Be Excellent To Each Other

Ike will then likely hit Great Inagua, the southernmost island in the Bahamas, with similarly terrible force tomorrow. After that, Ike’s predicted course takes it across Cuba, wreaking further devastation on an island already reeling from Gustav. Such a passage of Cuba would also substantially weaken the storm, but it could potentially restrengthen over the Gulf of Mexico. (On the other hand, as Sullivan writes in comments here, “Water temps are even lower than the were for Gustav, and another lode of dry air has come off the continent. IMO, Ike has no chance of coming ashore at full force in the northern Gulf.”)

That, again, is what the current forecast calls for. However, the computer model consensus has been shifting steadily to the “left,” or west, over the last two days, so who knows whether the current forecast will finally be the correct one? Maybe Ike will cross southeastern Cuba, re-emerge over the western Caribbean, and make a beeline for the Yucatan Peninsula. That would be the natural progression of the leftward model trend. We just don’t know at this point whether the models are finished “shifting.”

If Ike does indeed head west or west-northwest, that would be a relief to New Orleans. The current official forecast track, as of 5pm EDT (it’ll be replaced at 11pm with a new forecast), has Ike moving straight northwest, directly toward the Big Easy, raising the specter of a second evacuation in as many weeks. The Times-Picayune reported earlier today that FEMA’s chief of Louisiana operations, Bob Fenton, said of Ike, “Yesterday we were keeping one eye on it, but today we’re keeping two eyes on it.” That’s a good plan. Ike could move W or WNW, as Berger says, but it could also move NW, and that would put New Orleans in the bullseye.

Mind you, we’re talking about a potential threat that is perhaps a week away, so it’s certainly nothing imminent — no need for hype or panic. But here’s hoping the track shifts far enough away from New Orleans that hype and panic won’t become the norm in a few days. The last thing that city needs is yet another hurricane threatening its survival, even if it would end up being another near-miss. A far-miss would be much preferable.

Anyway, quoting Berger again, the Houston Chronicle weatherblogger notes that Ike’s leftward computer model shift “means that Texas is as likely a candidate for a final landfall as any other Gulf Coast state.” He adds:

If Ike follows the model consensus (and why should it start now?) it will spend a couple of days over Cuba, which should weaken the storm significantly.

The GFDL model, for example, sees Cuba’s terrain weaken Ike from a Category 4 hurricane to a Category 1 storm as it traces the spine of the narrow, mountainous island. The HWRF model is similar. . . . All of this potential interaction with land muddies the question of how strong Ike will become once over the Gulf of Mexico again, but I think it’s safe to assume some re-strengthening is likely.

It’s way too early to say where the hurricane might go once back in the Gulf, but tonight the odds of a Texas landfall are considerably higher than they were just a day ago. . . . The primary consolation for Texans is that the long-range model projections have been changing all week, and there’s no reason we shouldn’t expect them to continue to change.

As Berger also notes: “Amazingly, just 36 hours ago, we were talking about the likelihood of a Miami landfall.” Indeed — it’s been a remarkably swift change in Ike’s prognosis, and who knows how things will look in another 24 or 36 hours?

All indications are that Ike will intensify into a very dangerous major hurricane . . . [S]atellite loops show that Ike has maintained a large, well-organized circulation during its passage of Cuba. The 4 pm EDT center fix from the Hurricane Hunters found a central pressure of 968 mb, which is characteristic of a Category 2 hurricane. Passage over Cuba did not disrupt the storm enough to keep Ike from intensifying into a major hurricane over the Gulf of Mexico.

Ike is struggling right now to maintain a visible eye, and the recon plane reports that the eye is “poorly defined.” Alan Sullivan writes that “unpredicted shear from the west, and a plume of the drier mid-level air” is causing the storm to “erode” a bit.

Everybody wants to know how strong Ike will get — Category 3? 4? 5? — but another very important question is how soon it will reach major hurricane status (if it does), and, relatedly, how long it will maintain that status. This is another lesson of Katrina: the severity of a storm surge isn’t just the product of the storm’s strength at landfall; it’s also related to the storm’s strength in the hours and days before landfall. So if, say, Ike makes it up to Category 3 tonight and Category 4 early tomorrow, and then weakens to a Cat. 2 shortly before landfall Friday night, it’ll still bring in a Cat. 3-4 strength surge to the highly vulnerable Texas coast. On the other hand, every hour that goes by without significant strengthening diminishes the potential for a catastrophic storm surge. All other things being equal, later strengthening is better than earlier strengthening.

Hurricane Ike has grown into a very large and powerful Category 2 hurricane. At 2 pm EDT, the Hurricane Hunters found maximum winds had increased to 100 mph. This increase in winds was a reaction to the 10 mb drop in pressure noted in the past 12 hours. The most recent pressure measured--958 mb at 3:09 pm EDT--was actually a 1 mb increase from the 10 am reading, indicating that Ike's intensity has likely leveled off for now. Visible satellite loops show that Ike has ingested some dry air from the west, which is visible as a spiral dark streak that wraps into the core of the storm. The small 11-mile diameter eye occasionally pops into view, and is exhibiting the unusual behavior of orbiting around in a large circle within the hurricane. Hurricane Wilma of 2005--the strongest hurricane on record--exhibited this behavior during its intensification phase, as well. However, Wilma was not sucking in dry air at the time, and Ike is not likely to approach Wilma's ferocity.

