Major Hurricane Ike

Originally posted by Goradd
Why would you evacuate for a CAT 2 Storm?

Because Ike has a huge wind field, forward speed is slow and it will generate over 20 foot storm surge during full moon tides. Ike as Cat 2 verses smaller Cat 4 is the difference of getting hit by a semi-truck doing 80mph verses a sports car doing 110mph

Look at the surge maps in my prior post.



Kemah, League City, Bay Cliff, Baytown, Deer Park, La Porte, Texas City, Lamarque, and Hitchcock are between 600-800,000 people in that area.

ALL NEIGHBORHOODS...AND POSSIBLY ENTIRE COASTAL COMMUNITIES...
WILL BE INUNDATED DURING THE PERIOD OF PEAK STORM TIDE. PERSONS
NOT HEEDING EVACUATION ORDERS IN SINGLE FAMILY ONE OR TWO STORY
HOMES MAY FACE CERTAIN DEATH. MANY RESIDENCES OF AVERAGE
CONSTRUCTION DIRECTLY ON THE COAST WILL BE DESTROYED. WIDESPREAD
AND DEVASTATING PERSONAL PROPERTY DAMAGE IS LIKELY ELSEWHERE.
VEHICLES LEFT BEHIND WILL LIKELY BE SWEPT AWAY. NUMEROUS ROADS
WILL BE SWAMPED...SOME MAY BE WASHED AWAY BY THE WATER. ENTIRE
FLOOD PRONE COASTAL COMMUNITIES WILL BE CUTOFF. WATER LEVELS MAY
EXCEED 9 FEET FOR MORE THAN A MILE INLAND. COASTAL RESIDENTS IN
MULTI-STORY FACILITIES RISK BEING CUTOFF. CONDITIONS WILL BE
WORSENED BY BATTERING WAVES CLOSER TO THE COAST. SUCH WAVES
WILL EXACERBATE PROPERTY DAMAGE...WITH MASSIVE DESTRUCTION OF
HOMES...INCLUDING THOSE OF BLOCK CONSTRUCTION. DAMAGE FROM
BEACH EROSION COULD TAKE YEARS TO REPAIR.

www.nhc.noaa.gov...

Streaming news video links:
KHOU 11 CBS Houston

KPRC 2 NBC Houston

KRIV 26 Fox Houston

KTRK 13 ABC Houston

Multiple Hurricane News sites at LiveNewsCameras

[edit on 12-9-2008 by Regenmacher]

Here is a copy/paste of an email I just sent out. Parts were removed to preserve privacy.

__________________

All,

Here is the email I promised you.

When/if you hear from you hear from me after Hurricane Ike has hit, please issue a simple "reply to all" to let everyone know you have heard from me and I am okay.

Beyond that, please hold these email addresses in the strictest confidence as a matter of privacy.

The wind field from Hurricane Ike is already hitting Houston. Between 6am and 8am Friday, the rain and Tropical Storm strength winds will reach Houston (39mph winds and above).

The official word from the Fort Bend County government is:

1) Do not evacuate unless you feel your personal property will not survive the storm.
2) Board up all of your windows if you are able. If not, tape up and stay away from your windows. If tape is not available to you, shelter into a room with limited windows and barricade those windows as best you can. Do not shelter in your garage; it is the weakest room in your house.

We are boarding up per the recommendation of the local government. We will begin doing so in the morning. We are waiting as long as we possibly can to board up the windows because once you start pounding holes into your house, there is no turning back.

Hurricane Ike is an extremely dangerous storm not because of it's category two 100mph winds; it is dangerous because it's wind field is about 300 miles across. It is being called a freak storm because of it's size.

We are in a second tier county. When it makes landfall on one of the coastal counties, authorities are warning there will be complete destruction on a massive scale.

In Fort Bend county (where I live), they are predicting 1 in 4 homes will be damaged in some way.

The Sugar Land Police Department is anticipating we will be without electricity for a MINIMUM of 3 days. They are preparing for the possibility of being without electricity for up to two to four weeks. LA Fire Department as well as other fire departments from across the nation have already arrived in Houston and will assist as needed for what ever may occur.

