Hurricane Ike Recovery

Discuss the recovery and aftermath of landfalling hurricanes. Please be sensitive to those that have been directly impacted. Political threads will be deleted without notice. This is the place to come together not divide.

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southerngale
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Re: Hurricane Ike Recovery

#21 Postby southerngale » Mon Oct 27, 2008 1:13 am

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Re: Hurricane Ike Recovery

#22 Postby bvigal » Wed Oct 29, 2008 8:12 am

:cry: And how many remain homeless? How many still without power? How many still waiting to go back to work at businesses that remain closed?

A search of recent related national news stories this morning found mostly stories of local elected officials blasting FEMA, but little about the massive extent of the damage and the ongoing effect upon local communities, the human side. The national media definitely has its own agenda (influencing the election), which doesn't include the 3rd-most damaging hurricane in US history! And of course, for most Americans, if it isn't on the 10 minutes of soundbites at the top of the news, it doesn't exist. I did find one heartbreaking article by Galvestonian who writes for Lexington, KY paper:
http://www.kentucky.com/181/story/569661.html

My sympathies and prayers continue for all those struggling in so many ways after this historic storm.
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Re: Hurricane Ike Recovery

#23 Postby GalvestonDuck » Wed Oct 29, 2008 3:35 pm

Someone sent me a link to that article yesterday. Believe me, when I go to Lexington at Christmas, I'm gonna track her down and give her a piece of my mind. That headline is ridiculous.
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Re: Hurricane Ike Recovery

#24 Postby Ed Mahmoud » Thu Nov 13, 2008 2:02 pm

Two months later, and still about 15 windows on Williams Tower (East side of the building, various floors) still have plywood in them.


The side that faces my window had no apparent damage.
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Re: Hurricane Ike Recovery

#25 Postby jinftl » Sat Nov 15, 2008 11:07 pm

What the map shows....and this is no way, shape, or form a challenge to the severity of Ike...i am first off only mentioning the wind component, not the catastrophic surge....and even Cat 1 winds across a large metro area can wreak widespread damage and havoc....but i think at least on my part, I have been erroneously visualizing the radius of stated hurricane force and ts force winds as something of a uniform circle of that radius coming from the eye.

Perhaps this is a function of the effect of land...plus the error in interpreting that 'up to 125 miles' is implying a uniform radius on all quadrants of 125 miles of hurricane force winds from the eye....

...but that said, it is something of a 'misstep' to go that extra 'step' of figuring there will be...or was... a 250 mile diameter band of sustained hurricane force winds around ike as he moved onshore....the map shows that wasn't even close to the case....just as the observations from land didn't reflect the stated radius either. There were many reports from mets on tv, though, pretty much stating the '250 mile-wide band of sustained hurricane winds and the 520-mile wide swath of sustained ts winds' would be moving onshore with ike.


For example,

At 6am....Ike was 15 miles ene of Houston Intercontinental....advisory stated hurricane force winds extend outward up to 125 miles from the center....Houton Intercontinental reported gust to 82 mph right before advisory position update...


AT 600 AM CDT...1100Z...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE IKE WAS LOCATED NEAR
LATITUDE 30.1 NORTH...LONGITUDE 95.1 WEST OR JUST NORTHEAST OF
KINGWOOD TEXAS. THIS POSITION IS ABOUT 15 MILES... 25 KM...
EAST-NORTHEAST OF HOUSTON INTERCONTINENTAL AIRPORT...AND ABOUT
80 MILES...130 KM...SOUTH-SOUTHWEST OF LUFKIN TEXAS.

HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 125 MILES...205 KM...FROM
THE CENTER...AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 260
MILES...415 KM. HURRICANE-FORCE WINDS ARE LIKELY TO OCCUR WELL
INLAND NEAR AND TO THE EAST OF THE CENTER. PORT ARTHUR TEXAS
RECENTLY REPORTED A WIND GUST OF 91 MPH...146 KM/HR...WHILE HOUSTON
INTERCONTINENTAL AIRPORT RECENTLY REPORTED A WIND GUST OF 82
MPH...131 KM/HR.


At 10am....Ike was 35 miles wsw of Lufkin....advisory stated hurricane force winds extend outward up to 45 miles from the center....Lufkin reported a gust to 56 mph close to the advisory update.

AT 1000 AM CDT...1500Z...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE IKE WAS LOCATED
NEAR LATITUDE 31.0 NORTH...LONGITUDE 95.3 WEST OR NEAR TRINITY
TEXAS. THIS POSITION IS ALSO ABOUT 20 MILES...35 KM...
NORTH-NORTHEAST OF HUNTSVILLE TEXAS...AND ABOUT 35 MILES...60 KM...
WEST-SOUTHWEST OF LUFKIN TEXAS.

HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 45 MILES...75 KM...FROM
THE CENTER...AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 230
MILES...370 KM. A WIND GUST TO 56 MPH...91 KM/HR...WAS REPORTED...


This is not a outcome exclusive to ike....it seems that often with landfalling storms of all intensities, the stated 'up to' radius of sustained hurricane and ts winds that may be found over water...are more of a 'max' radius, not a uniform circle around the eye. Add in land interaction, and the wind field is usually not as wide as stated, or uniform on all sides of the eye.


southerngale wrote:Image
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Re: Hurricane Ike Recovery

#26 Postby vbhoutex » Wed Nov 19, 2008 10:28 am

Read a little closer. It states "up to". It does not state that hurricane force winds extend 125 miles from the center in all directions. Same with TS force winds. Winds in any storm, much less a tropical cyclone are capricious at best and certainly not uniform in distribution. Having gone through several Hurricanes and many Tropical Storms in my 54 years on the Gulf coast has made that abundantly clear. Winds in Hurricanes are in streaks not in a uniform circle. There are way too many factors that affect whether TS or Hurrricane force wind make it to the surface in one area and not in another. About the only time you will find any uniformity in the winds is if you are in the eyewall of a Hurricane and that is even somewhat of a misstatement, but that is the closest you will find to uniformity of winds in any tropical cyclone.
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Re: Hurricane Ike Recovery

#27 Postby southerngale » Wed Nov 26, 2008 12:36 pm

It's just so sad. You want to go back in time and ask them, "WHY are you staying?" :( They gave us plenty of warning about how bad it would be.
Ike Victim's ID Confirmed

November 25, 2008 - 4:30 PM
posted by: Scott Lawrence
(News release from Chambers County Sheriff's Office)

The Chambers County Sheriff's Office has received confirmation that the human remains recovered from a debris field in southern Chambers County on November 2, 2008, is that of Jennifer McLemore, a 50 year old female who went missing when Hurricane Ike made landfall on September 12, 2008.

Chambers County Sheriff Joe LaRive stated that the Jefferson County Forensic Center, working with other agencies, made the positive identification through a comparison of dental records. Ms. McLemore showed an address on Seagull Street in Gilchrist, Texas.

The location where her body was found was some 12½ miles northwest of where her residence stood before the storm.

Chambers County Officials, along with state and federal agencies continue to comb through debris fields, covering some 80 square miles, in search of other possible victims.

"Our goal is to continue to bring closure to the families of missing victims of Hurricane Ike", stated Sheriff LaRive.
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Re: Hurricane Ike Recovery

#28 Postby GalvestonDuck » Thu Nov 27, 2008 12:29 pm

She was a UTMB employee. Unfortunately, UTMB gave us a "business as usual" message on the Tuesday before the storm and then "we're keeping on eye on it" on Wednesday. We still had to report to work on Thursday according to the higher ups and would be released at noon if necessary. Then, on Thursday morning, after we were all already there, they announced that they were evacuating the patients and that non-essential employees should secure their work areas (files, computers, etc) and then leave and not report back until they heard from their supervisors.

Also, she was a Gilchrist resident, so I would have hoped she was already prepared and only had to finalize her plans to leave the peninsula. Maybe she didn't plan to stay, but because we were at work until Thursday (yeah, not really an excuse since she could do things in the evenings -- I did), maybe she didn't have as much time as she could have. Heck, when Rita was approaching, we were excused from work on Tuesday, so we had an extra two days. Perhaps by the time she was ready to leave, it was early Friday and the water had already started to rise long before the storm arrived.

I don't know. I can't offer excuses. I just know that UTMB's timing was off this time. We had two fewer days off from work to prepare and evacuate. Furthermore, not everyone knows to read the NHC's advisories. The local news didn't seem to make as big of a deal about the surge threat as the NHC did in the beginning. I had to read it to a lot of people. All they seemed to hear from the news was "Landfall as a Category 2 on Saturday morning."

A lot of employees have time off now.... :grr:
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Re: Hurricane Ike Recovery

#29 Postby Shoshana » Thu Dec 04, 2008 1:30 am

I have a friend who works at UTMB - he doesn't live on Galveston but does live close. We were emailing back and forth trying to figure out where he was going to take his family and when. They weren't going to Dallas like they did for Rita cause that was a mess. At one point they planned to stay with us I think that was Wednesday. But then Ike was forecast right then to come in south of Galveston and head towards Central Texas - here. Just like Rita was forecast.

