Hurricane Ike

[molson]

Here's a link on that 40% number, from a "city manager".

City staff (I guess that includes police/fire) will be ordered off the streets at 9PM tonight.

The Galveston County Daily News

[cartman]

I saw a picture of the fire, and my gut instinct is that it is arson. The house is only a block off the beach, and the streets around it are already flooded. If they didn't have flood or hurricane insurance, their only hope would be to file a claim stating fire did the damage prior to the storm.

[Cringer]

Houston TV just showed a motel we will stay at along I10 on the east side sometimes, about a mile from her Aunt's. It is flooded and it hasn't even rained yet.

[Cringer]

Originally Posted by cartman

I saw a picture of the fire, and my gut instinct is that it is arson. The house is only a block off the beach, and the streets around it are already flooded. If they didn't have flood or hurricane insurance, their only hope would be to file a claim stating fire did the damage prior to the storm.

Reports we heard are that it was a blown transformer.

[cartman]

This link has some interesting info on Ike. Even though it is borderline CAT3 in regards to windspeed, it has more energy stored up than Katrina. The next 12 to 18 hours are gonna be interesting along the Texas Gulf Coast.

Wunder Blog : Weather Underground

[sterlingice]

Just got off the phone with my parents. They're sticking around in Tomball. Actually, they're having a neighborhood party right now. No, not because of the hurricane- they had it planned a couple of weeks in advance and they just didn't cancel.

As of yesterday, there were predictions of 90mph winds there and the eye going directly over it. Now it's slipping east, with a path heading up 59 rather than out 290 or 249. So the predictions for them have gone from that 90 down to 70ish max. My dad boarded up most of the house- at least the wind facing sides.

They're really hoping for rain but odd things are happening with the storm. Look at the rain bands (not some weird enhanced radar like on news stations, but the actual)- they're getting broken hard when they hit shore. There's still a bunch of rain over the water but over the land, it's breaking up. Best my mom can figure is that since they've been in a drought there (and hoping for 5+ inches of rain) that the dry land and air are just sucking the moisture and energy out of the hurricane as it gets over ground.

Currently there, it's sprinkled a couple of times there but no real rain to speak of. Winds are, as both of my parents said at different times, "no more than a gusty spring day".

This still doesn't diminish what's going to be some horrible devastation for Galveston and some other coastal areas but some parts of Houston are looking less under the gun.

SI

[Tasan]

Awful windy around here now. News says its about 45 mph. The wind sounds like running water through rocks. Its kinda creepy too, because you're used to hearing that sound in short bursts, but its constant.

[tarcone]

Ike is supposed to hit my area on Sunday (Missouri). We are expected to have several inches of rain and gusty winds that will knock down trees and power lines.
On the news tonight was our county emergency director. He said there was a possibility of record flooding along the Meramec river that runs south of my hometown. We had bad flooding in the spring, put the whole south side of town under water. The guy said this could be worse.

Good luck to all in Texas.

[JeeberD]

Stay safe, fellas...

[cartman]

Looks like Galveston was spared the massive storm surges that were predicted. Instead of 25 feet, they appear to have topped out at 11 feet. But there is still is extensive flooding, and downtown Houston looks to have been hit pretty hard.

[Senator]

No news about our place yet at Kemah, but CNN just showed flooding 3 miles from the Bay, where our place is. I suspect it is/was under water, since it sits on the actual Bay.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Senator

No news about our place yet at Kemah, but CNN just showed flooding 3 miles from the Bay, where our place is. I suspect it is/was under water, since it sits on the actual Bay.

The only news I saw for Kemah was here:
Untitled Document

Kemah: City adminsitrator Bill Kerber said there is high water across Kemah. Six feet deep even in higher areas. City hall and the fire station have some water in them, not sure yet how much. City Hall, which is on Highway 146, sits at roughly the high point in Kemah.

I have a bunch more for all of Houston in a post I'm writing.

[sterlingice]

I am creating a little report to call back to my parents with information and figured I'd pass the info along here, too. They're without power (hot and sticky) and lost a decent sized tree in their back yard but are otherwise ok. They called this morning to see when it would let up since it was still raining pretty hard and still quite windy. So, basically- this is to inform people here but it's more targeted towards someone in Houston who needs or is curious about the news and needs some eyes and ears.

A lot of the weather stations stopped reporting so it's hard to get concrete wind and rain figures. Barometers seemed to have stayed online, tho. The one closest to my parents, Hooks Airport is offline as is Houston Intercontinental Airport.

