Hurricane Ike Live Thread IV

NOAA/NHC ^ | 14 September 2008 | NOAA/NHC

[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

Forecast Models

Houston/Galveston Long Range Radar
Corpus Christi Long Range Radar
Brownsville Long Range Radar
Lake Charles Long Range Radar

Ike
Single Image		Image Loop
Lat/Lon	No Lat/Lon	Short	Long
Visible	Visible	Visible	Visible
Shortwave	Shortwave	Shortwave	Shortwave
Water Vapor	Water Vapor	Water Vapor	Water Vapor
Infrared Channel 4 Enhancements
None	None	None	None
AVN	AVN	AVN	AVN
Dvorak	Dvorak	Dvorak	Dvorak
JSL	JSL	JSL	JSL
RGB	RGB	RGB	RGB
Funktop	Funktop	Funktop	Funktop
Rainbow	Rainbow	Rainbow	Rainbow

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

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)

[MinuteGal]

I'm in the Chicago suburban area at the moment. We're getting some fallout from the "cone" pictured above which shows the northern range of Ike as it peters out till it hits the Atlantic Ocean and disappears.

Two days of solid, unrelenting rain here....still coming down today (Sunday), then back to sunshine on Monday.

Mild flooding in some suburbs, northern Kane county, some in my county, Du Page, underpasses filling, etc. but nothing of any great magnitude.

Leni

[penelopesire]

No problem. Your posts were pretty clear. We just worried about you, that’s all. Lots of mother hens and father ‘gooses’ around here. We can’t help it (grin)

[AFPhys]

Dog Gone’s report to us when he checked in - he’s close to you, for sure:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2081430/posts?page=1508#1508

I wrote “glad to see you” before even reading your report. Sounds very good. The way this hit must have been a terrible way for it to get to your house. That’s a good thing. DogGone clearly experienced something quite different.

I want to know how YOU with only a little roof damage managed to get yourself to the top of the list! I need to know tricks like that! FReepmail me your techinques - I don’t want them spread too far!

You probably already know that there has been nothing official about casualties. They just have not talked about it at all at all at all... Waiting for a better handle before doing so, I’m sure. That could be true because it is remarkably good or horribly bad... The only thing that makes me fear the latter is the number reputedly staying in the mandatory evac areas, and the extremely sparse reported rescues. We’ll see over the next few days.

As far as the politics: the gov’s office has been very good, and it seems that they did a great job on their evac calls, and encouraging local officials to pull the trigger. And, thank you for your perspective on Galveston Island. I’m still burned about her “[of course I’m concerned] ... that’ s 47% of our tax base!” comment being just about first thing out of her mouth yesterday morning. ??? how about saying “we have 20,000 people who live there” or some such!!! I don’t know about whether the people who live around there are like NOLA, but it sure seems their mayor is!

You keep on making the great comments like that! You are CERTAINLY allowed!

[NautiNurse]

Hi Leni, thanks for checking in. I heard the rain in IL was originally unrelated to Ike, and now Ike is piling on more. Good book weather.

When are you heading back home to the Sunshine State?

[DollyCali]

KHOU is remarkable

here is a link of Galveston Island Boards:

http://www.khou.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=56&sid=c0eadc1b3304cfb3e5681838ff5d08a2

here are county by county blogs

http://www.khou.com/forums/index.php

check them out for your homes & for friends/relatives

[AFPhys]

The number of pleas for helpful information about “son stayed on Crystal Beach... haven’t heard from him...” on the news blogs is extremely sobering.

[texasredtop]

Frickin’ Baytown got power back before dark yesterday - lucky dogs. Baytown, I didn’t expect much damage except in the usual low-lying neighborhoods that go under water at every rainstorm. Baytown is just to my east and north.

San Leon is directly on the bay, south of me by about 20 or less miles maybe. Anything right on the water surely got hit bad as would be obvious.

Yes, they banned my ghost. Discrimination I tell ya! Ghostaphobes!

We only had about 2 people leave our block for the storm. My neighbors across the street were already out of town so they just stayed gone. We found out they have a hard wired generator to natural gas that kicked on as soon as the power went off. We are going to price one of those :-) as the main gripe around here was no a/c and possible loss of food. We have over 200# of deer meat in the big freezer. I also have about 30# of jumbo gulf shrimp in the freezer that was going to get cooked in the propane cooker today if the power didn’t come back on.

