Before the bad news, here's a nice fun image of the happy side of storms:
Enjoy it? Good, because things look really fucked up.
So, just woke up, straight on to the Batman-multi-screen Houston feed channel.
First thing's first. Anything at the moment is still speculation. Until daybreak in Houston six hours from now, we won't know anything concrete. Ike has now just landfall, and the eye is just moving over Galveston island now. Galveston is flooded, but to what extent no one knows. The reporters are on the tall hotels next to the sea wall, which is the third highest bit of Galveston aside from the 'building of last refuge' which is the High School and St Louie hotel at the highest point which is booked by emergency services. The latter St Louie hotel does have waist high water in the basement.
The big storm surge still hasn't hit yet, storm surges are pushed in front of a hurricane but they're also dragged, and when the wind directions switch on the other side of an eye, that's when the nasty stuff piles up.
Forecast is an 18ft-20ft Galveston Bay storm surge - this isn't a seawall/gulf water surge, this is the water that's being pushed from the big bay behind and onto land. So whether the wall is overtopped or not is sort of a moot point when it comes to flooding, the only thing the seawall overtop would add is battering-ram force waves.
About seven hours ago... 18-20ft surge to come...
Here's Brendan Loy's latest update:
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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.]
So far no one has gone against the estimate of 40% of Galveston not evacuating. And worse news when a Houston official stated that he figured the percentage was the same for the storm surge zones around the rest of Galveston bay and the Houston fringe.
Houblog:
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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.
No idea if that's true or not. Personally, I can't imagine that many people being that stupid and my hunch would be exageration. But these are figures that are being bandied about a lot. What's certain is that there's a lot of annecodtal evidence of people staying. So there's at least a significant number in the thousands scattered around the bay who have chosen to ride it out.
Interviews from Fox news: (Yes, I know. Fox. Ugh.)
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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."
What? What the fuck?
'Mr Monster' has an excellent comment on the blog which echoes frustrations at the national media response and at the retards who have chosen to stay:
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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.
I have to say though, me and the hurricane blogging community are really impressed by the local Houston media. Currently a big restaurant fire and the Marina fire in Galveston are dominating in lieu of concrete information. At least three fires in the city. KPRC.com guy Robert Arnold on the scene worries that the water is getting dangerously near the top of the seawall, and the highest point San Louie Hotel, the water has now reached. I'm unsure if this is big wave splash coming over the wall, or bay water. Lots of unsure reports. The theorising is good though, and they seem to know the gravity of the situation. They're really delivering the message on the storm surge. So while CNN and MSBC and the other big channels fuck up and keep going on about 'category 2' and mouse-squeak warnings, the local channels are at least doing their job. I worry about how many stayed because they stuck with the underplayed, weak-coverage, 'let's grill Palin instead' style coverage.
Again, here's the brilliant Maroon Spoon 4-local-news-channel feed:
http://www.maroonspoon.com/wx/ike.htmlWeathernerd blog: (Lots of links in a side panel)
http://pajamasmedia.com/weathernerd/Dr Jeff Masters:
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.htmlHouston Chronicle Weather expert, forecaster and blogger Eric Berger:
http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/Last word from Eric:
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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.
Seven hours more of at least tropical storm winds, eye of hurricane will leave Galveston in 15 minutes roughly, then its back to the pounding.
I'm going to be away from computers - going cold turkey - and be unable to update until I get home tonight. Lave, if you or any others want to root around and put stuff up here, feel free. Cheers y'all.