Posted on 09/12/2008 11:29:13 PM PDT by 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
Houston/Galveston Long Range Radar
Corpus Christi Long Range Radar
Brownsville Long Range Radar
Lake Charles Long Range Radar
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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 |
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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)
I have to disagree with this. Everyone has months to plan for each hurricane season, and the better part of a week to know the intensity and landfall potential. Failing to get out of the way of an enormous hurricane when living on a barrier island is not a good reason to expect air drops of food and water at your convenience.
RE: Ambulance Caravan
I have not heard anymore about it on Sheps cast.
There was a lot of them.
Helicopter carrying live video went back to refuel.
Shep says the local FOX station there was covering it.
Thanks for the local update. Glad you had a safe trip back.
I would think that people rescued now, esp the elderly, are going to start getting ill. Most will probably need medical care. It’s a good sign though that they are still finding people alive.
Works for me.
I’ve gone over some of the aerial images you posted, in systematic way, and here are the early results.
Galveston:
There’s a one mile stretch of the main road roughly halfway between downtown and the far west end that doesn’t exist anymore. The pavement is gone, the subgrade is gone and for much of this stretch, the embankment itself appears to be gone. This might become passable to 4WD vehicles sometime soon, but passenger cars would have trouble with it for some time to come.
At the far west end, roughly one home in ten to twenty is missing large pieces, overall average. The visibly damaged homes are most generall, but by no means always, nearest the ocean side beach. The further away from the ocean beach you get, the fewer homes show obvious damage. There is considerable debris inland, so some cleanup is expected, but generally the houses there survived more often than beachside.
Beachside, there are some places where several homes at once seem to have been completely destroyed, but that is more of an exception than the general rule.
Halfway between the far west end and downtown, the percentage of homes with significant visible damage rises. I’d guess one home in ten are missing big pieces or showing bare foundation.
My software, using official surge measurements taken at landfall, shows that all or nearly all of Galveston Island outside of downtown was completely submerged during the storm. The aerial imagery confirms this assessment at all instances noted. Everything not downtown got wet inside, from one to twelve or fourteen feet ASL max.
Bolivar Peninsula:
In general, the damage is lightest at the west end, heaviest at the east end. Damage here is much worse in the imagery than on Galveston Island. You have to get down in the weeds, downloading large images then magnifying them to see it, but even in neighborhoods that have many houses intact in them, there are apparantly totally destroyed homes, hit and miss. A quarter to a third or more, not just one or two.
Towards the ocean side beach, clusters of five to ten homes at a time appear to have been totally destroyed, showing mud or sand covered foundations and slabs.
Down towards Rollover Pass and Gilchrist, homes with big pieces missing are a rarity, very few structures are left standing at all. I didn’t even see any debris piles. That area largely got swept clean.
From Rollover pass over to High Island, most of that area was still underwater when the aerials were taken. Shallow water in most cases, but still under. Damage is roughly commensurate with that described above for Rollover Pass.
There’s what appears to be a large oil slick immediately west of High Island. I can not tell where this oil came from, or how much might have leaked, nor even if it really is oil, but there seems to have been a lot of it leaking, whatever it was.
High Island seems to have fared very well, at least the elevated portions. I did not see any homes or businesses with significant structural damage visible. There is small quantities of scattered debris, and some small outbuildings seem to have been damaged or destroyed, and these seem the be the primary source of the scattered debris.
My best guess says Bolivar Peninsula was also totally submerged at the heigth of the storm, and it’s generally a foot or two lower than Galveston, plus officially measured surge here was closer to fourteen feet than twelve.
You did see the wink-smiley at the bottom of my post, yes?
Large traffic jam leading into Galveston. People coming in to look at their property. (Look and Leave only)
The ambulances were by-passing this traffic jam and headed to Galveston.
Cavuto showing it sometimes on his hour. Local Fox Copter back in air and over the area.
You can see the concern and sadness etched on
his face, hearing the realities from the Galveston mayor.
http://df1.galvestondailynews.com/photos/2008.September/0916_POTUS-visit-3.jpg
I imagine he called her a number of times before Ike came ashore.
Would not surprise me.
Cavuto: BN out of Galveston, not good.
Pardon my ignorance, but what do you mean by ‘BN’?
BN?
Breaking news.
Also mentioned martial law likely.
You know, you could make a living at that.
Aaahhh...thanks.
Maybe this is it?
ABC 13 reported 20 deaths in Brazoria and Galveston Counties. 10 deaths in Harris County.
Cindy, I was going to ask you the same thing. We got slammed, about three different times. Raining buckets and about 60 mph winds.
All my neighbors were frantically trimming trees. Maybe they’re friends with your plywood people.
Maybe lol. I was thinking maybe they didn’t know Ike turned. It’s a pretty day right now. Cool and clear and my power just went down. Go figure.
Now I know that wasn’t there before lol.
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