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)

[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!