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)

[Jaded]

Considering they have no idea how many people actually stayed.

[stlnative]

It looks odd from the angle because you really cannot see where the water should really be.

[txhurl]

Like I said, I think the telecoms will have the final answer.

Survivors have their cell phones. Victims don’t. Whichever phone numbers went down and will stay down forever can be subject to statistical analysis for who is missing.

[AFPhys]

You may not have heard: Culberson was confident that y’all had sufficient ammo to take care of the looters, and made that very clear in national interviews... quite refreshing.

You were anxiously looked for. It is good to see you here.

[texasredtop]

It could just be a precautionary measure. I doubt Galveston has the capability to handle the extra load.

[Enosh]

“30 miles”

That’s about right. A neat drive too, the island gets so thin that you could almost throw a ball and hit water in either direction.

[shield]

Actually, there was a huge amount of bodies after Katrina in Mississippi...the search teams were pulling bodies out of trees and the bodies were every where. There were lots of refrigerated trucks that the bodies were put in. The reporters knew about it...but were told not to report it.

After Andrew & Charlie the same thing...we were never told the true number of the bodies found. This has become sop.

[texasredtop]

There is a lot of commercial fishing industry down here around the many waterways and they keep the boats in more guarded places and have to get them out to more open waters so there are a lot of bridges.

[NautiNurse]

This smells of internet hoax. "My friend" is the first signal. Calling for outcry is another sign of internet hoax. I don't recall telethons within 72 hours of Katrina either.

My vote: BS meter is in the red zone.

[texasredtop]

Yes, it is a neat drive. I like taking the coastal route even though it’s longer and slower for me. I love the coast. The Bolivar penninsula is/was one of my favorite drives. You can/could go all the way to Port Arthur on the coast, or at least you could before Rita. It’s very desolate beach and when I was in high school, we’d drive over there from Lake Charles to surf.

[1066AD]

I guess we won't be seeing the Fabian Seafood shrimp trucks up here any time soon :(

[stlnative]

smaller aerial pictures of the area before the hurricane - just click on the tile for the area you want a closer look at (great for dial up folks)

http://www.texmaps.com/aerials/04south-galveston-bay/index.html

[texasredtop]

I’m with you on that. And it was a “guest” that posted, no ID to be traced or questioned. There are some real sickos out there and I am extremely suspicious of something like that.

[shield]

Well, that may be true. The Galveston manager today talked of calls from the west end of people calling for rescue...and then the calls stopped. Maybe the phones went down but he left that comment...not ever saying they were rescued or heard from again.

[texasredtop]

If you are on my side of town, I have a guy. It’s only jumbos or large, and they are headed. I’ve been using him for several years and always gotten very fresh shrimp. He sells them by the bag and I take them home and make one bag into two. He sells one bag for $45 - $50 I think, depending on if they are jumbo or large. It’s usually about a 5.5-6# bag. I pay $10/lb for the same size at Rose’s in Seabrook. So the price isn’t a whole lot better but I only have to drive about 1/2 mile to get them when he’s in the area. He also sometimes has fresh fish.

[NautiNurse]

I fully expect the death toll to rise over the next several days. However, an anonymous post telling us about photos--without a single photo--of piles of 4000 dead bodies, and calling for outcry has a smell of hoax to me.

I was out for a few hours earlier. Haven't seen confirmation that they completed the grid search. Until they do, everything is speculation.

Has anyone heard if the grid search has been completed?

[DrewsMum]

I may need to get the name of your roofer later if you don’t mind. That way I get someone trustworthy.

Almost home now. Just went through baytown...thanks again for your help.

[texasredtop]

No problem. He told me he’d probably be here Thursday. His neighborhood is surrounded by high water and they can’t get out. He’s going to call before he comes and he’s also going to look at two of my neighbors’ roofs. The people across the street are in Italy so we’re going to get him to take care of theirs while he’s here (it isn’t bad, only maybe a dozen shingles down).

[STARWISE]

MUST READ! Two unbelievable survival stories ... and I think they waded. Are they ever brave and very blessed. They're Praise God tales for sure.

~~~~~

Gilchrist group (more than 20 people) stuck together to survive Ike

~~~~

Other absolutely amazing story link ~~ CANNOT be posted here

Have to just marvel in awe.

[onemiddleamerican]

I didn’t post the photo credited to me.

I was late getting to the thread today (work) and your post was the first I saw of the NOAA satellite images (originally posted by NautiNurse, if I have done my research right this time).

When I looked at that, zoomed up, and saw the house; I remembered the photo of that lone house that was in the Daily Mail article, that another Freeper (IM2MAD) had posted a link to. I hadn't meant to slight another Freeper or to give you "all the credit" for the photo; that was just sloppy writing on my part.

Also, thanks for posting the rest of your comment, about how you are thinking that the lone house was built that made it a survivor. Your explanation makes sense.

Bolts are cheap. Forces strong enough to lift a house against gravity suck. Failure to bolt is a mystery to me.

I'm trying to remember the old nursery rhyme my mama used to recite - For want of a nail, the shoe was lost...