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)
I'm not going to monitor all of these and post them here. I suggest for the time being, if Ike is within 300miles or so of you that you hit this link occasionally to check your local area:
Thanks for your report!
Easy, just look at your posting history. It isn’t slander if it’s true. She’s right, not to mention your condescending, snarky comments to other posters, like calling them *missy* and a *pip*.
Done with the thread? Good. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Golden Triangle...... Beaumont/Port Arthur/Orange
It's not just you; I've seen a lot of double posts lately. FR has been slow and often when I go to post something all I get is a white page, so I hit the back button and try again. Sometimes the post goes through and you get a double post, and sometimes it doesn't. There's just no way of knowing.
Show me where and what made it “bad...”
At the height of the hype last evening the media broke in with a report of a high-speed commuter train in Chatsworth, Ca having collided with a freight train and almost immediate reports of four fatalities and many more victims of operator error caught in the mangled mess; they still haven’t extricated the bodies and now, after almost 22 hours the word is that hope is nearly lost for those still trapped.
Where are the reports of similar carnage from “the most destructive storm ever to strike Texas” that we were bambarded with all night contrasted with this quite real and visible catastrophe that was so preventable?
I wish no one harm, and moving to high ground is always the wisest move, but to turn every tropical storm into theatre serves the people poorly.
Congrats and enjoy your Merlot. You made it to the other side!
Hi. I don’t live in the Houston area, but I have a niece who lives there with her husband. They both work for NASA, but they were on vacation in Switzerland and were supposed to come home Monday. They had a co-worker watching their dog and their cat, but NASA moved operations to Alabama (Huntsville?) and he had to turn that duty over to someone else. That person evacuated his dog and their dog to his father’s home, but left the cat there alone. My husband and I just found out about that yesterday and we’re both angry that poor Ollie was left to cope by himself. I’m wanting to get an idea of how their home (and their poor cat) may have fared, if possible.
They live on Spinnaker Drive near the SouthShore Harbour Country Club, between 518 and 2094. Any idea?
Prayers up for the people of Texas and Louisiana, and the rescue workers.
I *think* I’ve figured out how to avoid the double post when you get the white screen...at least if you freep in several windows like I do.
Before hitting POST again, refresh your “my comments” page, and see whether or not the post shows up already...if it doesn’t, it’s safe to hit POST again.
In the first three paragraphs... this morning "Officials were overheard fretting that many people did not survive the storm." This report is from the Galveston County Daily News.
White just said on TV that the pumping station that was down has been brought back up. Water pressure should be back to normal this evening. They will test the water quality tonight and tomorrow, which will take 24 - 36 hours. If everything is OK, you won’t have to boil water after that.
Can you come back in a few weeks when our Fall tornado season starts and keep me updated cause I'm terrified and hate those D@MN things! ;^)
Very glad to hear your good report!
Well I'm glad someone else is having the same problem, I've been blaming windows or my computer, I know FR been slow but haven't thought about blaming them. Been getting the same white page with some windows stuff on it.
Okay. Here:
http://images40.fotki.com/v1303/photos/2/229253/6119278/Ike_latest_eastwv-vi.jpg
Glad you survived those stressful 24 hrs! And that maybe the damage around you is not too bad.
Thanking God for the several good reports we are getting!!
Oh - so sorry to read your report of the damage to your home and auto. Yes you are alive - praise God! But sorry you have to deal with the hassle and expense of repairs. Glad the tree didn’t come down in the middle of your house, though.
Thanks for checking in.
Whoa!! the wrath of missy metmom us upon us Whoa! Whoa! qhat a pip!! (qhat is a pip anyways LMAO!!)
This thread needs 6000 bodies!!!
MetMom.., mark us with a sharpie or something!
IMHO, the hurricane, even in a Cat1 status, is still worthy the press coverage.
Building codes over the last 30 years have tremendously improved the chances of survival, but with such forces, it doesn’t take much unforeseen to still cause tremendous damage and death.
A century ago, some townships were wiped off the face of the earth, removing even concrete foundations from similar storms hitting at the right place, wrong time.
The newsworthyness of the Ca train wreck is probably also associated with the entire emergency response network in that metropolitan, entertainment media rich locale, being consumed by the event.
I suspect a similar number of casualties exist along the wake of Ike, but emergency response has not been able to fully assess the damage as those who may have dies, might not yet be known by anybody.
Just got back from CC, went in before noon. Flats at Bayside have water halfway across the road. North Beach is under water and water over the “T”heads still.
Wind was out of the west so it should start pushing it out. Waves were actually going out under the bridge into Copano Bay.
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