[sue d. miller]

I found it Carolyn. It is crownweather.com. Kool site. Thank you!!! :) I do not like that blue line!!! :eek:

[FelinerX3]

lawofraven - hang in there!! we were supposed to do the eastern route 9/4, only to have it changed to the western route, only to have it shortened to a 4 day cruise, which we had to cancel (sob)! It looks like Ivan will be well into the gulf by Sat...Princess may well change the itinerary to eastern - would that be a problem for you? I know changing our itinerary wasn't a big deal at all - we just wanted to get on board. Bottom line, here we sit at home. But - we got a full refund, and are booked on the same cruise, in the same cabin 1/29/05. So wait a day or two and see what develops! Hope this helps, and good luck!

[lynwar]

Hi, I saw the track on the 5PM news at work, but not the good ones like folks are following. It was scary enough seeing that southwestern Florida is in the "cone". If it continues up through the state like Charley did, our county will have an actual "star", where the 3 hurricanes intersected. (Highlands Co). We still have the attitude that we're not going to get too cleaned up until after Ivan. If it hits, then the stores will only have about 5 days to replenish again.

We are staying with our Caribbean Princess 9/18 plans because we will be on the Eastern Itinerary-good news if the storm comes in from the West.But, understandably it might be bumpy, especially crossing the Florida Straits. I don't like seeing all those "waves" coming out from Africa,either.

It rained here a couple of times today-remnants of Frances? Maybe. But, probably just the typical Florida weather pattern. I'll check back in tomorrow!!! Lynne

[CruiseFever]

FROM CNN.COM 09/07/04 8:17pm CDT

 

"ST. GEORGE'S, Grenada (AP) -- Packing ferocious winds, Hurricane Ivan made a direct hit on Grenada, tearing down scores of homes and hurling hundreds of the island's landmark red zinc roofs through the air as it rampaged through the southern Caribbean on Tuesday.

 

The storm, coming just days after Hurricane Frances, also damaged homes in Barbados, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and appeared set to cross the Caribbean Sea and bear down on Jamaica by Thursday.

 

In Grenada, howling winds raged through the winding hilly streets of St. George's, the capital, uprooting trees and utility poles, thrashing concrete homes into piles of rubble and knocking out telephone service and electricity. Transmission was halted from the Grenada Broadcast Network, whose building suffered major damage.

 

Several hundred people had been evacuated from low-lying areas of St. George's. ChevronTexaco said it evacuated nonessential staff from a natural gas well off Venezuela's Atlantic coast.

 

There were no reports of injuries in Grenada, but emergency officials could not be reached. Their office building, the 19th century Great House at Mount Wheldale in the capital, sustained roof damage and its verandah completely collapsed.

 

"Grenada felt the full brunt of this storm," said Chris Hennon, a meteorologist at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. "Ivan's eye was split in half over the island" with the northern part in the eye wall, the most dangerous part, he said. St. George's, with its historic English Georgian and French provincial buildings, is in the south.

 

More than 1,000 people rushed to shelters. Grenada has about 100,000 residents who live on several islands.

 

Ivan's sustained winds were clocked at 120 mph (193 kph) Tuesday as raced through the Windward Islands and forecasters said it could reach Category 4 strength by late Tuesday, with winds of more than 131 mph (210 kph) capable of extreme damage.

 

At 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT), the hurricane's center was about 20 miles (32 kilometers) west-southwest of Grenada and it was moving west near 18 mph (30 kph). Hurricane-force winds extended up to 70 miles (112 kilometers) from the center and tropical storm-force winds another 160 miles (257 kilometers). The storm riled up battering waves and the Hurricane Center warned of possible storm flooding of 3-5 feet (1-1.5 meters) above normal with 5-7 inches (13-18 centimeters) of rain that could cause flash floods and mudslides.

 

Earlier Tuesday, Ivan damaged at least 176 homes in Barbados, which was buffeted by gusts up to 90 mph (145 kph) as it passed south of the island, according to relief director Judy Thomas and meteorologists. The Atlantis Hotel and Ocean Spray Hotel, just outside Bridgetown, the capital, lost part of their roofs.

 

"We are very lucky," said Chester Layne, Barbados' chief meteorological officer. "Had we been impacted by the main core of Ivan ... it could have been catastrophic."

 

In neighboring St. Vincent and the Grenadines, about 600 people sought shelter and at least 45 houses were damaged, officials said. A half dozen houses in St. Lucia lost roofs. Two people there fell while helping neighbors repair roofs and were hospitalized, officials said.

 

In Tobago nearly 600 people were in shelters and two high schools lost roofs.

 

Airports, schools, government offices and most private businesses were closed on affected islands.

 

A hurricane warning remained in effect for Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. A hurricane watch was posted for the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao. Tobago, Martinique, St. Lucia and Barbados all were under tropical storm warning.

