Preparations
Only four before-landfall watches and warnings were released in accordance with Hurricane Opal. The first was on September 30 for the northeast portion of the Yucatán Peninsula from Cozumel and Cancun to Progreso. This warning was discontinued late the next day. The second was a tropical storm warning issued on October 3 for Morgan City, Louisiana to just west of Pensacola, Florida. A hurricane warning was issued for Mobile, Alabama to Anclote Key, Florida on October 4. This one warning was extended from Mobile, Alabama westward to the mouth of the Mississippi River including coastal Mississippi. They were extended yet again for Grand Isle, Louisiana westward to just east of Morgan City, Louisiana including Metropolitan New Orleans. All remaining coastal watches and warnings were discontinued on October 5 at 0500 UTC.
The post-landfall watches and warnings released in accordance with Opal were a flash flood warning released on October 5 for portions of Alabama, northern Georgia, the western parts of North Carolina and South Carolina. The warning also included eastern Tennessee. A flash flood watch was also in effect for portions of the Upper Ohio Valley, the Mid-Atlantic region, the central Appalachians and the lower Great Lakes. Wind warnings were in effect for northwestern South Carolina all the way to western New York. A gale watch was also in effect for Lake Erie, Lake Ontario and the southern sections of the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Six hours later, the gale warnings over Lake Erie, Lake Ontario and the southern sections of the St. Lawrence Seaway were upgraded into a storm warning for Erie alone. The gale warning for the other two sections remained the same. The shoreline of Lake Erie was under a beach erosion warning from Buffalo, New York to Ripley, New York. The Storm Prediction Center released a tornado watch on northern and central New Jersey, portions of New York and Connecticut on October 6.
Significant non-surge areas of Escambia County south of US 98 were included in evacuation areas because of the potential for isolation by flooding.
Read more about this topic: Hurricane Opal
Famous quotes containing the word preparations:
“In all the important preparations of the mind she was complete; being prepared for matrimony by an hatred of home, restraint, and tranquillity; by the misery of disappointed affection, and contempt of the man she was to marry. The rest might wait. The preparations of new carriages and furniture might wait for London and the spring, when her own taste could have fairer play.”
—Jane Austen (1775–1817)
“Whatever may be the reason, whether it was that Hitler thought he might get away with what he had got without fighting for it, or whether it was that after all the preparations were not sufficiently complete—however, one thing is certain: he missed the bus.”
—Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940)
“At the ramparts on the cliff near the old Parliament House I counted twenty-four thirty-two-pounders in a row, pointed over the harbor, with their balls piled pyramid-wise between them,—there are said to be in all about one hundred and eighty guns mounted at Quebec,—all which were faithfully kept dusted by officials, in accordance with the motto, “In time of peace prepare for war”; but I saw no preparations for peace: she was plainly an uninvited guest.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)