A large spiral band surrounding Ike's inner eye is attempting to close off and form a new outer eyewall with a diameter of 100 miles. The power struggle between the small inner eyewall and the large outer spiral band will likely go on until Thursday, resulting in little intensification of Ike this evening. By Thursday, the power struggle will likely be over, and Ike will probably resume intensification. If the small eyewall wins, Ike could intensify rapidly to a Category 4 hurricane; if the large spiral band takes over as the new eyewall and the inner eyewall crumbles, we can expect more gradual intensification to a Category 3 hurricane.

Ike continues to grow in size, and its tropical storm force winds extend out almost as far as Katrina's did. This large wind field is already starting to pile up a formidable storm surge. Tides are already running 2-4 feet above normal along the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the west coast of Florida. Visible satellite loops show that Ike has good upper-level outflow channels open to the north and the south. Outflow and cloud cover are restricted on the storm's west side, where dry air and wind shear of 10-15 knots are affecting the storm. All indications are that Ike will intensify into a major hurricane that will bring widespread destruction to a large stretch of the Texas coast. I expect Ike will generate a 10-15 foot storm surge along a 100-mile stretch of Texas coast from the eye landfall location, northwards. I urge Texas residents to take this storm very seriously and heed any evacuation orders given. Most of you living along the coast have never experienced a major hurricane, and Ike is capable of causing high loss of life in storm surge-prone areas. Tropical storm force winds will spread over the Texas coast beginning Friday afternoon, and evacuations must be completed by Friday morning. All airports in eastern Texas will be forced to close Friday night, and will probably remain closed most of Saturday. Ike has a good chance of becoming the most destructive hurricane in Texas history--though not the most powerful.


Track forecast for Ike
The latest 12Z (8am EDT)) computer models are in even less agreement than the previous set of runs. There has been a northward shift in several models, most notably the GFDL, which now has Ike making landfall at Galveston as a strong Category 3 hurricane. With a trough of low pressure expected to turn Ike northwestward close to landfall time, slight variations in the timing of this trough among the models is causing a large spread in landfall locations. Given the recent trend in the models to take Ike farther north, I would expect more of the models in future runs may be joining the GFDL in predicting a Galveston landfall. The cone of uncertainty still covers the entire Texas coast, and residents of southwestern Louisiana are also at risk.

I recommend Texas residents consult NHC's wind probability product to determine their odds of getting hurricane force winds. At 11 am EDT, NHC called for these odds of getting hurricane force winds at various Texas cities:

Brownsville: 9%
Corpus Christi: 17%
Port O'Connor: 24%
Freeport: 23%
Galveston: 20%
Houston: 13%

As you can see, Port O'Connor is considered the most likely city in Texas to receive hurricane force winds. I believe the percentages for the cities above except Brownsville and Corpus Christi are too low, and should be bumped up by 5-10%.

Intensity forecast for Ike
The intensity forecast remains the same. Water temperatures are a warm 29.5°C in the Gulf of Mexico, and wind shear is expected to be modest, 10-15 knots, for the remainder of Ike's life. Ike will be crossing over two regions of high heat content associated with the Loop Current and a Loop Current eddy, and Ike has the capability of intensifying right up to landfall. This is the forecast of the HWRF model, which has Ike hitting Port O'Connor as a Category 4 hurricane with 145 mph winds. The weakest I think Ike will be at landfall is Category 2 hurricane with 100 mph winds.

Storm surge risk
We've put together today a page of storm surge risks for the Texas coast. These images show the maximum storm tide (storm surge plus an adjustment for hitting at high tide) expected from a mid-strength hurricane of each Saffir-Simpson Category hitting anywhere along the coast of Texas at high tide. These so-called "MOMs" (Maximum Of the Maximum Envelope Of Waters) are computed using NOAA's SLOSH storm surge model. A sample image is shown in Figure 1 for a Category 4 hurricane affecting the Galveston area. A storm of this magnitude is expected to bring a maximum 22 foot storm tide (storm surge plus a 2-foot adjustment in case it hits at high tide) to Galveston. A maximum 28-foot storm tide could affect the built-up areas along the east side of Houston. Note that most Category 4 hurricanes making a direct hit on Galveston will bring a significantly lower storm surge than the worst-case 22-foot scenario pictured here. For example, the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900 was a Category 4 storm that hit the city head-on, but generated a storm surge of only 15 feet. Even so, this hurricane was the deadliest disaster in American history, killing an estimated 8,000-12,000 people. Since then, Galveston has built its seawall to a height of 17 feet, which would probably withstand a direct hit by Ike at Category 4 strength.

For storm surge evacuation zone information, consult the Texas Division of Emergency Management.

Ike is a large storm, and will probably attain Category 3 or higher status over the Gulf of Mexico. This will set in motion a huge volume of water that will pile up into a large storm surge once Ike reaches the shallow Continental Shelf waters off the coast of Texas. Even if Ike weakens significantly before landfall, I am still expecting the storm to bring a storm surge 10-15 feet to a 100 mile long stretch of Texas coast from the eye northwards along the Texas coast. High tide on Saturday morning along the Texas coast is at 2am CDT. The range between low tide and high tide along the Texas coast is about 2 feet.

