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)

[topher]

See POST #638 by LA Woman3.

From a link it states that Galveston Island looks like a Lake with just roofs and tops of trees protruding up...

[MeekOneGOP]

Thar she BLOWS !!!!!

Headin’ our way, sorta. (Dallas/Ft. Worth). It will
pass to our east out in East Texas. Right over my
Uncle’s place in Tyler, and my Dad’s place in Quitman.

Expecting gusts here in the Dallas area to 60 mph,
so they say per our local weather talkin’ heads.

Are you doin’ okie-dokie there, PL ?????

(My aunt called me last night LATE and just a short
while ago. My Dad’s surgery in Quitman went just fine.
I will give him a call myself shortly to see how he is
doing).

Gotta head out to work right now.

Y’all take care and see ya later! :^D

[CarolTX]

Geraldo in/on a tree...LOL! Hope that gets to Youtube very soon. Sorry I missed it.

[penelopesire]

Heard it reported on TXCN.

[McLynnan]

I would be worried too, but it could be a problem with cell phone coverage. If you change your mind FReepmail & let me know and I’ll call or text him for you.

[jeffers]

I expect you’re going to see strong southerly wind for at least three more hours, thengradually tapering off for more hours yet. If Lake Charles has water problems now, it will likely get worse before it gets better.

[penelopesire]

Got the impression it was coming from Galveston, but am not 100% certain.

[tcrlaf]

Fox has it now...

500 Vehicles of “Task Force Ike”

[conservative cat]

Don’t some areas of the country have different formulas of gas for different times of the year to ‘cut’ down on pollution? (really just a joke, and a ‘gimme’ to the enviro wackos)

Yes, Washington does (unless they made us go year round to the "oxygenated" formula.) I am sure other places do, too.

[McLynnan]

Good morning! Everything okay on your side of the road? Pretty quiet here so far but it does have the feel of “the calm before the storm”. This morning I’m painting the inside of a closet from water damage a few weeks ago. The silly roof sprung a leak! Got that fixed and new drywall in the closet just in time for Ike.

[truthluva]

I am trying to get more information about anything in the Lake Charles area. My son goes to school there and was originally going to Layfette but they changed their minds and went a few miles north to Moss Bluff. Please...if your friend emails you again can you ask about that area? We have been trying to contact him on his cell phone this morning but keep getting his voice mail. We spoke to him aroung midnight last night, but have not heard from him since.

We feel that he is okay...we are just looking for information. TIA.

[McLynnan]

We should be hurricane buddies. I have a daughter at UT in Austin and the rest of my family is in the northern Dallas suburbs. I’m near Waco — we could call ourselves the I-35 nervous wrecks.

[topher]

I was DEFINITELY WRONG ... Later pictures on the Weather Channel in the area of Clute, TX shows the Flares.

During the worst part of the Hurricane, the Flare was Horizontal or appeared to be HORIZONTAL, not with the flames going straight up, but sideways...

I guess if a FLARE may be away from anything that might blowup -- or at least it should be...

[jeffers]

Sunnyflorida wrote:
“Winds were gusting to 120 mph, measured, right about where residential construction begins to fail
substantially.”

This is a bizarre statement and completely weird. Some residential construction fails at 40 MPH and
some, mine, survived near 200MPH. It is nutty to generalize like this.

***********

I built them for twenty years, after studying civil long enough to finish my core classes. 30 and 40 pounds per square foot wind loading is a very common building code standard. If you look at one house, anything can happen. If you look at a whole city built to the 40 pounds per foot standard, you can draw conclusions. If it’s good enough for actuarial tables for insurance companies, it’s good enough for me.

Proof’s in the pudding, let’s see what the actual damage surveys give us for ground truth.

[tcrlaf]

“What spot had 1200 x 911 calls”

Houston Metro...
Heard it earlier on KHOU

[TornadoAlley3]

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jyimZOKMux_rjX-yozvAPxy8JwnAD935SH480

Lake Charles

[sheikdetailfeather]

Yes! I will ask my friend about it and get back with you!

[MEG33]

I am indeed..
Getting breezy here and looking at the radar ..it looks like the outer bands are giving us a kiss..Wow..This storm is big.
“Tropical Storm Wind Warning is in effect for Bell, Bosque, Coryell, Falls, Hamilton, Hill, Limestone, McLennan, Milam, and Navarro counties until 1 am Sunday.

Winds in these locations could be as high as 40-60 miles per hour with higher gusts. “

I am in McClennan County. No rain yet..just sprinkles earlier. but it’s raining near me.
My back is yelling at me..Need to stop freeping and start getting some ice on it.

[topher]

On the other thread earlier in the week, you mentioned concern about the 1000 inmates left on Galveston.

A spokesman explained this as following: they could not comment on where the inmates because of SECURITY REASONS...

This also happened with HURRICANE RITA -- nothing was told anyone about the INMATES until they were actually moved.

So I imagine they were able to move the 1000 inmates somewhere (LIKE HUNTSVILLE via a number of PRISON BUSES)...

[LA Woman3]

Hurricane damage at this Galveston cafe is seen this morning.