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
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Additional Resources:
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| 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)
how does downtown look? if you can tell?
Emergency managers reported that the first floor of the University of Texas Medical Branch Hospital is flooded in Galveston.
” I am on the Mississippi River in SW Illinois up high on a bluff. (about 80 miles down river from STL) “
I just emailed my mother in Mount Vernon to suggest that she spend the day battening down....
Never thought I’d have to worry about her in a TS, as opposed to the other way around... ;~)
http://www.khou.com/video/?nvid=178826&live=yes&noad=yes
This is the best area info I find..I am going to bed..Stay safe everyone
My daughter lives on the south west side of Houston. I’ve been calling her every few hours to keep track of what is happening.
She lost power a short time ago and her apartment building is getting hammered.
On the plus side, her apt is facing south west and she is having no problem with water entering the house.
She has been keeping her patio door open and is listening to trees cracking everywhere. She has a portable battery powered Tv which she is watching the storm on.
With the way the storm is moving, she may come through it with no damage at all.
There is a drainage ditch running along the road by her apt which usually floods in heavy rain. It is so dark, she can’t see the ditch and doesn’t know yet if it is flooded. She is smart enough to not go out of the house just to see whats happening.
She has already made arrangements to go upstairs to a friends apartment if the water reaches her apartment.
If she does get flooded out, she may wind up visiting us for a few weeks here in Florala.
Mt. Vernon is about 1 hour 15 minutes NE of me.
Are you near Chester by chance?
Just heard a report that wind damage in La Porte was not as bad as expected.
thank you
Good morning Uncle Ike..
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5998693.html
As Hurricane Ike surged onto Galveston Island this morning, many of the estimated 23,000 residents who ignored a mandatory evacuation order phoned for rescues to no avail because emergency workers were called off the streets, officials said.
Help wasn’t expected until after dangerous storm conditions subsided.
The center officially landed at 2:10 a.m. and whipped the barrier island with sustained winds as strong as 110 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. The storm surge was expected to be as high as 14 feet to 17 feet at Galveston and possibly greater in Chambers County to the northeast.
The center was over eastern Houston and Harris County at 4 a.m., heading northwest. It still packed the same winds it came ashore with and was doing damage to building exteriors and windows in downtown Houston.
It also continued to whip Galveston as it pulled away, leaving what officials feared would be a grim day ahead even after storm subsides.
“We don’t know what we’re going to find tomorrow,” said the city’s mayor, Lyda Ann Thomas. “We hope we’ll find that the people who didn’t leave here are alive and well.”
City Manager Steve LeBlanc went so far as to ask the media not to photograph “certain things” in the aftermath, referring to the possibility of dead bodies.
Officials in Brazoria County said as many as 35 percent of residents in mandatory evacuation zones stayed behind, or about 67,000. That would put about 90,000 Texans in potentially surge-susceptible areas in the two counties.
Power was out all across Galveston Island, much of which already had flooded. Two house fires were burning, as did a boat warehouse that was widely photographed earlier Friday.
Power lines are down, he said, and it may be weeks before it can be restored. Assessment teams will get out this morning after the storm. Fifty people were rescued from high water and about 260 are in a shelter at Ball High School.
LeBlanc said he didn’t know how long it would take before evacuated residents could return. The city may briefly allow them back in to check on their homes, but will then ask them to leave again until the city is safe.
“We feel the city of Galveston will have suffered from this storm,” she said.
As of 2 a.m., power outages were widespread, heavily concentrated from the northwestern corner of Beltway 8 stretching southward to Galveston and east to Baytown, the edge of CenterPoint Energy’s service area, spokesman Floyd LeBlanc said.
About 1.3 million of CenterPoint’s approximately 2 million customers were in the dark. Counting additional outages north and east of the area in Entergy Texas’ region, the number was approaching or exceeding 1.5 million.
Based on past experience, it could be a week or more before some customers get power back.
Galveston ordered an 8 p.m. curfew which is set to end at 5 a.m. today but will continue along the same overnight schedule for Galveston and Pelican Island through Monday morning.