Hurricane Ike is intensifying dramatically. The central pressure has dropped 11 mb in just four hours, and stood at 947 mb at 7 pm EDT. The latest Hurricane Hunter data show that the pressure is continuing to fall at a rapid pace. The winds have not caught up yet to the pressure fall, and remain at Catgeroy 2 strength. The satellite presentation of the hurricane has improved markedly, as Ike has walled off the dry air that was bothering it, and has built a solid eyewall of 9 miles diameter of very intense thunderstorms. The appearance of Ike on infrared satellite loops is similar to Hurricane Wilma during its rapid intensification phase, when Wilma became the strongest hurricane on record. Like Wilma, Ike has a very tiny "pinhole" eye, but the storm is huge in size. Ike has a long way to go to match Wilma, but I expect Ike will be at least a Category 3 hurricane by morning, and probably a Category 4.


Ike is almost as large as Katrina was, and this large wind field is already beginning to pile up a formidable storm surge. Tides are running 2-4 feet above normal along the Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the west coast of Florida. Tides have risen one foot above normal in Galveston too. The water level will continue to rise as Ike approaches Texas, and NOAA's experimental storm surge forecast (Figure 1) is calling for a 10% chance that the storm tide from Ike will reach 10-12 feet at Galveston, and 18-21 feet on the south and east sides of Houston.

Ike is likely to be a extremely dangerous major hurricane at landfall, and will likely do $10-$30 billion in damage. The chances of hundreds of people being killed in this storm is high if people do not heed evacuation orders. It is possible that Ike will make a direct hit on Galveston as a Category 4 hurricane with 145 mph winds. The potential storm surge from such a hit could be in the 15-25 foot range (Figure 2), which is capable of overwhelming the 17 foot sea wall in Galveston. I put the odds of such an event at about 5%.


Figure 2. The maximum storm tide (storm surge plus an adjustment for hitting at high tide) expected from a mid-strength (145 mph) Category 4 hurricane hitting anywhere along the coast of Texas at high tide. This so-called "MOM" (Maximum Of the Maximum Envelope Of Waters) is computed using NOAA's SLOSH storm surge model. The plot above IS NOT the expected storm tide everywhere along the coast from a hit by Hurricane Ike. The plot is the MAXIMUM high water for a worst-case scenario Category 4 hurricane moving at the worst possible angle at the worst possible forward speed. As such, this plot is the combination of SLOSH runs from over 50 different simulated hurricanes approaching the coast at different angles and different forward speeds. The maximums plotted here are only possible along a 20-mile stretch of the coast on the north side of Ike's eyewall. SLOSH model runs are advertised as being in error by plus or minus 20%. Image credit: NOAA.

Track forecast for Ike
The latest 18Z (2pm EDT) computer models are still in poor agreement. The GFDL still has Ike making landfall at Galveston as a borderline Category 3 or 4 hurricane, and the rest of the models have landfall farther south, near Port O'Connor. With a trough of low pressure expected to turn Ike northwestward close to landfall time, slight variations in the timing of this trough among the models is causing a large spread in landfall locations. The cone of uncertainty still covers the entire Texas coast, and residents of southwestern Louisiana are also at risk.

I recommend Texas residents consult NHC's wind probability product to determine their odds of getting hurricane force winds. At 5 pm EDT, NHC called for these odds of getting hurricane force winds at various Texas cities:

Corpus Christi: 15%
Port O'Connor: 26%
Freeport: 30%
Galveston: 25%
Houston: 20%
Port Arthur: 13%

As you can see, Freeport is considered the most likely city in Texas to receive hurricane force winds. I believe the percentages for the cities above are too low, and should be bumped up by 5-10%.

Intensity forecast for Ike
The intensity forecast remains the same. Water temperatures are a warm 29.5°C in the Gulf of Mexico, and wind shear is expected to be modest, 10-15 knots, for the remainder of Ike's life. Ike will be skirting the edge of a warm Loop Current eddy, but the heat content of the waters near the Texas coast are high. Ike has the capability of intensifying right up to landfall. This is the forecast of the HWRF model, which has Ike hitting Port O'Connor as a Category 4 hurricane with 145 mph winds. The weakest I think Ike will be at landfall is a Category 2 hurricane with 100 mph winds. Even at this weak strength, Ike will still carry a 10-15 foot storm surge to a 100+ mile long stretch of Texas coast.

Storm surge risk
We've put together today a page of storm surge risks for the Texas coast. These images show the maximum storm tide (storm surge plus an adjustment for hitting at high tide) expected from a mid-strength hurricane of each Saffir-Simpson Category hitting anywhere along the coast of Texas at high tide. These so-called "MOMs" (Maximum Of the Maximum Envelope Of Waters) are computed using NOAA's SLOSH storm surge model. A sample image is shown in Figure 1 for a Category 4 hurricane affecting the Galveston area. A storm of this magnitude is expected to bring a maximum 22 foot storm tide (storm surge plus a 2-foot adjustment in case it hits at high tide) to Galveston. A maximum 28-foot storm tide could affect the built-up areas along the east side of Houston. Note that some Category 4 hurricanes making a direct hit on Galveston will bring a significantly lower storm surge than the worst-case 22-foot scenario pictured here. For example, the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900 was a Category 4 storm that hit the city head-on, but generated a storm surge of only 15 feet. Even so, this hurricane was the deadliest disaster in American history, killing an estimated 8,000-12,000 people. Since then, Galveston has built its seawall to a height of 17 feet, which would probably withstand a direct hit by Ike at Category 4 strength.

