Posted on 09/12/2008 11:29:13 PM PDT by NautiNurse
The eyewall of Hurricane Ike crossed Galveston Island in the early hours of Saturday morning. Reports indicate as many as 20,000 residents of Galveston Island chose not to evacuate as storm surge engulfed the island. The Freeport Chief of Police reported as many as 2000 residents did not evacuate as flood waters swamped coastal communities. There are widespread reports of power outages and coastal flooding throughout the Texas/Louisiana region. The U.S. Coast Guard received hundreds of calls Friday afternoon to rescue people stranded by flood waters along the barrier islands and Galveston Bay communities.
Multiple fires broke out in the Greater Houston area fueled by strong winds. Fire fighting efforts were hampered by flood waters. Brennan's Restaurant, a landmark in Houston, burned to the ground. A 584-foot freighter crippled in the Gulf of Mexico and its crew of 22 survived the storm after The U.S. Coast Guard was forced to abort rescue efforts Friday afternoon due to foul weather
Gulf Coast wholesale gasoline prices jumped to nearly $5 a gallon over fears that water and wind damage could keep the facilities closed for days or longer. Oil companies had shut down 97.5 percent of production in the Gulf of Mexico by Friday morning and were battening down refineries and petrochemical plants in an area that accounts for one-fifth of U.S. refining capacity.
Exxon Mobil reported evacuating workers from its Gulf Coast offshore platforms and onshore facilities in the anticipated path of Ike, shutting down daily production of about 36,000 barrels of oil and 270 million cubic feet of gas..
Public Advisory Updated every 3 hours
Discussion Updated every 6 hours
Buoy data: Western Gulf of Mexico
Houston/Galveston Long Range Radar
Corpus Christi Long Range Radar
Brownsville Long Range Radar
Lake Charles Long Range Radar
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Additional Resources:
Navy Tropical Cyclone
Storm Pulse Very cool site
KHOU Houston
ABC 13 News Houston
FOX News Houston
KPLC Lake Charles
KFDM 6 Beaumont/Port Arthur
KKBMT 12 Beaumont
KRIS-TV Corpus Christi
KZTV Corpus Christi
Brazoria County Emergency Management
Galveston County Emergency Management
Chambers Country Emergency Management
Liberty County Emergency Management
| Category | Wind Speed | Barometric Pressure | Storm Surge | Damage Potential |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tropical Depression |
< 39 mph < 34 kts |
Minimal | ||
| Tropical Storm |
39 - 73 mph 34 - 63 kts |
Minimal | ||
| Hurricane 1 (Weak) |
74 - 95 mph 64 - 82 kts |
28.94" or more 980.02 mb or more |
4.0' - 5.0' 1.2 m - 1.5 m |
Minimal damage to vegetation |
| Hurricane 2 (Moderate) |
96 - 110 mph 83 - 95 kts |
28.50" - 28.93" 965.12 mb - 979.68 mb |
6.0' - 8.0' 1.8 m - 2.4 m |
Moderate damage to houses |
| Hurricane 3 (Strong) |
111 - 130 mph 96 - 112 kts |
27.91" - 28.49" 945.14 mb - 964.78 mb |
9.0' - 12.0' 2.7 m - 3.7 m |
Extensive damage to small buildings |
| Hurricane 4 (Very strong) |
131 - 155 mph 113 - 135 kts |
27.17" - 27.90" 920.08 mb - 944.80 mb |
13.0' - 18.0' 3.9 m - 5.5 m |
Extreme structural damage |
| Hurricane 5 (Devastating) |
Greater than 155 mph Greater than 135 kts |
Less than 27.17" Less than 920.08 mb |
Greater than 18.0' Greater than 5.5m |
Catastrophic building failures possible |
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Previous Threads:
Hurricane Ike Live Thread III
Hurricane Ike Live Thread II
Hurricane Ike Live Thread I
TS Hanna, Hurricane Ike & TS Josephine [Other than that, the tropics are calm]
Tropical Storms Hanna, Ike and Josephine, TD Gustav (Other than that, the tropics are calm)
You are quite a bit from me here in Cypress, but we must be close to the same grid, as we lost and gained power at the same time.
What an incredibly stressful 24 hrs! We though our doors were going to blow out, but amazingly,they held. Trees were at 45 degrees during the height of the storm, but on my street it looks like only 3 people lost trees.
Time to go do some clean up work and have a beer!
Tornado WARNING south of the center of the storm now...
Clark TX
other spots... I’ll get info soon
Glad you are ok. I was worried about you when you posted your windows were breathing. Been thru that once.
The National Weather Service in League City has issued a
* Tornado Warning for...
northwestern Liberty County in southeast Texas...
extreme southeastern Montgomery County in southeast Texas...
extreme southeastern Polk County in southeast Texas...
* until 545 PM CDT
* at 440 PM CDT... National Weather Service Doppler radar indicated
severe thunderstorms capable of producing tornadoes. This line of
thunderstorms were located 6 miles southeast of Tarkington
Prairie... moving northeast at 35 mph.