“We’re going to make sure these homes are safe when (evacuees) return,” said Thomas, the mayor.
Earlier Friday, Galveston’s Steve LeBlanc expressed dismay that so much of the city’s population remained behind to ride out the storm.
‘’It’s unfortunate that the warning we sent out the mayor’s mandatory evacuation was not heeded,’’ he said.
By comparison, nearly 100 percent of Galveston left the island during Hurricane Rita, just three years ago.
~snip~
cont’d from previous post:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5998693.html
In Harris County, a curfew started at 7 p.m. and is in place until 6 a.m. today for the areas covered by the mandatory evacuation. The Harris County curfew also will be in effect Saturday night for the nine evacuated ZIP codes only.
Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt and Harris County Sheriff Tommy Thomas said they would be strictly enforcing those curfews to protect evacuees’ homes.
The anticipated surge prompted Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, to remark: “This is pretty much a worst-case scenario for flooding the Gulf Coast area.”
FEMA anticipates about 100,000 homes will be flooded and as many as several million people will be without power.
‘’It is a potentially catastrophic hurricane,’’ Chertoff said. ‘’We will move as swiftly as possible to relieve suffering.’’
The Harris County Flood Control District is tracking surge-related flooding along and around Clear Lake and on low-lying areas on the Houston Ship Channel, the San Jacinto River and San Jacinto River tributaries, meteorologist Jeff Lindner said.
The bank is nearly full on Clear Creek east of Bay Area Boulevard and on Greens Bayou south of Interstate 10, he said. The bank is half full on Brays Bayou at Lawndale and Eastward and one-third full on the lower end of Little Vince Bayou, he said.
The flooding is entirely related to the storm surge, rather than rainfall, Lindner said. The county’s natural elevation will allow all rainwater to drain from the upper end of the watersheds to the lower end, he added.
“We really don’t want people to be overly concerned about traditional bayou flooding,” County Judge Ed Emmett said. “The rain won’t necessarily cause those bayous to go out of their banks.”
Several hundred people on the Bolivar Peninsula ignored the call to evacuate forcing Coast Guard helicopter crews to rescue 45 people trapped on the peninsula. Others were rescued by other agencies, Chertoff said.
Helicopters were grounded when hurricane winds picked up, he said.
And once it moves through, thousands of people could be without power and food, said FEMA Administrator David Paulison. Emergency personnel have shipped in 2.5 million MREs (meals ready to eat) in Texas, and another 3 million will be brought in, he said.
The Red Cross expects to feed 500,000 people.
Ike, when its core was still 135 miles at sea, indirectly claimed its first victim Friday when a 10-year-old Montgomery boy was killed by a falling branch as his parents cut down a tree.
Montgomery County authorities, who declined to immediately identify the victim, said the boy was killed about 9 a.m. as his parents cut down the tree, apparently in preparation for the coming storm.
The boy was dead on arrival at Tomball Regional Medical Center.
A 19-year-old Corpus Christi man was presumed drowned after storm surge from Hurricane Ike swept him from a jetty, Corpus Christi Police Chief Bryan Smith said.
Three people were injured in a two-alarm fire at Brennan’s restaurant early today, a Midtown institution on Smith Street.
Friday afternoon, the Coast Guard and the Army aborted a rescue mission to save the 22 crew members on a Cypriot freighter that had lost power in towering swells 90 miles off Galveston’s coast. The ship, loaded with petroleum coke floated helplessly as Hurricane Ike approached.
New Orleans-based Petty Officer Jaclyn Young said the two helicopters and three other aircraft that had been sent could not safely rescue the crew. The Coast Guard will not be able to approach until the storm has passed.
‘’We will talk to them hourly and they have electricity and no injuries,” Young said. “They have an emergency beacon to put on if they get in distress.’’
thank you. they didn’t happen to mention surge did they?
yes fairly close to it.
Well, I *thought* I could nod off — this storm appears to be heading up the Lake Charles Highway (US 165) toward Alexandria at 70 mph. Speaking of 165, what’s up with Coushatta Casino Resort — they closed for Gustav but their website says they’re open with limited services for Ike? I dunno about that...