I don’t know about weathering any storm but this one was not too bad other than the winds.

[texasredtop]

I’m very much a mother hen type myself. I was accused here of misrepresenting my location and being the reason some stayed behind in Galveston so I just wanted to make sure I don’t get the blame for any deaths down there :-)

[SE Mom]

Thanks! I’m listening now- from what this reporter and Steve Harriagn said earlier on FOX, there aren’t any emergency services on the ground in Galveston? He says he can’t see any Red Cross etc anywhere on the island.

I don’t know what the facts are- but I’m still thinking...but you were told to GET OUT.

[penelopesire]

Check this out:

http://www.khou.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=26089&sid=c0eadc1b3304cfb3e5681838ff5d08a2

One of the comments about the dem mayor of Galveston:

“Has anyone else noticed that Mayor Thompson told east end residents at a 6pm city council conference on Wednesday to stay on the island. She mentioned that Galveston Island has been evacuated before, and they didn’t want to do it again, unless “absolutely necessary.” Now our lovely mayor is saying she is disappointed that so many people stayed AFTER she recommended people stay on Wednesday. (p.s. I know she said to leave on Friday)”

More proof of her incompetence..(eye roll)

[AFPhys]

It looks like Ike is moving out so rapidly that it won't be interacting (so far) in a way that will kick up MAJOR amounts of violent weather, at least. That was a real possibility as I read it yesterday. Today most of that likelihood seems to have been dissipated. I hope that holds true - I'm on Ike's exit route, as are quite a few FReepers, including you.

Here's the current tornado watch map (It will update when page is loaded)

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/watch/validww.png

[NautiNurse]

I’ve heard good things about those gas generators. I’ve priced them, but with flood risk (coastal dweller) here have not made the investment. We have solar hot water, and solar PV panels on the roof with battery bank and multiple outlets to run small appliances.

[gracesdad]

“I have to say that I hope that certain Freepers who have been laughing this off will be satisfied to see this appalling destruction.”

Freepers who continuously make fun of hurricane forecasters are scum. Nothing else to say.

[SE Mom]

Good to see you back- my sympathies to your ghost :)

Just re-reading your post about some possible Katrina-like thinking possibly showing up in parts of Galveston...given the reports from local and Steve harrigan- it seems to be starting already.

[texasredtop]

She is not unlike Ray Nagin because it is the same type of folks that elect her. She continues to force them to depend on her for everything. Galveston County is commonly referred to around these parts as “Welfare County”.

After Rita we had a few shingles down and I called my builder (also a City Councilman and long time, well respected community leader) and he gave me the roofers number. He came out right away and we paid him more than double what he asked for. What he asked for to repair those shingles was hardly worth his driver over. We were just so thankful he came out right away. Most people will wait for the first work day to call and by then, he’s backed up.

My problem is going to be Direct TV. One tv is fine and the other two don’t have signal. Go figure.......... We’ve unplugged the receiver to the one without signal hoping it would reset but it didn’t.

[Allegra]

Very happy and relieved to hear you and yours are OK.

Do you know if humblegunner is all right? We haven't heard from him and attempts to contact him via Blackberry haven't worked.

The Eakers are OK...talked briefly with them yesterday.

[SE Mom]

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/weather/2008/09/14/lavandera.ike.crystal.beach.cnn?iref=videosearch

Here’s a different perspective on Crystal Beach from CNN helicopter

[gracesdad]

Very happy you came out OK.

[texasredtop]

We did have water and the hot water heater is gas so we were able to have showers which was a blessing after being out in the heat and humidity all afternoon. I wonder if you could build a platform for it? We were all very jealous of them yesterday and they weren’t even there.

[onemiddleamerican]

Maybe Harrigan hasn't left the one-block area around his hotel. Last night around 10pm, I saw a reporter on KHOU standing on Galveston Island with the first contingent of National Guard troops. They were setting up their HQ at the Ball HS property, which is where the Galveston mayor had used as a shelter of last resort.

From that report, I saw lots of NG vehicles and portable (canvas/nylon covered) structures going up. I was settling in for the night, so I didn't catch all the NG guy was saying, but it sounded like they were going to have medical tents and other stuff set up during the night, and that more NG were on the mainland just waiting for first light to move in and do what was needed.

I get a little bothered by the Geraldo and Harrigan reports, because they seem to be only standing in one small area and making broad declarations about conditions from their narrow perspective.