EDIT: Hey mods! Could you change the title to "Hurricane Ike - Shitting Crikey!"? Ta.

LIFE THREATENING INUNDATION LIKELY! ALL NEIGHBORHOODS…AND POSSIBLY ENTIRE COASTAL COMMUNITIES…WILL BE INUNDATED DURING HIGH TIDE. PERSONS NOT HEEDING EVACUATION ORDERS IN SINGLE FAMILY ONE OR TWO STORY HOMES WILL 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. 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.

A full mandatory evacuation has been ordered for all of Galveston Island, all of Chambers County, and evacuation zones A and B in Harris County, as well as “Brazoria County and areas south of Texas 35 and the Blessing area of Matagorda County.” (Here’s a Texas county map, for the uninitiated.)

PERSONS NOT HEEDING EVACUATION ORDERS IN SINGLE FAMILY ONE OR TWO STORY HOMES WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH

"Do not take this storm lightly," Michael Chertoff, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said Thursday afternoon. "This is not a storm to gamble with. It is large; it is powerful; it carries a lot of water."

Chertoff and representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency said their efforts were focused on evacuations as Ike moved northwest at 13 mph across the central Gulf of Mexico with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph.

Chertoff also urged people not to succumb to "hurricane fatigue," referring to concerns that authorities were overestimating Ike's potential impact.

"Unless you're fatigued with living, I suggest you want to take seriously a storm of this size and scale," he said Thursday.

10 a.m. UPDATE: Not much has changed this morning as Hurricane Ike moves toward the west-northwest, with a landfall expected on Galveston Island. Maximum winds remain at 105 mph, and the storm's central pressure is not falling. Therefore Ike is forecast to come ashore as an extremely large category 2 hurricane.

If you live east of San Luis Pass and less than 20 feet above sea level, God help you at this point if you have not evacuated.

Houston now has a 50 percent chance of experiencing hurricane-force winds, and Galveston a 77 percent chance. But unfortunately it won't be the winds that matter so much along Galveston Island, but the water.

I'll have a full update around 1 p.m. And don't forget our chat at 2 p.m.

According to the NOAA tide gauges, storm tides along the Mississippi coast peaked at about 6 feet above normal yesterday, with a 7 foot storm tide observed on the east side of New Orleans at Shell Beach in Lake Borgne. At 10 am CDT, storm tides of 5-6 feet were being seen in western Louisiana, and were 5 feet at Freeport, Texas, and 5.5 feet at Galveston. According to the latest NWS forecast from the Galveston office, we can expect the following storm surges in Texas:

Gulf-facing coastline west of Sargent... 4 to 6 feet

Shoreline of Matagorda Bay... 2 to 5 feet

Gulf-facing coastline from Sargent to San Luis Pass... 12 to 15 feet

Gulf-facing coastline San Luis Pass to High Island including Galveston Island... ... 15 to 20 feet

Shoreline of Galveston Bay...15 to 25 feet

NOAA's experimental storm surge forecast is calling for a 10% chance that the storm tide from Ike will reach 27-30 feet on the south and east sides of Houston. The exact track of Ike is key in determining if Galveston's 17-foot sea wall gets overtopped, flooding the city. A slight wobble 30 miles to the north of Galveston would put the city into offshore winds from Ike, possibly saving it from inundation. The situation is grim for Port Arthur, Texas, on the Louisiana border. The expected storm surge of 15-20 feet will overtop the city's seawall by six feet, resulting in flooding of the city and a number of major oil refineries. Expect a significant tightening of gas supplies in coming months, due to extensive damage to the oil refineries in the Houston and Port Arthur area.

Police Chief Randy Smith said an unknown number of people had ignored mandatory evacuation orders.

"We are not sure how many people we have," Smith said. "We will check them one-by-one."

Smith said he did his best to convince residents to climb aboard his high-riding Mack truck, but authorities believe about six people are riding out the storm.

``We asked them to write their Social Security number on their arm for us,'' Smith said.

One of those who planned to stay behind was 47-year-old Bobby Taylor.

``It's dangerous, but it's mother nature. There are good parts about it. It's beautfiful. The water doesn't frighten me,'' Taylor said as waves rolled over his lawn. He said he could walk or kayak out if necessary. ``It's just water, man.''

David Fields, a carpenter who lives a few doors down, also said he was staying.

``This is my home,'' Fields said.

Two holdouts, Max and Diane Hall, and their 9-year-old dog Sissy, awoke to find the ocean in their yard. They walked out to higher ground, carrying supplies and belongings on a boogie board, seeking to be evacuated.

Diane Hall joked, "we are not the poster children for successful evacuation by any means."

Live news video feeds here from four Houston stations, on one page. Looks like the storm surge has begun to hit, but is still the early stuff yet. Landfall still many hours off.

http://www.maroonspoon.com/wx/ike.html

Most surreal feature being a newsreporter watching a man bording up his house windows in Galveston bay, right on the beachline, with the water literally four feet from his door.

What the hell kind of magic is this? Is this some random guy streaming 4 TV channels? Thats amazing.

The internet is awesome. I have that running on my second monitor and I feel like batman or something.