However, there is some info for Hooks at 4am and 7am with 53mph NNE winds at 4 and 54mph WNW at 7am. The pressure bottomed out just before 6 between 28.5 and 28.6 inches. The wind and temperature meters went offline just before 4am so no info there. I wouldn't be surprised if it went really close to Interncontinental as I saw pressure readings from there near 28.3.
History : Weather Underground

The wind velocity map still shows huge areas of tropical storm force winds. It looks like Houston won't be out of that wind field for another 6 hours or so, at least for gusts. Houston and Texas weather forecasts and radar
However, it does appear that the sustained winds for most of Houston should only be 25-30mph by 4 this afternoon: http://www.srh.noaa.gov/graphical/im...ndSpd4_hgx.png

ABC News is showing coverage from KTRK in Houston. They said there are a lot of stations that are down and were not able to record information but here are some measures from various stations: Galveston 89mph, Freeport 83mph, and U of H 80mph.

Many of the bayous were expected to flood. Some are already over: Clear Creek is a mess and White Oak at Heights Boulevard is over flood stage and Greens and Buffalo are expected there this afternoon after more rain falls.
SciGuy: Ike zooms north. What's in its wake?

"CenterPoint Energy reports virtually all its customers -- 2.1 million of its 2.26 million -- are without power as of 10 a.m. Saturday." Tropical weather: CenterPoint: At least 2.1 million customers without power

They can't get started until the winds die down. Could take weeks to get all power back online. Almost All Power Out In Southeast Texas - Houston News Story - KPRC Houston

Mayor has issued a boil water notice- use bottled if you can. "Mayor Bill White said there's no indication that the city's water supply is contaminated, but it is reaching low pressure levels because of power outages affecting a pumping station." Houston Issues Boil Water Notice - Houston News Story - KPRC Houston

The tornado threat is not for Houston, for the most part. It's basically for NE Texas and parts of Louisiana and starts around now: "EXPECT THE SUPERCELL/TORNADO THREAT TO INCREASE BY MID TO LATE MORNING NWD INTO PORTIONS OF E-CNTRL/NERN TX AND NRN LA AS THE STRONGLY SHEARED BOUNDARY LAYER BEGINS TO WARM/DESTABILIZE." There are already tornado warnings out there.
Storm Prediction Center Sep 13, 2008 1630 UTC Day 1 Convective Outlook

Storm came ashore at Galveston at 2:10am and the biggest storm surges missed Galveston, instead blowing Galveston Bay essentially north into Chambers and Jefferson counties. SciGuy: Ike makes landfall at Galveston. What does it mean?

Galveston Island: Storm surge peaked at 12.4 feet at 02:12 CDT. That measurement places 6-7 feet of water in the bayside area of the city, including UTMB and The Strand. SciGuy: Did Southeast Texas escape the worst?


The disabled freighter in the Gulf actually survived the storm: Ship Off Texas Coast Weathers Storm - Houston News Story - KPRC Houston

Tons of glass shattered in downtown Houston- estimated up to a third of all windows in Downtown Houston shattered.
EDIT: Looks like it's not nearly that bad. JP Morgan Chase building and parking garage across the street completely decimated with regards to windows. But not much else in terms of major window damage- sure quite a few buildings lost some glass but no total glass destruction like those two buildings.

The storm was bad enough that emergency response was shut off just after 4am. "The decision not to respond to emergency calls in Harris County was similar to the decision made by City of Galveston officials who said Saturday morning that entire neighborhoods were burning, but fire crews could not respond. " http://www.khou.com/topstories/stori....7047f90d.html

There are no real concrete damage reports from Galveston. Streets are filled with debris and water and mostly impassible. I have to think we're going to start getting some reports fairly soon now that it's light and the storm is dying down in some places.

No real word on fatalities either. Too early to say.

Most of this is off of the Houston Chronicle website but also info from noaa, weather underground, and the local news stations.

SI

[molson]

Not as important as what a lot of people are going through, but there was major damage to the roof of Reliant Stadium, and Texans/Ravens has been postponed (it had been moved to Monday night). No word on where/when they'll make it up.

[tucker rocky]

Originally Posted by molson

Not as important as what a lot of people are going through, but there was major damage to the roof of Reliant Stadium, and Texans/Ravens has been postponed (it had been moved to Monday night). No word on where/when they'll make it up.

San Antonio and the Alamodome might be a good bet.

[DeToxRox]

Rumor is the Superdome for Monday Night per PFT

[Ryan S]

Ravens/Texans has been moved to week 10, and the Bengals/Texans game scheduled for week 10 has been moved to week 8.

[MIJB#19]

Wow. Good luck everybody out there!

[Tasan]

Hello from north Houston, via blackberry! We survived 90+ mph winds and the eye passing directly over us. Around 4:30 am was probably the scariest time of my life. Trees were at 45 degree angles in my backyard and the constant sound of things hitting my house was unnerving. When the eye passed early this morning, we went out and surveyed the damage. My house and yard was one of the lucky ones in the neighborhood. No leaks, busted windows, or other major damage outside of a partially fallen side fence. One of my neighbors had a pine tree remove the east wall of his house. LOTS of other trees down, but most looked to have fallen safely. Also a bunch of fences down from wind alone, which amazed me. We have no power, and don't expect it anytime soon. Looks like tomorrow we get to have a big block party grillout with all the meats from my deep freeze and my neighbors.