* Locations in the Tornado Warning include but are not limited to
Plum Grove... central and eastern Liberty County.
...
Lat... Lon 3048 9454 3049 9466 3044 9471 3027 9466
3014 9508 3016 9510 3015 9512 3022 9516
3041 9485 3046 9472 3045 9471 3049 9466
3055 9455 3053 9454
time... Mot... loc 2143z 244deg 38kt 3029 9485
I think I know where you mean — Beaumont/Port Arthur? The media is after name recognition. I remember after Rita it was the small Texas towns that suffered the most but they didn’t make the national news.
Prayers. Yall take cover.
I had to lay down and take a nap for a few hours after being up all night.
What is the word on Galveston? I see some fly over videos but I don’t know what areas they are showing.
Good to hear you’re okay. At the same time you posted, we were looking at helicopter footage of the area around the Richmond water tower. Looked like sort of a mixed bag there.
Oh well, at least we are alive!
(sorry about the numbers at the end... totally useless unless formatted...)
My brother, who was part of the Katrina recovery effort, opines that the media likes to cover places with operational restaurants and hotel rooms, rather than places where they’ll have to live in primitive conditions — thus the coverage of New Orleans as opposed to the more devastated coastal areas after Katrina.
CNN was just showing rescuers transferring someone from the bed of a pickup truck onto a stretcher...I didn’t see an explanation of where, why, etc...
This was in Oak Ridge near Imperial Oaks. Friends in Conroe also without power and large trees down in the yards.
We lost power at our hotel yesterday afternoon for about three hours.
It was amusing that we evacuated into a tornado warning and a power outage!
Glad you made it! Sorry about the Caddy..
“the media likes to cover places with operational restaurants and hotel rooms, rather than places where they’ll have to live in primitive conditions”
That story reminds me of Walter Cronkite who never gave Huntsville, Alabama (my hometown) the coverage and recognition it deserved during the early space race years.
I’ve been told by several people with connections to NASA that Walter HATED Huntsville cause at that time it was nothing but a stuck out in the woods hick country town and there was nothing here to do.
Good point....after Katrina anything less than thousands killed and entire cities under water for days will be seen as “weak.”
People will look at this storm and think “that was nothing,” but it really was pretty bad.
Could it be worse? Yeah.....this wasn’t Cat 5. But, it was bad.
This is the second storm (first was Gustav) where people evacuated locally into tornado warnings and power outages. I'm sure it beats riding out the storm on the coast, as unpleasant as the alternative may be (particularly when you are paying for a room without power).
Reporting from around Univ of St Thomas, I was even luckier: I didn't lose power until about 2:30 AM this morning and regained it by 10 AM. I also have talked 3 times to my parents in Michigan on my cell, so have had no trouble with the cell towers. Spent this afternoon on FR, catching up on this thread.
It didn't get dicey around here (Richmond Ave/Montrose Area) till about 1:30 to 2 AM. I'd been going outside to see what the weather was like about every half hour or so. Till then, there was nothing unusually bad. Just a really bad rainstorm. But when I opened my door at about 2 AM, the wind damn near blew me back into my apt. That's when I really hunckered down. I remember the power going off at about 2:30, then I fell asleep. My mom left a message on my cell at 7:30 AM, but I slept through it. I woke up when dad called at about 10 AM.
After I talked to mom and dad, I put on some shorts and some rubber boots and went outside. It was raining pretty hard and in places there was a foot of water in our parking lot. I went down to my car and started it up. No problem--hoo hoo!! I then tried to remove a big tree limb that was blocking the entrance to our parking lot. It was too big for me to pull alone, but just then a guy came walking in through the gate and we both pulled the big limb away from the entrance and left it by the dumpster. It was still raining, but the wind wasn't blowing too hard. I took a quick walk around the block and the only major damage I saw was a big tree blocking the little road off Richmond that leads to the rear entrance of my apt complex.
As I came back in through the gate, I noticed that the outer lights were on. I thought to myself, "Damn, do we have electricity?!!" I rushed up the stairs, turned on the AC, and wahlah! We had electricity. I fired up the computer, sent out some emails, and since then have been on FR.
I obviously was one of the extra fortunate ones. I'm not only alive and intact--no damage to person or property--but I have air conditioning!! The only drawback now is water; the pressure is low. Thankfully I remembered to fill up the tub with water last night (right after I took what I thought was my last shower here for a few days). So I'm well, and I think most of our Houston Freepers are well too. Nevertheless, prayers up for those we haven't heard from. I trust they will be O.K. one way or another.
And a special thanks to you, NautiNurse, for running this thread. I've got friends and acquaintences here at the apt, but it was great to hear what others were thinking and experiencing! That was a real comfort. God bless you, dear.
Things turned out better than I hoped. I am enjoying a glass of merlot and reading everyone's posts. Hoo Hoo!
Out here in Katy power went off around 3AM back up by 4:20PM today. I was surprised after hearing the news folks telling us it could be up to 2 weeks before power would be back on. Well...it’s back. ;o) I had NO damage to my property just a carpet of leaves on driveway and in my yard.
Glad to hear this good report!
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