11:35 PM EDT: Hurricane Ike will make landfall on Galveston Island in the next few hours. Massive ocean waves are bearing down on the vulnerable Texas coast, riding atop a freakishly huge storm surge that will be peaking while the tide is coming in. Needless to say, this is not a good situation.

I’ve decided not to stay up all night and liveblog, since it’ll probably be hard to tell just how bad the storm-surge flooding is till daybreak anyway. I figure it doesn’t make a lot of sense to stay up until shortly before dawn, and then go to bed, just when the extent of Ike’s impact is becoming clear. Instead, I intend to wake up around 6:00 AM EDT tomorrow, and resume blogging at that time.

In the mean time, you can follow Ike’s progress overnight via my various links in the sidebar at right, including links to other folks who are liveblogging. In addition, Houston Chronicle reporters are liveblogging, too. Michelle Malkin has more links. Last but not least, you can watch Ike’s storm surge in real time using the special surge data page I’ve created.

A very brief primer on Ike, for new readers: as I’ve explained repeatedly, Ike is a freak storm — not a “normal” Category 2 — and an extremely high storm surge, of Category 4 proportions, is widely expected by experts. Galveston’s seawall will probably be overtopped, and even if it is not, huge portions of the island will be flooded. Damage will be tremendous all throughout Galveston Bay and up the coast to Port Arthur and southwestern Louisiana. Moreover, with many thousands of people foolishly choosing to ride out the storm in vulnerable coastal areas, including Galveston Island itself, a very large death toll seems possible. I’ve titled this post “The Great Galveston Hurricane of 2008″ because I fear we may be calling it that soon enough.

I guess we can hope the surge projections are somehow flawed, due to the computer models failing to capture something about Ike’s bizarre structure, or whatever. In other words, we can hope against hope that things won’t be as bad as we presently fear. I don’t know that there’s any valid reason to hope that, but I’ll hope it anyway. Certainly, Ike’s winds are not going to be anything catastrophic, Geraldo Rivera’s theatrics notwithstanding. The storm surge is the issue here. And by all indications, it’s going to be terrible. But I’ll say a prayer that those indications are, somehow, wrong.

[UPDATE, 1:04 AM EDT: Okay, I’m not in bed yet — and I’ve found some reason to hope, for Galveston at least: “Regardless of whether the eye center passes just west, directly over, or just east of Galveston…I think the rightward jog that has occurred basically ensures that Galveston will miss the core of the highest storm surge. Remember, the region of maximum surge is actually pretty significantly further to the right of where the eye makes landfall . . . Galveston will still experience significant flooding, don’t get me wrong, but the absolute worst of the surge is almost certainly going to be farther east…affecting the Port Arthur/Beaumont/Orange area.” That’s according to a contributor at the Eastern U.S. WX Forums. Dunno if it’s right. Certainly, the worst of the surge being further up the coast is correct, but as for whether Galveston will avoid total destruction — we’ll find out in the morning, I guess. … And now, I’m really going to bed. Honest.]

GALVESTON — Despite a mandatory evacuation and ominous forecasts of a killer storm, police, firefighters and the Galveston Beach Patrol rescued dozens of residents Friday from the rising tides brought on by Hurricane Ike as it bears down on Galveston Island. Many had stayed on the island through numerous other hurricanes and were surprised by the height of the tidal surge. City officials estimated that as many as 40 percent of the island’s about 60,000 residents remained in their homes.

Good Lord. That’s twice what I expected. If that proportion is the same for for zones A and B (areas that “never flood”)…

US Census: Galveston county popuation, 283,551, for both island and mainland. Clear lake is 65k. Power’s getting iffy again, can’t research more.

Toss in southern Harris county near the bay, Chambers county and so on, if that % holds true, there could be 300,000-500,000 people at risk.

SURFSIDE BEACH, Texas — Authorities say tens of thousands have ignored evacuation orders and are staying behind as Hurricane Ike takes aim at the Texas coast.

An Associated Press survey shows that in three counties alone, some 90,000 people have chosen not to leave despite dire warnings from forecasters.

The emergency management coordinator for Galveston County estimates that 80 percent of the residents evacuated. That leaves more than 11,000 residents in the county that is expected to take a direct hit from Ike's massive storm surge.

Farther up the coast, officials say half the residents of Beaumont stayed put less than two weeks after many evacuated for Hurricane Gustav, only to see the storm miss the city entirely.

At first, even the threat of "certain death" was not enough to persuade Bobby Taylor to flee this small town directly in the path of Hurricane Ike.

His wife, Elizabeth, had already decided to leave before police drove a dump truck through flooded streets, urging people to get out. Those who refused were told to write their names on their arms in black marker, so their bodies could be identified later.

Elizabeth came back to persuade her husband to leave and was waiting for him when he waded in waist-deep water up the main street, towing a blue kayak. She greeted him joyously. "Now I'll pray for our neighbors," she said.

More than a million people evacuated southeast Texas ahead of Ike. But citing faith and fate, tens of thousands more ignored calls to clear out, coastal authorities said. The National Weather Service warned that people in smaller structures in some areas "may face certain death."

The choice to stay — always questionable, sometimes fatal — was an especially curious one to make so close to Galveston, site of a 1900 storm that killed at least 6,000 people, more than any other natural disaster in U.S. history.

Mayor Larry Davison Davison said authorities had been told the man had left, but later saw him on his porch. He had no phone.

"When we finally saw him, it was too late to get back in there," the mayor said. "We had to retreat."