 

In Barbados, an island of 280,000 seldom hit by hurricanes, winds whipped away half the roof of the temporary structure housing the retired British Airways Concorde jet donated to Barbados in November, authorities said. The plane was not damaged, they said.

 

"It was scary," Barbadian Elaine Hope said as she cooked lunch for five grandchildren in a home darkened by hurricane shutters. Hope said her house in east-coast St. Joseph suffered no damage, but the winds tore down her neighbor's fence.

 

Grenadians had scrambled Monday to prepare for the storm's arrival, nailing plywood planks over windows and installing metal hurricane shutters. A few waited until early Tuesday to finish preparations.

 

Ivan became the fourth major hurricane of the season on Sunday, coming hard on the heels of Hurricane Frances, which killed at least two people in the Bahamas and 14 in the U.S. states of Florida and Georgia.

 

Unlike the Bahamas and the British territory of the Turks and Caicos, where Frances blew off roofs and snapped trees in half, many of the Windward islands are poorer, with old wooden structures in flood-prone areas."

 

[jemingway]

Terrifying.:(

[GloriaF]

It doesn't look good for the FL west coast!! Or at least I'd rather see it look better -- I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Ivan heads out to sea!

 

BTW, Atlanta area was even affected by Frances -- spoke with family and they had winds and lost power Monday. Will she NEVER go away?! And here in the Jax area, we are still having rains and tornadoes.

But Ivan is the one to be on our minds now. :mad:

[CruiseFever]

Hurricane Ivan Pounds Eastern Caribbean Islands

By Linda Hutchinson-Jafar

 

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (Reuters) - Hurricane Ivan tore down trees, blew off roofs, knocked out power and forced hundreds of people to evacuate coastal areas as it pounded the tiny islands of the southeastern Caribbean on Tuesday.

 

Ivan, the latest storm in a busy Atlantic hurricane season, swept south of Barbados and over Grenada, brushing past Tobago as it headed into the Caribbean basin far south enough to prompt precautions on Venezuela's coast.

 

 

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Ivan was a powerful storm with sustained winds of 120 mph, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

 

Storm warnings for the ninth cyclone of the Atlantic hurricane season stretched from the French territory of Martinique in the north to Trinidad and Tobago in the south, and included Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Bonaire, Curacao, Aruba and Colombia's Guajira Peninsula.

 

 

In Barbados, a former British colony of 278,000, Ivan felled trees and power lines, hurled debris around and damaged some 176 homes and properties. It blew the roof off the landmark Atlantis hotel, built in 1884 on the seafront at St. Joseph, and damaged the roof of a new hanger near the airport housing a preserved Concorde jet.

 

 

"I'm feeling glad that it didn't hit us in full," said Shellie Welch of Christchurch in the south of Barbados, who sat out the storm at home with her two children. "I'm just imagining what if it did, because the houses here aren't built all that strong."

 

 

Schools and businesses closed in the twin-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, which has a population of 1.1 million and is the Caribbean's top oil producer.

 

 

STORM HALTS GAS EXPORTS TO U.S.

 

 

Energy companies evacuated workers from offshore oil platforms and halted or cut production. Atlantic LNG stopped export shipments as the storm approached Trinidad, which is the largest liquefied natural gas supplier to the United States.

 

 

In Tobago, Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, residents packed into shelters, fearing their houses might not withstand the heavy rain and winds.

 

 

St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves said the storm tore the roof off a hospital and damaged several houses on Union Island.

 

 

"The sea has come in and removed a couple of houses. Apparently there were waves of up to 20 feet high so that has been very terrible," Gonsalves told a Trinidad television station.

 

 

Ivan spun off squalls that battered Venezuela's coastline with heavy rains, strong winds and high waves. Officials in northeastern Sucre State and nearby Margarita Island moved residents away from risky coastal areas, restricted air and sea traffic and closed some airports and harbors, Civil Protection Service chief Antonio Rivero said.

 

 

"It's affecting us in an indirect way but with real strength because of its size," he said.

 

 

Venezuela, the world's fifth largest oil exporter, said its crude shipments and production had not been affected so far.

 

 

At 5 p.m. EDT, Ivan was about 20 miles west-southwest of Grenada. It was moving rapidly west at about 18 mph and could strengthen over the next day as it moves through the Caribbean, the hurricane center said.

 

 

The hurricane center's long-range forecast, which has a large margin of error, put the storm over Jamaica on Friday and southwestern Cuba on Sunday.

 

 

Farther north in Florida, residents and authorities worried that Ivan could become the third hurricane to hit the state in a month, after Charley pummeled the southwest coast on Aug. 13 and Frances lumbered over the east coast on the weekend. But although Florida was a possible track for Ivan, it was too soon to tell where it would head. (Additional reporting by Robert Edison Sandiford in Bridgetown, Barbados; Fabian Cambero in Caracas and Frances Kerry in Miami)

 

 

 

09/07/04 18:07

 

 

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