Houston is preparing for total power loss, which will include the loss of cellular service.

Do not panic if you do not hear from me after the storm hits. To preserve power, I will turn my cell phone off [deleted cell phone number] as soon as the power goes out. I will turn it on to check messages IF I am able to get a signal.

If not, I will mail a letter, most likely to my parents.

When that letter is received, I would appreciate if you find this message and "reply to all" to let everyone know I am alive and well.

You can also search for me at disastersafe.redcross.org... I have entered myself there and will provide updates after the storm hits IF I am able to do so.

Here are some other websites:

www.noaa.gov
www.accuweather.com
www.theweatherchannel.com
www.wunderground.com
www.chron.com
www.kprc.com
www.ktrk.com

My job's website:
[deleted for privacy]

Fort Bend local news
www.fortbendnow.com...

Locally, channels 2, 11, 13, and 26 have pre-empted all programming and are showing only the news and weather. If you live outside Houston, The Weather Channel is doing almost exclusive coverage in Houston. If you have DirecTV, channel 363 is also providing updates about the situation. Also, radio station 1670AM is a temporary FEMA station that will stay on the air until the situation has passed. It went on the air on Wednesday. It is a low power station set up at various points across the Houston area. In Sugar Land, we get updates about Fort Bend county. In other parts of Houston, you would get updates according to your locale.

In short, this is expected to be a very bad storm. My insurance is up to date. I have full coverage and GAP coverage on my truck. I also have renters insurance and storage insurance. So I am covered in the insurance arena.

At work, we took various items off the wall and secured the building as much as can be. There is only so much you can do.

My job has an emergency contact system in place.

If I do not stay in contact with them, they have a procedure in place to find me. This involves calling my home, my parents, and my sister in Phoenix. It also involves calling the Sugar Land Police Department if it comes to that.

There is not much more to tell. Everything is speculation. The Fort Bend county judge in command of emergency procedures has advised us to be prepared for catastrophic damage to our homes and cars. He has advised us to stay in contact with our neighbors even if we have never communicated with them before.

This is a very serious situation.

We are sheltering a retired fireman who is also a retired Viet Nam Vet. We will remain at the house during the storm. We will only leave if the house is damaged to the point that remaining is unsafe. If that happens, we will report to the nearest fire department to seek shelter and advice.

Thanks to all for the prayers. To all in Houston, stay safe and think smart. Have a plan in case things really go bad.

Good luck.

Fred

Originally posted by Goradd
Why would you evacuate for a CAT 2 Storm? Especially if u live inland like in Houston.....these evacuations funny...next thing you know officals are going to want you to evacuate for a CAT 1 storm...

[edit on 11-9-2008 by Goradd]

are u serious? where u from man? where u from? u can't screw around with nature. especially with this one since its an anomoly of sort. it doesnt make sense. its trippin the readers out. how are u gonna make sense of it in context post katrina fool?

Originally posted by Siren
reply to post by Tentickles

 

The only thing I have to worry about at the moment are the enormously tall industrial power lines next to my house.

I truly hope you are not viewing this as excitement and or an adventure.
If you can't, you can't, but if you can and don't "que sera sera".

I'm taking this quite seriously. My previous house was demolished by a 60 foot tall oak tree, while I was still inside.

Good Luck and keep safe to all those who are hit by this storm in the next few days. Be smart and stay out of danger as much as possible.

Broken ATS again for awhile there, huh?

5am update puts Ike at 105mph sustained winds, which is just shy of cat 3 strength. I won't be surprised to see Ike "officially" at major hurricane status today, as slow but steady strengthening looks to be on tap. Any upgrades in wind speed will find an upgrade of category, as the NHC works in rounded numbers (100mph, 105mph, etc - so if Ike is found to have 110mph winds, they're going to call that a cat 3)
Regardless of splitting hairs between a few mph - storm surge and the sheer size of the storm (holy alliteration) will be what causes damage, not solely wind speed. This is similar to the Katrina situation. While Katrina made landfall as a cat 3 hurricane, it was her storm surge that did the worst of the damage. Ike is pushing a storm surge comparable to Katrina's.