A mandatory evacuation order was in place, but there were no signs anyone was being forcibly removed.

"We're not going to drag them out of there and handcuff them," Davison said. "They've made their decision."

Forecasters said Ike could pack a 20-foot storm surge when it rolls ashore early Saturday near Surfside Beach. By midday Friday there was 5 feet of water in some places, with more coming in.

It was enough to persuade the Taylors' neighbors to relent. David Fields, 45, and wife Dondi, 50, had written their Social Security numbers on their arms. Dondi Fields added "I (heart) U" on her right arm — for her kids, she said.

"We didn't want anybody to have to risk their life to come and get us," Dondi Fields said.

Nearby Freeport was all but deserted, and quiet except for the increasingly roiling sea. Truck driver Darryl Jones Sr. and his neighbor, Keith Glover, talked about the impending hurricane without concern. Nearly everyone around them had obeyed a mandatory evacuation order.

"I'm just enjoying the serenity, really," said Jones, 48, sitting in his electric golf cart. "You never know what the aftermath might hold, but right now it's very peaceful."

Glover, who works for the nearby city of Clute, will work removing debris after the storm, but said he would have stayed anyway.

"Worrying's a sin," he said.

At By George Automotive repair shop, owner George Elizondo and others in Freeport gathered to grill chicken leg quarters, shoulder steak and tortillas with pico de gallo. Coolers from the nearby grocery store sat filled with soda and beer.

The hurricane block party tradition began with Hurricane Rita in 2005, when Elizondo and others stayed behind to offer mechanical help to anyone those heading out.

"If it really gets bad, we'll get in our trucks and we'll drive out," Elizondo said. "Where's the burden in that? We're driving, we're ahead of the storm and there's no one on the road. There's no danger for us."

Water already covered one low-lying road in Freeport near refineries and a listing shrimp boat. The road became an attraction for those who stayed. Truck after truck pulled up, drivers jumping out with video cameras in hand. One woman leaned comically into the wind, smiling for the camera.

"It's going to be fun," Jerry Norton said as he snapped a cell phone image of the flooded road. He said he was sending the picture to his children and grandchildren who fled inland to Austin.

Norton said he had filled his bathtubs with water — for drinking, but also for flushing toilets in case the sewer system breaks down. He bought groceries and secured doors and windows.

"If my stuff is going to get washed away, I'm going to watch it get washed away," Norton said.

Some who stayed behind in Galveston relied on faith. Retiree William Steally, 75, said he was planning to ride it out, but his wife and sister-in-law left Thursday.

"She got scared and they left. I told them I believe in the man up there, God," Steally said as he pointed to the sky. "I believe he will take care of me."

Others quieted their own concerns and rolled with it.

Clarence Romas, a 55-year-old handyman, said he would ride out the storm in his downstairs apartment with friends.

As for the "certain death" warning? "It puts a little fear in my heart," he admitted, "but what's gonna happen is gonna happen."

Ike isn’t important to the legacy media, because it’s hitting where Rita failed to produce adequate carnage, while Gustav, heading back where Katrina became the opportunity to bash Bush, was the chance to push “McSame”.

The only other thing the authorities should have done was to tell people:

We can’t force you to leave, but if you’re going to stay, please take a Sharpie and write your name and address, and the phone number of your next of kin (excluding any others staying behind), on your belly. That will make identifying your corpse easier.

I know I probably sound like a broken record, but the way to conceptualize these evacuations is this analogy:

If there is “only” a 1/6 chance the storm will kill you, and a 5/6 chance of a “false alarm”, it’s exactly the odds for Russian Roulette. And we all think playing that game is stupid.

After New Orleans, Galveston is probably the second-most vulnerable Gulf Coast city to hurricanes. Like New Orleans, Galveston relies on long-sturdy walls to protect its structures.

And like New Orleans, Galveston may soon find out that there's no substitute for elevation.

About 40 percent of the city's 58,000 residents ignored calls to evacuate. And now they're phoning for help and getting this response, "We can't help you." I fear it's going to get quite grim. City Manager Steve LeBlanc went so far as to ask the media not to photograph "certain things" in the aftermath, referring to the possibility of dead bodies.

Galveston's founders, including Gail Borden Jr., the inventor of condensed milk, made a poor decision when siting their burg in 1836. The city rests on a barrier island, essentially a glorified sandbar.

Ever-shifting, barrier islands are transient coastal features. They gradually build up from silt and sand deposited on the coast by inland rivers. The state's barrier islands slowly have died as Texas has dammed up many of its rivers.

Five years ago public officials spent millions of dollars to renourish starving beaches on the western end of Galveston Island, adding acres of shoreline. That summer, a minor hurricane, Claudette, made landfall in Texas near Port O'Connor.

Although the storm only produced about 45 mph winds in Galveston, it stripped away one-third of the new beach. It will all be gone by early tomorrow.

The time for fun and games in Galveston has ended.

I noted on Wednesday night that I couldn't believe that the Galveston mayor hadn't yet called for an evacuation, and she finally did Thursday morning. Still, I feel that emergency planners weren't sufficiently firm in their warnings, leaving that job to the National Weather Service.

Sensing the danger, the weather service was left to writing messages such as, "Persons not heeding evacuation orders in single family one or two story homes will face certain death. Many residences of average construction directly on the coast will be destroyed. Widespread and devastating personal property damage is likely elsewhere."

