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)
More at the link...
TANKS,,,Hopefully this one will head west,,,or,,,
SOUTH!,,,OOGO the Fat needs a Bath!...;0)
Those have gotta be metal shingles,,,
That wreckage must have come from Gilchrist,,,(wiped clean)
IIRC The road is only about 3’ ASL in that area,,,
Sure is strange...
No, Amelia. Pebcak and I have been talking. The GOM is closed for the season. We aren’t accepting any more storms this year :’)
I was watching a guy on tv last night that built a dome house under ground. He had a mold that he used. I came in late so I don’t know where but it looked like central TX. I was thinking ...ok that takes care of the wind but how could we build rooms not to flood!
It's really there, way down on the West End. Been there for, well, forever.
I wonder how it did...
I remind you of a toilet bowl house? C’mere.
LOL! No, dome, bowl, you know..
Yeah I know lol. It looks like a pot though. Must belong to a woman.
That's above my paygrade! ;-)
My guess, those vehicles and the helo, before and after the storm, were related to the “oil” slick. My knowlege of natural gas operations is limited, so I don’t really know what leaked, just that it was petrochem, from the oily sheen visible in the images, and that the results of the spill are roughly oincident with the only known pertochem related facility in that area.
I’m ambivalent on he subject of Ike’s body count, for precisely the same reasons you are. SAR has to come first, then recovery where health issues may be a problem, then recovery in other areas. It’s going to take time and I have no stake in rushing it.
At the same time, there is a liberal mayor over the most affected county, another liberal mayor running the biggest city in the area, and liberal shortcomings are well known and well documented.
They can take all the time they need for recovery, but if it’s within my ability to impede a potential coverup, so be it.
“Trust, but verify.”
In Galveston 1900, the debris from surge-destroyed structures on the beach formed a ridge tens or scores of blocks long. As long as the surge was coming ashore with enough energy to move the ridge itself and obstacles in front of the ridge, it scooped up additional structures just like a city sized bulldozer.
But once the wind changed and lessened the energy available to the surge, the ridge stopped moving, at which point it protected undamaged structures on the other side from wave action, and ended up probably saving all the rest of downtown Galveston.
The dead will be in the debris piles. We already know where those are.
Nothing in store for us in the immediate future but the east coast might get hit with another TS.
Sad but true...
Didn’t a couple of rigs break lose. Could oil have leaked from that and come ashore?
I’m guessing the front line grunts haven’t gotten around to recovery operations yet. At the same time, I’m reasonably sure the ...leaders...are aware of the MIAs, and working busily to “package” the news when it finally does break.
If I was a scumbag liberal, I’d impede aid to the survivors (just like we see happening now), then go public to RIP the Feds for another “Katrina-like FEMA aid delay/failure”, then once the national outrage gets going good, feed in all the corpses, win the election, then get busy scooping up all the tax dollars so my friends could build casinoes, bike paths, and fountains, with me as a “consultant” for a huge and hefty seven figure fee, until the voters get tired of the graft and bring back a conservative national government.
The oil could have come from a rig, but if you look at the post storm imagery you see that the main flow has stopped and the remnant slick is a product of oil that collected on the upstream surface of obstacles, and is now getting washed off slowly.
That puts the main source inshore from Bolivar Peninsula, and I’ve yet to see or hear of a damaged rig in that area. The only petro-chem facilities I’ve noticed so far is the one mentioned earlier, near where Nauti spotted the cars and helicopter.
Could the source be something like a marina with diesel tanks that might have been destroyed?
I have an opportunity to get on the island in the morning. I suspect the route will be restricted and the most obvious is 45 to 61st to Seawall Blvd then west.
If anyone has any requests, please let me know. Something specific on that route to look for? Smack the mayor?
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