The waters are already rising in Galveston, nearing the streets in some spots. Waves are crashing over the seawall. This is going to be real bad. Landfall isn't for another ~18 hours and conditions are rapidly deteriorating. Anyone still in the coastal low areas has maybe an hour or two to get on the road to get out; after that, it'll be too late.

Expected storm surge for Galveston Bay

Ike webcams:
The Strand in Galveston
Harbor House in Galveston
Beach closeup in Galveston
The Spot in Galveston (streaming video)
Houston traffic cams
Matagorda Harbor


This is how massive Ike is. Hurricane force winds extend 125mi from center, TS force 275mi.

This is why it is such a dangerous storm, even if it is not categorized as a 4 or 5

www.wunderground.com...

The total energy of Ike
The amount of water Ike has put in motion is about 10% greater than what Katrina did, and thus we can expect Ike's storm surge damage will be similar to or greater than Katrina's. The way we can estimate this damage potential is to compute the total energy of Ike's surface winds (kinetic energy). To do this, we must look at how strong the winds are, and factor in the areal coverage of these winds. Thus, we compute the Integrated Kinetic Energy (IKE) by squaring the velocity of the wind and summing over all regions of the hurricane with tropical storm force winds or higher. This "Integrated Kinetic Energy" was recently proposed by Dr. Mark Powell of NOAA's Hurricane Research Division as a better measure of the destructive power of a hurricane's storm surge than the usual Category 1-5 Saffir-Simpson scale. For example, Hurricane Katrina hit Mississippi as a strong Category 3 hurricane, yet its storm surge was more characteristic of a Category 5 storm. Dr. Powell came up with a new scale to rate potential storm surge damage based on IKE (not to be confused with Hurricane Ike!) The new scale ranges from 1-6. Katrina and Wilma at their peaks both earned a 5.1 on this scale (Figure 2). At 12:30pm EDT today, Ike earned a 5.2 on this scale, the second highest kinetic energy of any Atlantic storm in the past 40 years. Hurricane Isabel of 2003 had the highest. Note that the figures I quoted in this morning's blog saying Ike had an IKE of 180, 50% higher than Katrina's, were found to be in error due to some bad data from one of the Hurricane Hunter observations (the IKE is an experimental product, after all). Thus, this morning's IKE was actually a little lower than Katrina's.

www.aoml.noaa.gov...

I bet there will be people who do not leave Galveston. If so, they are in for a wild ride. There is already flooding on the island and it is early morning Friday. I think that will prove to be a major mistake for those people.

Carla hit 100+ miles west and removed most of the beach property in the Galveston and bay area. I imagine this will be worst due to the surge.

Edit: The news has stated that half of the 60,000 population are not leaving. People do not understand what is going to happen. A hard lesson coming.

[edit on 9/12/2008 by roadgravel]

Part of the 61st St Pier in Galveston has been washed away.

The water, not counting waves, just the Gulf water, is 2/3 or more up the 17' high Galveston seawall with waves regularly overtopping. The beach on the Gulf side of the seawall is completely underwater.
The Strand (downtown Galveston) is flooded over the sidewalks.
Saw an aerial shot of a Galveston neighborhood (Jamaica Beach) with what looked like a foot of water or more covering a wide area - no streets or sidewalks to be seen.
Afternoon high tide is not yet upon Galveston - low tide just passed, actually - and the center of the storm is still 200 miles out.
FEMA expects the entirety of Galveston Island to be "underwater" later tonight.

I'm hearing parts of Cameron Parish, LA is under 4' of water. Southern Terrebone Parish, LA is reporting levee overtop and 8' of water in places. Floodgates are being closed in NOLA due to rapidly rising water.


But sure, it's "just" a category 2 storm! Why would anyone evacuate for that?

Live news feeds from Ike-affected areas can be found at this link.

Oh, Ike is clearing out his eye. That's not a good sign.

Just heard the weather channel and cnn say that Ike is now forming an eye wall and has grown to be 900 miles across. This is the big one for sure, larger, perhaps much lager than Katrina.