[fantom1979]

Glad to see you are safe and relatively unscathed.

[bulletsponge]

im back after the storm. lost power at round 5am yesterday morning. storm blew over and broke some big tree limbs but no damage to house or property otherwise. we got lucky, heard down the street big oak tree got uprooted and crashed into a house. and i hear peeps are without water and power

[Senator]

still no idea if the place exists anymore, but I am guessing not, by what we are hearing.

[PilotMan]

What was left of Ike was strong enough to do some pretty good damage to our area in northern kentucky. We were whipped with gusts of 75 mph. Our house has two pretty sizeable area of roof damage, and many houses in our subdivision not only lost shingles, but a good portion of siding too.

We never would have guessed that we would see weather of that strength this far north, from a hurricane nonetheless.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

So I heard on a local radio news report that there are hundreds of people in Galveston, TX who are beaten up pretty good and starving. Sounds like the National Guard is evacuating them today, but reportedly these same people once they are evacuated are complaining about 'slow response time from federal agencies'.

Perhaps I'm a heartless bastard, but wasn't there a mandatory evacuation order and weren't they told that they could risk 'certain death' if they stayed on the island?

In summary, I hate stupid people who choose to blame everyone else for something they brought upon themselves.

[cougarfreak]

What was left of Ike blew through the greater cincinnati area yesterday. We still have about 500,000 people without power, and we didn't get any rain at all. I am still w/o power, it went out yesterday about 2 p.m. They are talking that it could take up to a week for power to be restored. Doesn't compare to what went on in Texas, but Ike still had 60 mph winds even in the ohio valley.

[PilotMan]

It's more than 500,000 people, it's 500,000 homes. Yesterday that number was over 800,000 homes. So you have to figure that somewhere between 1.2-1.5 million people just in the Cincy area were without power at one point.

We were lucky, our power came on at 830p last night. Sucks for you coug. Hopefully it comes back sooner rather than later.

My neighbor works with the various electical companies as a contractor. His contact in Louisville talked to him last night. Almost all of their crews are in Texas and it will be a couple of days before they get back. He also said that this outage is twice as big as their previous worst ever.

This whole thing caught us off guard up here.

[cougarfreak]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

It's more than 500,000 people, it's 500,000 homes. Yesterday that number was over 800,000 homes. So you have to figure that somewhere between 1.2-1.5 million people just in the Cincy area were without power at one point.

We were lucky, our power came on at 830p last night. Sucks for you coug. Hopefully it comes back sooner rather than later.

My neighbor works with the various electical companies as a contractor. His contact in Louisville talked to him last night. Almost all of their crews are in Texas and it will be a couple of days before they get back. He also said that this outage is twice as big as their previous worst ever.

This whole thing caught us off guard up here.

You are definitely one of the lucky ones, as are my in laws, where I'll shack up for now.

[Galaxy]

Ike victims search for food, water, gas - Hurricane Ike - MSNBC.com

[cartman]

Not sure about SI's folks, but my boss who lives in the same area doesn't have any power. He lost most of the fence around his house, a bunch of trees, and a lot of tiles off of his roof. But one of his neighbors has a big honkin' generator that they are sharing to at least keep some of the basic stuff running.

[Butter]

I haven't had power since 3:30 PM Sunday. They are saying it could be through the weekend before many get power back. And we're in FREAKING OHIO. Can't say we've never been hit by a hurricane now.

And, like has been said before, we didn't get a drop of rain from the storm.

[sterlingice]

My parents were going to call when they got power back on and haven't yet so I can only assume they are still without.

SI

[Senator]

We still don't have any idea if the place was washed into the sea or not. I guess it will be a while before we know.

[cougarfreak]

Got my power back on in NKY last night around 8:30 PM. My school was closed today due to massive outings in the area still.

[TCY Junkie]

I saw a lot of 1 percent talk in another thread, I wish I was in the 1 percent that had power from entergy after the storm. Montgomery got nailed when it came to its electrical grid. I heard first it would be 4 to 6 weeks to get power, then on the way up to a relatives in Tyler I heard a person from entergy say they made some progress in our area. God, I just want to be able to be home and post on this forum regularly so the majority of you can say WTF Junkie.

[Bearcat729]

So we just got power back on here on the north side of Cincy. Went out sometime after noon Sunday.

[Lathum]

Looks like I got out of Cincy just in time. Any word if Hyde Park was hit hard?

[Bearcat729]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Looks like I got out of Cincy just in time. Any word if Hyde Park was hit hard?

A friend of mine who lives near the Hyde Park area had power at 1 am the night it went out. It doesn't mean parts of the area didn't lose power for a while. I know my area one side of the street would have power while the other side would be without.

[sterlingice]

My parents were told it will be about a week before they get power back. They can't even go hide at work as their work won't open up until Friday at the earliest

SI

[cartman]

My boss STILL doesn't have power at his house, but he says that there are around 10 or so trucks out at the main street in front of their house, putting up new poles and stringing wire.