Unfortunately this may now come to pass on an island where more than 20,000 people remain to ride out a monster hurricane.

Did Southeast Texas escape the worst?
For a lot of residents it sure won't feel like it today, or in the coming weeks or months. But here's a preliminary assessment from University of Texas engineer Gordon Wells. I consider the information to be credible.

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.

Galveston Bay communities: All sensors failed during the rising stage of the surge, so no direct measurements are available. Based on the Galveston gage record, storm surge elevations in the communities along the bay and in the Houston Ship Channel should peak in the range of 12-14 feet.

Port Arthur: The gage at Sabine Pass peaked at 14.24 feet at 02:42 CDT. The Port Arthur gauge, which reports hourly, stood at 11.92 feet at 04:00 CDT and was still rising very gradually. It appears that the storm surge along the Port Arthur seawall will peak between 12 and 13 feet, or 1.5-2.0 feet below the threshold for overtopping. Unless the levee fails before water recedes, Port Arthur will survive Ike.

Comment: Damage from inundation caused by storm surge will be widespread across the region, but should not reach the catastrophic level that would have occurred, if several model predictions materialized. Heavy rains continue across the Houston metropolitan region, and bayou flooding may replace the storm surge threat, but if Ike exits the region on schedule, Southeast Texas will have escaped the worst.

All of this doesn't speak to the potential devastation in Galveston, especially for areas beyond the seawall on the island's west end. That's a story that will continue to unfold for days and weeks.

I’m going to be traveling tomorrow, so I need to run some errands, pack for my trip, etc. In addition, my two alma maters, Notre Dame and USC, both have big games today, against Michigan and Ohio State, respectively. So I’m afraid I won’t be able to provide much aftermath coverage this afternoon and evening.

I recommend the various blogs and local media outlets listed in my sidebar at right. Local sites like the Houston Chronicle staff blog and the CBS 11 and ABC 13 blogs have more and better coverage of the storm’s impact than I could possibly do anyway.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, on the issue of Ike’s weaker-than-expected storm surge — which was destructive but not cataclysmic — Alan Sullivan has a good initial wrap-up post, which he calls the “Lessons of Ike.” He writes:

Let’s talk about coastal flood modeling. That went badly wrong yesterday. I used a common sense analogy to help readers understand how the sea surface deforms during hurricanes with different characteristics. When a hurricane is tightly wound like Charley, striking near Fort Myers, Florida in 2004, its core pulls up the sea like a pimple. When a hurricane is broad and comparatively weak, like Ike yesterday, the surface of the ocean resembles a hive — swelling covers a much larger area, but it has no sharp peak. I don’t know how the forecast models are constructed. I am not a mathematician or a meteorologist. But if the output of a computer defies common sense, it’s usually wiser to ignore the computer.

He then proceeds to discuss the possibility of “built-in bias” in models “devised by and for the government that wants to keep everybody safe from everything.” I’m a bit skeptical of that aspect of his analysis. I would imagine the models are designed to be as accurate as possible, and any “bias” caused by the “nanny state mindset” would come in with the interpretation of the models and dissemination of the model data to the public (see, e.g., “certain death“). I’m certain that the flaw in the modeling, whatever it is, that led to this major error, will be studied and, if possible, corrected. Even taking the most cynical view, false alarms do not advance any “nanny state” agenda. They detract from it, in fact, since they tend to cause people to grow cynical and trust the government’s warnings less. Surely even the most “nannyish” bureaucrat understands that.

But Sullivan’s “common sense” approach definitely has merit. Keep in mind, Sullivan, like me, is not a meteorologist; he’s just an amateur weather buff who likes to blog about hurricanes. It’s difficult and risky to challenge a consensus as strong as yesterday’s “storm surge catastrophe” conventional wisdom, especially when you’re not an “expert,” and all the experts are convinced by the models. So Sullivan deserves a lot of credit for bucking the CW. I was looking at the very same “common sense” facts that he was, but I assumed the experts and models were right, and thus came to the opposite conclusion. I don’t think this was unreasonable on my part — but it was, as it turns out, wrong, whereas Sullivan was right. That counts for something. Indeed, if you’ll indulge me for a moment, allow me to put it in perspective:

Three years ago, I got a bunch of attention in the media for, supposedly, presciently “predicting” Hurricane Katrina’s impact on New Orleans. This made for a good storyline — the 23-year-old law student in Indiana saw it coming, and President Bush didn’t! — but it was mostly nonsense. As I tried repeatedly, and usually in vain, to explain to various reporters, I didn’t really “predict” anything, and certainly nothing unique or extraordinary. I said what everyone “in the know” was saying about the threat to New Orleans; I just said it loudly and repeatedly, got Instalanched, posted frequent and link-rich updates, and ultimately built quite an audience. Sure, I was ahead of the curve as compared to the MSM and some elements of the government, but that’s about as difficult as being the best football team in the ACC. And anyway, countless meteorologists, disaster planners, other bloggers, and assorted weather nuts were just as “ahead of the curve” as I was.

Sullivan’s coverage of Ike is a different story. He truly stuck his neck out, and saw what the pros failed to see — twice.

