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)

[NautiNurse]

Thanks for your nice feedback.

[abb]

Yes. He’s in the Shreveport area.

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080915/NEWS01/809150314/1060
Thousands still without power

[Enosh]

FR is back, rotten timing on the downtime.

KHOU flyovers of the West End plus tivo allowed me to see the house. Little or no visible damage. Astounding.

The rest of the West End looks about the same; properties on the ‘front line’ are either gone or now actually in the Gulf. (the beach moved) Otherwise, we did well.

The other side, east/Bolivar, etc did less well.

[wolfcreek]

Thanks for the update!

[Allegra]

i hope all of you and yours are safe.

Thanks...me too. I've heard from or about almost everyone. Still waiting to hear about Xenalyte and a couple of others.

I too thank NN for the thread. There is more good info here than on TV.

I trust the infomration on this thread much more than I do anything the media is telling us. The again, I trust a scorpion more than I do the media.

[AFPhys]

When I posted to you “worse than Alicia” we were in a conversation about damage to electricity distribution, not ships, deaths, or other effects of the storm.

[Enosh]

Supplemental:

The same KHOU flight crew later zoomed way out over the water and showed long lines of tankers awaiting entry into the Port of Houston.

[Allegra]

Whatever. Just stop posting to me and the problem will be solved.

I'm here to find out about what's going on in my hometown, and don't need someone trying to belittle everything I say.

[Cvengr]

Here’s a nutty idea — rather than traditional sand bags, you could put water in plastic glad bags.

Agreed.... a nutty idea..

The water would have the same density as the water being held back. The wall of waterbags would topple over unless reinforced by something behind it to counter the pressure and any momentum from wave action. Sandbags are still looking pretty good.

[NautiNurse]

Wonderful news!

[NautiNurse]

A description of rainfall I've never quite heard before...

FNC reporterette said an estimated 100 billion gallons of rain fell over the weekend.

[Enosh]

Almost everyone in Houston is still in the dark, but most of the damage was trees and trees hitting houses. I haven’t seen any direct wind/surge damage such as exists down in Galveston. Unfortunately, flooding/mold/etc may be an issue all around, but we Houstonians are used to that.

In general, the main serious area is SE/Pasadena. Everyone gets garbage service today except them, for example. The rest of us are just a bit grumpy. Xena, humble, Mom & co should be fine.

[Cvengr]

I think her numbers are off. That would be an inch of rain an hour for the weekend for an area about 335 miles square.

[NautiNurse]

The water would have the same density as the water being held back.

That's assuming the bags were completely void of air. Otherwise, they would be floaters.

[Cvengr]

You know what’s ironic. La Grange and several other nearby counties are still several months without any rain and very dry. Hardly a drop during the entire Hurricane Ike.

[NautiNurse]

A lot of folks were hoping that Ike would at least relieve the central TX drought. I’m disappointed to learn that didn’t happen.

[Allegra]

Xena, humble, Mom & co should be fine.

Thanks. Just FYI, The Mom, Eaker, thackney, RikaStrom and eastforker are all accounted for. Xena is probably just cut off from communication due to power outages.

Glad to hear garbage service is up and running in most parts of town again.

[SE Mom]

While FR was down last night I listened to khou streaming for awhile- they showed (and now have online under videos) aerial views of Crystal Beach, Bolivar Peninsula and a long line of tankers waiting in the Gulf to unload.

The view from above is a shock- comparing the same areas on Google Earth pre-Ike is unbelievable.

A reporter spoke with one of the public officials- not sure if she was PD or FD or what- but she’s from Gilchrist- her house is gone and the reat of Gilchrist is ..wiped out..roughly 20 % of the house in Crystal Beach are still there. It goes on and on- town after town completely devastated.

Interview with an aide worker who’d been on the ground for Katrina- said this is much worse..

Here’s my question- and it’s NOT rhetorical. Geraldo hasn’t been on live for two days- and yesterday while there was coverage of Ike on the cables- it didn’t begin to approach the coverage of Katrina. Why? (It’s easy to say- because there aren’t enough black people etc.)

I don’t get it.

[SE Mom]

If anyone wants to hear the interview with the Gilchrist official I mentioned in above post- it’s here:

http://www.khou.com/video/news-index.html?nvid=282744

The title of video is “Crystal Beach, Bolivar, in ruins”

[todayisagift]

San Leon wasn’t on the dirty side of Ike, but it did get slammed hard. There is talk of 10 ft of water in some houses, some houses knocked off their slabs, some houses completely destroyed. I don’t want to start rumors, but just passing on what I’ve read ... In addition to the previously mentioned 3 missing, there is talk of one man, Bill Devine (appx 81 yo), who refused to leave. The first floor of his home was blown out by the water, and he is now missing. This was reported by his neighbor who went back in to check on the area. Her house was completely destroyed.

There is a very informative forum hosted by KHOU. So tragic to read, but a lot of good info there. Go to http://www.khou.com/forums/ and click on “Other Galveston County” and then “San Leon” for info. It doesn’t sound good.