Another in my series of apparently unrelated topics...
I heard a talk back in 85 or 86 by a Mexican Engineer who was in a tall building during the 1985 M8+ quake. there was a lot of motion....I think meters of motion....he was in a building that did not fall down.

After the Northridge quake engineers were unpleasantly surprised at the same to modern building with steel beams.....I think lots of cracks in the steel...

When I started work at Gulf Oil in New Orleans in 1982, I worked on the 30th floor of a 45 story building. It was a funny-looking building...bigger at the top and skinny below...it looked like it was wearing a hat. My supervisor had earlier lived higher in the building in an apartment. There was some severe thunderstorm weather, and the building swayed so much that the water sloshed out of his toilet....so he spent the night sleeping in his car. Not the text pasted from the 1 PM Central time "Public Advisory" on Hurricane Ivan..(NHC)...that the winds will be much stronger in high buildings...it still looks to me like New Orleans will be OK, but some unexpected jog to the west and they would be in trouble....the satellite images make it look like the eye is getting better formed the last hour or 2...so we will see what the 5 PM Eastern advisory has to say...

We'll also see how the taller buildings in Mobile do (I don't think they are all that tall or that many..).

Chris

IVAN CONTINUES AS AS A EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CATEGORY FOUR HURRICANE
ON THE SAFFIR/SIMPSON SCALE HURRICANE SCALE...WITH MAXIMUM
SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR 135 MPH...WITH HIGHER GUSTS. SOME FLUCTUATIONS
IN INTENSITY ARE POSSIBLE PRIOR TO LANDFALL...BUT IVAN IS EXPECTED
TO MAKE LANDFALL AS A MAJOR HURRICANE...CATEGORY THREE OR HIGHER.
OCCUPANTS OF HIGH-RISE BUILDINGS WITHIN THE HURRICANE WARNING AREA
CAN EXPECT HIGHER WINDS THAN THOSE EXPERIENCED AT THE
SURFACE...ABOUT ONE SAFFIR-SIMPSON CATEGORY HIGHER AT THE TOP OF A
30-STORY BUILDING. AFTER LANDFALL... HURRICANE FORCE WINDS COULD TO
SPREAD INLAND UP TO ABOUT 100 MILES NEAR THE PATH OF THE CENTER.

• 5 PM Weds Ivan advisory