What’s that Metallica song, “Sandman” that goes “Sleep with one eye open, gripping your pillow tight...”
Uh-oh, gotta hit the Post button, I hear wind...
=============================THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN LAKE CHARLES HAS ISSUED A
* TORNADO WARNING FOR...
WESTERN EVANGELINE PARISH IN CENTRAL LOUISIANA...
THIS INCLUDES...MAMOU...BASILE...
SOUTH CENTRAL RAPIDES PARISH IN CENTRAL LOUISIANA...
THIS INCLUDES GLENMORA...
EXTREME WEST CENTRAL ST. LANDRY PARISH IN CENTRAL LOUISIANA...
WESTERN ACADIA PARISH IN SOUTHWEST LOUISIANA...
THIS INCLUDES...MERMENTAU...IOTA...EUNICE...
EASTERN ALLEN PARISH IN SOUTHWEST LOUISIANA...
THIS INCLUDES...OBERLIN...OAKDALE...
NORTHEASTERN JEFFERSON DAVIS PARISH IN SOUTHWEST LOUISIANA...
THIS INCLUDES...JENNINGS...ELTON...
NORTHWESTERN VERMILION PARISH IN SOUTHWEST LOUISIANA...
* UNTIL 445 AM CDT
* AT 406 AM CDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED
TORNADOES NEAR EUNICE...IOTA...AND 8 MILES SOUTH OF
MERMENTAU...MOVING NORTH AT 70 MPH.
* TORNADO PRODUCING STORMS WILL BE NEAR...
MAMOU...JENNINGS AND BASILE BY 415 AM CDT...
ELTON BY 425 AM CDT...
OBERLIN AND OAKDALE BY 435 AM CDT...
GLENMORA BY 440 AM CDT...
THE SAFEST PLACE TO BE DURING A TORNADO IS IN A SMALL INTERIOR ROOM.
GET UNDER A WORKBENCH OR OTHER PIECE OF STURDY FURNITURE...SEEK
SHELTER ON THE LOWEST FLOOR OF THE BUILDING IN AN INTERIOR HALLWAY OR
ROOM SUCH AS A CLOSET. USE BLANKETS OR PILLOWS TO COVER YOUR BODY AND
ALWAYS STAY AWAY FROM WINDOWS.
IF IN MOBILE HOMES OR VEHICLES...EVACUATE THEM AND GET INSIDE A
SUBSTANTIAL SHELTER. IF NO SHELTER IS AVAILABLE...LIE FLAT IN THE
NEAREST DITCH OR OTHER LOW SPOT AND COVER YOUR HEAD WITH YOUR HANDS.
A TORNADO WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 1000 AM CDT SATURDAY MORNING
FOR SOUTHWESTERN LOUISIANA AND SOUTHEAST TEXAS.
LANDRENEAU
sorry I don’t
Water will be the big problem. This thing is just lingering and dumping water.
Best wishes for your daughter. Sounds like she has a handle on it
Ike is a big dude and not moving all that fast.
I imagine the surge from the NE corner of the storm is really tearing up along the coast now. Hope the refineries aren't hit too bad and most importantly, injuries and deaths are low in Texas from Ike,
Expecting $5.50/gal or more for gas here in NC by the end of today. People were panicking yesterday with several traffic jams all over as people lined up to buy fuel. Amazing folk's attitude about it all....desperation.
One would think Ike was coming in here...Anyway, stay safe.
Houston’s commercial building regulations call for structures to withstand three-second bursts of at least 100 mile-an-hour winds, according to local engineering firms. Newer skyscrapers, including many built during Houston’s downtown boom in the ’80s, were modeled in wind tunnels to determine their performance in extreme weather events. Most should survive the storm.
The last time downtown Houston saw extensive damage was during Hurricane Alicia, a Category 3 storm that hit in 1993. Roofs that were anchored by gravel turned into missiles in high winds. Now roofs, are held by strong concrete that should not blow off.
http://blogs.wsj.com/stormtracker/2008/09/12/deserted-downtown-houston/trackback/
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