[BurbankKarl]

WDSU looked like they were showing aerial videos of some coastal houses....looked unharmed...not sure where that was.

[BurbankKarl]

A firefighter walks past a fire at a strip mall fire Saturday, Sept. 24, 2005 in Pasadena, Texas.

[Rumierules]

I saw those pictures too. Really illustrates the difference between a category 3 and 4.

[CFC__VRWC]

Fox was showing aerials from Galveston Island that looked like there was very little damage to the area. Earlier I saw footage from Beaumont on the Weather Channel - from what I could see, it looked very similar to what I saw after Charley came through Polk County, Florida last year. If so, probably 50-75% of the power should be back on in 3-4 days, 80-90% percent in a week, with outages in the isolated, outlying areas going on for 2-3 weeks. That's a very rough guesstimate.

All in all, it'll be one heck of a mess, but not nearly the doomsday scenario the media was so clearly salivating over the prospect of.