Chertoff said there are 52 choppers available for search and rescue.
Governor Perry has ordered 7500 National Guard troops to the affected region. Top priority today is search and rescue. TX pre-positioned the largest search and rescue operation in the history of TX for this storm. They are arriving by air, boat and ground.
We evacuated on Thursday from Baytown to Baton Rouge and I met two huge convoys of tree trucks headed west toward Houston.
Friends and family who stayed in the Baytown/Highlands area east of Houston (in the eye path) are reporting LOTS of trees down.
One of my uncles who stayed says that every tree on his street in Highlands is down.
The Highlands/Baytown area lucked out, though, with the change in the eye location just before landfall because their storm surge was much lower than it would have been if the eye had gone in slightly farther south.
I don’t know if this is even worth mentioning, but I had a thought. Is there a possibility of having a severe weather “check in” thread for events such as these? I’ve noticed a lot of FReepers looking for and asking about other FReepers who were/are in the affected areas, some of whom haven’t “checked in”, so to speak. I’ve seen this done on other forums and it seems to work well. Just a thought...