IKE may be moving fairly slow, but it is not as slow as tropical storm Faye was earlier here in Florida.
The rainfall from Faye was much worse than what IKE will drop.
When Fran came through here in the Raleigh area back in '96, she was just a cat 1 then with 75 mph winds here and that was enough. We got 13+ inches of rain then.
It tore the heck out of this place. We got our power back in 36 hours....folks on the other end of the subdivision didn't get their power back for 2 weeks...I figure 55 people (adults and kids) went through my shower the next 5-6 days and half I never had met before. Took me a week to get all the downed trees and debris up.
I know that the folks in Texas are going to have it much worse along the Galveston area towards Port Author and NE.
Ike is going to further kick the US economy (cost of living) in the short term. I'll be tuned in and on line as light comes and damage is assessed in Texas.
Thousands didn't leave the low lying areas...hope they are faring well.....flooding is going to be bad from the storm surge cause it is very very flat in that area most 0nly 8-10 ft above sea level.
I do not think most people are aware of just how low the area is: Digital Elevation Analysis of Galveston, Texas
This storm will wreck havoc there.
faye was a lot like Allison here in htown in 2001. damn thing kept going out to sea filling up n dumping again. terrible devastation, far worse than Alicia, and it ws only a ts.