Hurricane Ike Live Thread IV

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

[Mila]

"She’s awaiting a liver transplant, staying with her mother & brother."

Many, many prayers for you and your wife. I hope that you hear from her soon. God bless you and your family.

[af_vet_rr]

Channel 13 is flying around the area, and it looks worse than I thought:

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/livenow?id=6384042

They have seen a few rescue helicopter, but they think SAR helicopters have been through there.

[Otta B Sleepin]

One of the video clips showed rescuers finding a woman on the peninsula who refused to leave with them, so they just left food with her.

Maybe legal measures had to be taken to force all the survivors to leave Bolivar. It sure wouldn’t be safe for anyone to stay there right now.

[Conservababe]

Could Bolivar have any restricted federal facilities?

[texasredtop]

***************MESSAGE FOR DREWSMUM*******************

September 15, 2008
Officials: Please do not return to La Porte
We received a recorded phone message from the city of La Porte, asking citizens to not attempt to return to the city. There are no shelters in the city.

If you do come back, City Manager Ron Bottoms said, please check your property and then leave the city. A dusk-to-dawn curfew remains in effect.

Residents who stayed through the hurricane are asked to turn off their main breaker boxes and to conserve water for sanitary purposes.

+++++++++
From the Chronicle. Also, we have not been back over that way since yesterday. The Walmart is still closed. The Food Town on Center is trying to open today at 2:00 selling only dry goods. That is the first store opening around us that we know of.

[DrewsMum]

IMO Bill White and Galveston mayor are nut jobs and even told people to just hunker down. Galveston mayor especially has a lot to answer for. She needs to cover her butt.

[Magic Fingers]

Thank you both for your input and concern. I just recd. a text message saying “We’re OK”. Brief, but puts my mind somewhat at ease.

[Magic Fingers]

Thank you Mila. Tough times...

[STARWISE]

Amazing video ...
also that the far east end
in spots looks stunningly
better than the other side.

On video, reporter said the emergency
teams had brough MREs and water to one
couple .. and they had no interest in
leaving. Must have been at the far east
end. I’m stunned at how different that
location (High Island) looks compared
to the west end.

That buckled bridge is something.

Prayers for all those who suffer and
will for quite awhile.

[1COUNTER-MORTER-68]

Hi,ya’ll,,,All ok here,,,

Power on,off,on,off,,,cable mostly off,,,then,,,

FR down,,,LOL,,,

Only had a few small limbs down...

[texasx]

I am desperately trying to find a way out of Houston for my children who live there. Can anyone tell me if US 59 is open from the beltway? They will be coming up 59 to the Louisiana border.

[af_vet_rr]

IMO Bill White and Galveston mayor are nut jobs and even told people to just hunker down. Galveston mayor especially has a lot to answer for. She needs to cover her butt.

I only saw a few interviews with the Galveston mayor last week before Ike came in and the Galveston mayor was saying everybody needed to leave and they were deliberately keeping the shelters closed so that people wouldn't stick around Galveston, so I'd be curious to see the interviews you saw where she told people to stick around and hunker down. Like I said, I only saw a couple and she was pretty blunt that people needed to leave.

As far as Houston - the majority of Houston-area residents didn't need to evacuate - otherwise we would have had 10s or 100s of thousands of people on the roads when Ike hit.

At this point, with the Governor's office saying they screwed up and wouldn't be able to distribute the FEMA supplies like they promised and the cities and counties taking over the distribution, there's plenty of blame to go around, from the Governor's office down to the counties.

[fatima]

:)Great news.

[NautiNurse]

Yes they did. Don't peddle myths.

Your post is more terse than accurate. Coast Guard, National Guard and volunteers rescued more than 50,000 people from NOLA after Katrina. The Coast Guard alone rescued 33,545 people following the storm.

Each of these rescues represents people who did not evacuate NOLA. Where's the myth?

[STARWISE]

Glad to see ya. And glad you’ve escaped
with little damage. Thank God. Many
are suffering today.

Anyway, you might be surprised, but FR went down all by itself anyway last night .... LOL.

**************

For future reference:

http://www.freedominion.com has a lovely FReeper Guest Room.
I posted there until I found out about the beta site at the Yahoo Groups board. How wonderful of them to do that for us. You just have to register to post ... very simple.

http://www.freedominion.com.pa/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=14

***

That backup FReeper site is:

http://beta.freerepublic.com/tag/*/index

That’s the only way I could get in last night finally.

***
Don’t forget:

There’s always the Yahoo Groups Freerepublic2 room
for updates, messages, etc.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freerepublic2/

~~~~

Glad you found your way over there, backhoe .. ;)

[Xenalyte]

Houston and Surrounding Areas Hurricane Ike (Peace Be Not Upon Him) Ping List ping!

As near as I can reckon, about four minutes after I added RedWhiteBlue to the ping list, we got knocked offline. Power went out in our zip code right at seven Friday night.

Ike came rollin' through our neck of the woods about two Saturday morning. Man, that was some hard-core wind! The trees outside our upstairs window were not visible.

About six-forty that morning, nature (and Michelob) called upon me, and I got up to go to the upstairs bathroom. I walked through the doorway and was hit in the face with a sheet of water.

I hollered, "Jesus Christ!" and Xena's Guy came to see what was up. His diagnosis was that the bathroom skylight, which we already suspected was of subpar design, was letting rain through in the high wind.

I said, "So honey, why is the witch ball moving?" (There used to be a witch ball hanging in the skylight.)

He saw the essential force of the argument contained in my question, and went to get the broom, with which he ascertained that the skylight was in fact GONE.

Hijinks ensued, in which Xena's Guy spent a lot of time with one foot in the bathroom sink and the other on a ladderback chair, trying to a) nail or b) staple a c) tarp or a d) Hefty bag over the opening. Then he gave up on that, as having the potential to retain water, and nailed a huge piece of Styrofoam over the opening.

That proving unsatisfactory, he waited until the rain elapsed a teensy bit - eight our time, so barely daylight - climbed ON TOP OF THE DAMN ROOF, and found the skylight hanging on by a screw. He reattached it, firmer than before, and all is now well.

We got power back about six Sunday night ... then lost it again at eight.

Now it's back on, and our Internet is too! Doing laundry and dishes right now. It's surprising how much mess two adults can make in less than 72 hours.

Everyone else come through okay?

[NautiNurse]

Wonderful news! That confirms the cell phone issue. Saturday in Houston, they were asking folks to use text messages due to cell systems overload.

[ErnBatavia]

Just got a call from our friends who'd been in Conroe. They left around noon yesterday and overnighted in Big Spring....now on the outskirts of Tucson.

They report seeing - yesterday and today - large convoys of various power company vehicles, including huge generators.....and unusual numbers of UPS and FedX trucks.

Help (and mail!) on the way, it looks.

[RikaStrom]

Thank you, I will call them and see if they will add me to the list.

I am still in San Antonio since apparently the mayor is saying if you are out of town, stay out of town.

This certainly has been an interesting experience, I dont think I want to repeat it. :-)

RS

[NautiNurse]

Hooray! Very pleased to know you are safe. Eeeesh to electric, then cable, then FR not working. Welcome back!