Originally posted by anachryon
Ike webcams:
The Strand in Galveston

Houston TranStar Traffic Map - webcams



KPRC 2 NBC Houston

KHOU 11 CBS Houston

KTRK 13 ABC Houston

KRIV 26 Fox Houston

4 in 1 live video coverage

Another 4 in 1 live video coverage

8 in 1 live video coverage

Webcamplaza.net hurricane 2008

Galveston Island webcams

According to this new measure: Integrated Kinetic Energy, Ike is the second most powerful Atlantic storm in the past 40 years (more powerful than Katrina or Rita by virtue of its vast wind field).


[edit on 12-9-2008 by Regenmacher]

Originally posted by Uniceft17
Just heard the weather channel and cnn say that Ike is now forming an eye wall and has grown to be 900 miles across. This is the big one for sure, larger, perhaps much lager than Katrina.

He is most definitely much larger than Katrina, and his eye is clearing out fast. Katrina had TS force winds 230mi in radius; Ike currently has 275mi in radius.


Surfside Beach, TX is underwater. This town will be wiped off the map come tomorrow.

11am update shows no change. I'm kind of surprised, though the 1pm may show an upgrade. A recon flight in the last ~10 min or so supports category 3 strength and dropping pressure.

It's gonna be a long night, and I have to work this evening. It seems so...trivial with the destruction that will be going on in a few hours, but people gots to have their Friday night dinners out I guess.

I am on Yahoo IM as Genfinity for anyone that wants to IM me. I am NOT sitting at the computer waiting for you but I will see in from time to time as long as we have power.

We have been advised to prepare to NOT have electricity for up to 2 weeks.

Tropical Storm winds are expected in Sugar Land (SW Houston) between 1:30pm and 2:30pm today.

That gives us a bit more then 2 to 3 hours to finish getting ready.

That's all I have for now.

Thank you members for the all the imagery, updates and information as we watch this unfold. I hope that our members who will be affected have taken all the necessary precautions and those in surge areas have evacuated. I will have you all in my thoughts and prayers and hope that we can avoid a major tragedy. Property is nothing, Life is priceless. Please stay safe.

UKweatherworld observation team are now in Galveston

Live webcam: www.severestudios.com...

Discussion: www.ukweatherworld.co.uk...

This storm really is trying to get its act together, notice the red areas wrapping around from right to left, this is heavier thunderstorms, which makes me think that its overcoming the dry air thats been hindering its strength over the past two days.
I think hell be a minimal Cat 3 at landfall but thats not the real issue, as other posters have already pointed out, its the huge storm surge that is already coming in and inundating parts of Galveston and with the storm still 200 miles out.

Also, as a side note, I think the poster a couple of pages back is right, this storm is and has been very strange since it got into the gulf and I think its highly plausible that there has been some attempts by "whoever" to alter this storm in one way or another, whether from seeding or by some other means, who knows.




One last thing about trying to alter the course of nature. Despite what some people may think hurricanes do play an important role in the balance of things.
There are several "dead zones" in the Gulf of Mexico because the water near the surface is very warm and lacks sufficient oxygen.
Hurricanes pull the deeper and better oxygenated cooler waters up from the oceans and it also stirs the water, if you will, acting like a giant aerator in a fish tank.
Despite their destructive potential, these storms are a necessity, without them, parts of the oceans would die, affecting weather all over the world.
We should not even attempt to try and alter these storms in any way.


[edit on 9/12/2008 by Kr0n0s]

reply to post by Kr0n0s


I feel the dry area that has been in the south gulf coast has been a real blessing. Imagine what IKE might have become if it was able to intensify as the majority of storms do in the gulf. Interesting to see how atmospheric conditions work over such a large area.

I have to really wonder about people. Many have elected to stay on Galveston Island and now are calling to be rescued from the roofs of houses. Shortly they will be on their own. When will people learn how to properly deal with these situations.

Edit: Most of these rescues are at Boliver which is across from Galveston to the east.

[edit on 9/12/2008 by roadgravel]