1. First, at a time when the experts were nearly unanimous that Ike still had an excellent chance of intensifying explosively into a high-end Category 3 or 4, Sullivan dissented. “This is not The Big One — except in size,” he wrote Wednesday evening, predicting a “category one or two” landfall. “If Ike can develop no more than it has over the Loop Current, it will not be spinning suddenly to category four, fifty miles off Galveston.”

On Thursday morning, while many others were still waiting for Ike’s circulation to tighten, and its winds to rise in reaction to its pressure drop the previous night, Sullivan predicted that the storm would retain the “weird” internal structure that was preventing such strengthening. “Hurricanes often develop distinctive individual characteristics and retain them through much of their cycle,” he wrote. He said he doubted the NHC’s “concern that this sprawling system might contract (and thus develop stronger winds) just as it approaches the coast” would come to fruition. “Ike’s damage may be considerable, but it will be scattered and not record-setting in any one locality, IMO.”

On Thursday afternoon, Sullivan called Ike “overhyped,” saying, “The inner core has dissipated. We now have an eyeless hurricane with greatest winds in a ring far from the center. This is not a configuration for strengthening. This is not The Big One.” Gradually, the consensus evolved, and came around to Sullivan’s position: Ike would not strengthen significantly before landfall. This proved true, of course. Ike came ashore as a Category 2 — not the Cat. 4 monster once envisioned by forecasters.

2. Sullivan made his second bold prediction on Friday morning, as experts began to propound a new fear: that Ike, although not a “major hurricane” according to the Saffir-Simpson scale, would nevertheless produce a catastrophic storm surge, more typical of a Category 4 storm. This fear, it should be noted, was not based on “hype” or “hysteria,” but rather, on raw data: an Integrated Kinetic Energy level rarely seen in recorded history, and SLOSH computer models that predicted a storm surge of 15-20 feet — even 25 or 30 feet in some spots — along the vulnerable Texas coast. But, again, Sullivan dissented from the direst of forecasts:

Extreme surge scenarios are being propounded for this storm. I suspect we will learn that they are excessive. Ike is too broad and weak to follow models based on the tight core structure of a normal hurricane. The danger will arise not so much from the height and speed of surge; but from its duration, and the immense wave heights built in the huge storm. I do not believe any location will be as severely affected as Mobile Bay in Katrina, where surge heights really did exceed twenty feet. But the lesser surge of Ike will be spread along a much greater length of coast. It will be very destructive.

Analogy: The elevation of ocean surface resembles a pimple in a typical hurricane. Ike’s deformation of the sea will resemble a hive — broader and flatter.

Sullivan urged evacuation of vulnerable coastal areas, but described the National Weather Service’s “certain death” pronouncement as “over the top.” He also rejected commenter Steve Sadlov’s comparisons of Ike to a Gulf of Alaska storm or, worse, the North Sea flood of 1953. “But… it’s not all piling up in one place,” Sullivan wrote. “Remember my analogy: this is a hive, not a pimple.” Even as the advance storm surge, hundreds of miles from the storm’s center, seemed to confirm everyone else’s worst fears, Sullivan stuck to his guns. “I still doubt the extreme projections for surge height,” he wrote at 2:06 PM yesterday. “People have never seen the ocean rise before a hurricane, but this is a storm in a class by itself.”

A couple of hours later, Sullivan did say that “we may be looking at the most expensive hurricane in history,” and his concern grew last night. “Galveston will probably be a total loss,” he wrote. But he added that he still wasn’t “buying” the direst scenarios. “The trouble,” he wrote, was not the height of the surge itself, but “the track: right front of eye coming straight at the mouth of Houston Ship Channel — at high tide.” As he later explained:

When it appeared for a few hours that landfall would be 20-30 miles SW of where it actually was — and I was fully persuaded of that — I was alarmed about Houston. This was the one place where I thought it was possible that model heights might be better justified. If the course of the eye had held NW for longer, onshore wind would have kept piling surge into the mouth of the bay, while flooding rains fell inland.

But as soon as it became apparent the eye was coming right over Galveston, that concern was alleviated.

Bottom line: Sullivan never bought into the computer model scenarios. He trusted his “common sense.” The rest of us trusted the models. We were wrong. He was right.

Importantly, Sullivan’s wrap-up post explicitly endorses the wisdom of evacuations, and chides those who failed to get out of harm’s way:

No matter what the controversies about models or codes, when a hurricane approaches, coastal residents should secure their property and leave, if they live in flood zones or flimsy buildings. What good is the security of a brick house, if it is only one story high, and water fills it to the ceiling? What protection is a mobile home on high ground, when the big pine blows on top of it?

This, too, is a matter of “common sense,” he says. Indeed.

For what it’s worth, I stand by everything I have posted here on Ike. I believe the information I disseminated, and the warnings I relayed, were accurate and reasonable at the time I posted them. And that, as I know Sullivan would agree, is the only standard by which statements about hurricanes can be fairly evaluated: the standard of contemporaneous reasonableness, not 20/20 hindsight. I don’t believe my dire warnings about Ike’s potential were “hype,” so long as they are understood as just that: warnings about potential, not statements of certainties.

Alan and I looked at the same information and interpreted it differently. I think both interpretations were plausible, and I think I stated things reasonably. As it turns out, though, my interpretation (and nearly everyone else’s) was correct, and Sullivan’s was incorrect. So kudos to him. *tips cap*

Boring! Roll on Hurricane Jaja for a bit more entertainment. Who says we have become desensitised?