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)

[1COUNTER-MORTER-68]

Sure looks that way to me,,,

This was the first I heard of a “hot-line”,,,

I guess they started runnin’ the numbers...

[txhurl]

http://galvestondailynews.com/wire.lasso?report=/dynamic/stories/I/IKE

---

Ike’s death toll in the U.S. hit 50 Wednesday and appeared to level off in Texas, where search teams pulled out of Galveston having searched the entire island for survivors. The task force had checked on almost 6,000 people and performed more than 3,500 rescues since Friday. Seventeen people have died in the state.

[shield]

All local officials are not allowed on Bolivar. The feds and state are recovering the bodies and we’ll be kept in the dark about the numbers. Yesterday, Galveston said there were 20 found dead on the island today it’s been revised to 6...total BS. It’s not incompetence by the feds is called a coverup, IMO. It happened in Mississippi after Katrina. There were bodies every place in the trees the body count was large...we never heard the truth. That’s the nanny state mentality.

[STARWISE]

So glad you aren’t dealing with the
major crisis so many are. Good news.
I bet your heart was in your mouth
as you approached. Stay calm as you
can, and hang in there.

For sure ... prayers for all who are
suffering.

[STARWISE]

ROFL!! Postively hysterical.
Kids!

[txhurl]

The toll is likely to be way less than 1000, maybe 300?

Even that’s ridiculous in this day of NOAA - these casualty figures are something you’d expect from 1925 or something.

Especially here in Texas.

[DrewsDad]

PREGNANT!?!

OH...that's DrewsMum, not DrewsMom.
Silly Leapfrog. How have you been?

Actually, you aren't the first one to flag us both down. I've talked to DrewsMum before.

Congratulations DrewsMum, are you going to change your screenname after your 2nd is born? I think Enosh is on at least his 3rd name.

[1COUNTER-MORTER-68]

Bolivar Pen. Note how much sand washed into the Gulf...

[Jedidah]

Frankly, those of us who run the shelter (one of those faith-based things, by the way) receive more than we give. It is truly rewarding.

But we are tired, so tired. Back-to-back Gustav and Ike have been a true challenge. We had just gotten the Gustav linens laundered and the building back in order when it was time to set back up for Ike.

We ran the shelter for Katrina evacuees for nearly a month. This one looks like it may take a while, too, especially with so many who rode out the storm now being sent to N. Texas.

Some of our folks will go back to nothing. They need our prayers.

[txhurl]

Didn’t you and I used to be neighbors in LV?

[squonk]

LOL....That's not fair BAAAAWWWAAA

Meyerland checking in, still no power.

[shield]

I hope you're right...we'll not hear a 300 figure...40-60 is maybe what we'll be told. http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou080917_mh_crystal_beach_shermans.85a54f5c.html

[shield]

This might give you an idea when to expect power in your area. http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou080917_mp_centerpoint_power_by_zipcode.8740bf5f.html

[DrewsDad]

We almost had a soccer game there last weekend before Ike blew through Austin and cancelled everything. We are in North Austin about 20 miles or so away.

[STARWISE]

Bless you .. you’re doing the
Lord’s work. How wonderful and
so caring of you. Praying for
the suffering souls.

[DollyCali]

BTTT

[CindyDawg]

4 way stops are not a problem for most around here. We are conditioned. We don’t immediately goes forward when the light changes to green. Turning red means 2 or 3 more can come on thru if they hurry.

[DrewsMum]

You’re dog sounds smarter than most people...

[Enosh]

“How have you been?”

Life is a funny old thing. Now I’m a master fisherman with a career brain full of Unix Admin junk. I think it’s funny.

“... change your screenname after your 2nd is born?”

SuperMum!

“... his 3rd name.”

Sort of. The hocus pocus on Leapfrog was done at my request, but later I got my own private hurricane. Ho-hum. Now I’m Enosh, fisher of men and fish.

[jeffers]

Nice work on the progression graphic, NN!

Where did you get the "after" images for that?

Extending the linear debris fields out of Gilchrist points a little further east than the yellow dot on your graphic. It would be interesting to see imagery all along that coastline. Is more imagery available?

There's no telling what the surge currents did after they dropped the heavier structural debris that's visible in the Gilchrist overheads. I projected a straight line and that's really an unsupportable extrapolation as local eddies might have altered the flow east, west, north or south, I could even make a case for a U turn as the backside of the storm passed over and the surge began to leave the bay.

Be aware that closer inspection of these overheads could be grisly. At these resolutions, human remains are at the low edge of discernability, but the math doesn't always rule in analyzing overheads. It's actually pretty easy to make out dirt roads and trails on 30 meter per pixel Landsat imagery, when common sense tells you that a dirt trail is nowhere near as wide as the 100 to 180 feet wide that should be necessary to make out the feature.



In the image above, the twin red dots mark where linear extension of the Gilchrist debris trails might have come to rest.

The lone blue dot is the position of the East Robinson Lake Gas Field, in my opinion, the most likely source of the oily slick we see in the NOAA overhead imagery.

During storm passage I was worried about the west bay shoreline as indicated by the paired red arrows and black arrow. With Bolivar Peninsula clearly under water from the surge, this area become the de-facto "front line" for surge and wave action, in terms of heavily populated areas.

If nothing else, Bolivar Peninsula fulfilled its reason for existence, in blocking enough surge to prevent catastrophic damage here.

Finally, the lone red arrow indicates additional large debris fields that came to rest on the north side of the canal/waterway along Bolivar Peninsula. Although I think I can resolve individual floor joists, which should be 1.5 inches by 10 to 12 inches by 16 feet or so, I do not find any human remains, even at maximum magnification and processing.

That leads me to raise the possibility that the dynamics of the surge as Ike came ashore may have brought water levels up enough to scare many of the stay-behinds to evacuate through waist deep water, long before the main surge came ashore. We can hope, anyway.