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]

Health Conditions Deteriorate on Galveston

Cruise ships diverted to New Orleans

Galveston Officicals Restrict Media Access
This one is interesting because a city worker asked to speak off the record, and the paper quotes the city employee's name and what was discussed. So much for off the record...

[girlscout]

Just checking in to let you know we're OK. No power or phones at home but we do have hot and cold running water. My little section of Galveston Bay (high end of Seabrook) is sandwiched in-between areas of devastation, but my area did not flood and our homes are still standing. We are blessed. The cold front that blew in afterwards is a true blessing. We have a generator so we're all good.

[TheMom]

When’s the chainsaw hunt begin?

As soon as humblegunner finds out it was stolen. ;-)

[NautiNurse]

Very glad to know you are safe. Thanks much for checking in. Excellent news!

[CindyDawg]

Hopefully the cold front will help with the mosquitoes.

[STARWISE]

FDM Open Forum - Southeast Texas' Message Board

HERE - LOTS OF UPDATES & INFO BY COUNTY/LOCATION

[STARWISE]

Truly blessed. Great news.
Hang in there.

[STARWISE]

Keep a journal .... LOL.

[girlscout]

I didn’t have to apply OFF even once yesterday! ;-)) But I did swat at a couple as I was hauling tree debris.

[NautiNurse]

One thing is evident from that photo...the owners built up the land to an elevation significantly higher than the surrounding area. For example, code here requires minimum 12ft for new construction. That may be 15’ (or more) elevation.

[af_vet_rr]

I think they’ll be back. Humans are too resourceful and governments are too greedy.

You're right - there's a lot of tax revenue tied up in that stuff and the local government will probably encourage some areas to rebuild because they want the money, but it sounds like the Texas AG may not allow them - some of those houses were grandfathered in under the current rules, and in the case of rebuilding, they lose that grandfathered status, which means a lot of those areas are off-limits.

Barrier islands are barrier islands for a reason, and many of them are just not really fit for human habitation.

[TheMom]

Glad to hear you are OK.

[CindyDawg]

Tell that to South Padre Island :’)

[CindyDawg]

I lean towards people being able to live where they want ( as long as I don’t have to pay for it) and being able to decide whether to leave or not during a storm. As liberal as I am with that though when I read about people staying in mobile homes...I can’t help but wonder...what were they thinking?

[TheMom]

Doing great today! As much complaining as I did about not having A/C, we have not turned it on yet. This cold front has been a blessing.

Gonna be a busy few days. I still have to clean up the small debris in the yard, going to have to steam clean the carpet (it is starting to smell), and call the insurance agent.

I am finally getting caught up on what has happened around the area, and am just amazed at all the damage. My heart and prayers go out to those in the Galveston and Gulf Coast area.

[STARWISE]

I sure can’t argue with anything
they did. It stops me every time
I see it.

[af_vet_rr]

"Yesterday, the Guard was very confident that they were doing a very solid “grid” search. They seemed to be working with FEMA, for sure. No idea of the others. It seems possible to me that though the game wardens interviewed were out of the loop, that they were unusual in being left out. So, this may have been a slip up, but not necessarily a big one."

There maybe some organization starting to come around, but from a conversation with a friend whose son is down there, it sounds like the game wardens took it upon themselves to start looking for survivors rather than waiting around for the bureaucrats to decide on a few things since time was becoming very critical (from the article below, sounds like FEMA and whoever else was involved weren't very organized if they were threatening to take the guys pickup - he was able to get the truck running with very few resources and then drive out while they had all the resources in the world and yet somehow had a hard time coming up with vehicles, even though there were tons of high-water vehicles around):

AP article:

"GILCHRIST, Texas (AP) — Shell-shocked, hungry and still reeling from the loss of a woman who'd clung to rafters with him against the full fury of Hurricane Ike, Bobby Anderson limped off ravaged Bolivar Peninsula in a pickup truck reclaimed from the gulf.

"I'm hoping they find her alive or well," a dazed Anderson said Monday night after emerging from the darkness across the debris-littered road that led past rows of beach houses scoured clean by the storm.

Anderson refused to identify the woman swept away before his eyes when Ike raked this barrier island Saturday, except to say she was the girlfriend of a former employee. But he showed no such restraint when it came to his bitterness over a rescue that never happened and post-storm help that never came.

"What assistance?" the 56-year-old home designer and builder said from the cab of his battered black Chevy. "I mean, there's helicopters landing there every day. They don't bring food OR water. I mean, you know, old Gov. Rick (Perry) dropped the ball on this one."

For the past three days, Anderson and about 20 others "scattered here, there and yonder" in the communities of Crystal Beach and Port Bolivar have been sharing food and comfort, holding fast to what remains of their lives."

"During the next two days, he and others found refuge in wrecked homes, a school and even a Baptist church. They subsisted on whatever they found lying around: boiled shrimp from a freezer, uncooked hot dogs, leftover pizza and cashews.

---------------

Anderson lost two vehicles in the storm, but he thought he could get an old pickup running.

"We had to take the starter off and get all the seashells and sand and everything out of it, and basically rebuild it the best we could," he said. Fortunately, one holdout had a battery charger and another had a generator to power it.

As he worked on the truck, he said he watched as search teams broke into storage sheds and "hot-wired" whatever equipment they could find. He said a man came up to him and threatened to commandeer the truck.

"They said they had the authority from President Bush to do what they want to do, to take anything they needed to get the job done," he said. "I didn't think it was supposed to be like this."

Anderson said he was able to keep the truck by telling searchers it wouldn't run.

At dusk Monday, Anderson hopped in the truck and set out for the mainland. Around 9 p.m., he encountered a state wildlife official escorting a group of reporters through Gilchrist's ruins.

Aaron Reed, a spokesman for Texas Parks and Wildlife, had seen the tearful Anderson the day after the storm. He gave the grizzled, disheveled survivor a case of water Monday night and told him of a place on nearby High Island where fellow holdouts were grilling food."

Resourceful guy, getting that truck up and running, and keeping it from being confiscated. Obviously he tried to leave a little too late, but not much you can do at that point.

[STARWISE]

Barrier islands are barrier islands for a reason, and many of them are just not really fit for human habitation.

~~~~

Can’t be said enough for hurricane zones.

[NautiNurse]

As soon as humblegunner finds out it was stolen. ;-)

Eeeeeow! LOL! Will there be a bunch of generators running to drown out the hollerin' that will occur?

[NautiNurse]

The stinker here is that homes built on the FL barrier islands can buy insurance through Citizens state pool.