I told him to find somewhere safe in Houston. I was afraid (if the forecast was right) he'd be racing the hurricane here. He listened to me - his extended family got a suite in one of the downtown Houston hotels and it worked out well because he was able to go home the next morning without any problem to find that the worst damage was to his DirectTV dish.

But I remember being appalled that they had to work till practically the night before the hurricane was forecast to hit.
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Re: Hurricane Ike Recovery

#30 Postby wxman57 » Tue Dec 16, 2008 9:39 am

Remember, the wind radii in the NHC marine advisories are ONLY for marine use. That is, the radii only apply to the wind field over water. Terrain will reduce the wind speeds a good 20% or more. And the radii stated are the maximum that a particular wind might be seen from the center. And Ike's hurricane force wind field was never stated to be 250nm wide. Hurricane force winds extended out a MAX of 125nm to the northeast and east of the center about 6-12 hours prior to landfall. Don't assume they extended 125nm west of the center. That wasn't the case. As Ike neared the coast, its radius of max winds dropped from about 80nm to 40nm and the wind field contracted. I measured hurricane force winds out to about 75-80nm east of the center - OVER WATER. Frictional effects of land significantly reduced that distance as the center moved ashore.

Here's an example of a hurricane passage across southwest Houston (Ike). The western eyewall was intensifying as Ike passed. This station was toward the outer edge of the eyewall, not far from my home. Note how variable the wind is over land. The reports were taken every 10 minutes, so there may have been peaks a little higher in spots (sustained and gusts). It's certainly not a steady increase in winds as a hurricane approaches. One minute the wind will blow 40 mph, the next 70 mph.

Image
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Re: Hurricane Ike Recovery

#31 Postby wxman57 » Tue Dec 16, 2008 9:42 am

Shoshana wrote:... snip

But I remember being appalled that they had to work till practically the night before the hurricane was forecast to hit.


Preparing a hospital for a hurricane is a lot of work. They can't just let all the employees go home because of a hurricane. The patients' safety has to come first. Some of us had to work right through the hurricane (like me, being the lead hurricane forecaster). We had 50 people riding out Ike in our main office and about 20 here at our office - just 8 miles from western Galveston Bay.
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Re: Hurricane Ike Recovery

#32 Postby GalvestonDuck » Tue Dec 16, 2008 10:56 am

True. If what I heard was correct, there were 500 employees who stayed here at UTMB through the storm. They said it was hell.
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Re: Hurricane Ike Recovery

#33 Postby swampdude » Wed Jan 07, 2009 11:28 pm

I am very happy to say that we are finally back in our house. Ike's storm surge flooded our entire city of Bridge City, Texas. 3,800 houses in the city and the city's count was that only 18 of them stayed dry! We were in the "wet" group with 28 inches of water in the house. We were fortunate as I entered several of my friends homes where I, (at 6' of height) was looking up to see water marks on walls and ceilings. Bridge City had never flooded in the past 100 years. 0ur school district has done a phenomenal job of getting our schools open and operating. 0ur city and county officials have performed admirably. FEMA gets very fluctuating marks from good to outtright ridiculous but any federal program seems to be less than competent. State Farm has been great, Allstate is horrible and all other insurances fall somewhere between. I hope the rest of our neighbors in Bridge City, West Orange, and Orange are back in their homes soon. 8-)
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#34 Postby CajunMama » Thu Jan 08, 2009 12:38 am

Great news swampdude! Do you have pics of your damage that you could share with us? Please!
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Re: Hurricane Ike Recovery

#35 Postby southerngale » Fri Jan 09, 2009 4:32 pm

swampdude wrote:I am very happy to say that we are finally back in our house. Ike's storm surge flooded our entire city of Bridge City, Texas. 3,800 houses in the city and the city's count was that only 18 of them stayed dry! We were in the "wet" group with 28 inches of water in the house. We were fortunate as I entered several of my friends homes where I, (at 6' of height) was looking up to see water marks on walls and ceilings. Bridge City had never flooded in the past 100 years. 0ur school district has done a phenomenal job of getting our schools open and operating. 0ur city and county officials have performed admirably. FEMA gets very fluctuating marks from good to outtright ridiculous but any federal program seems to be less than competent. State Farm has been great, Allstate is horrible and all other insurances fall somewhere between. I hope the rest of our neighbors in Bridge City, West Orange, and Orange are back in their homes soon. 8-)


swampdude... so glad you're back in your house. I didn't even know you were flooded by Ike's surge. I knew you lived around there somewhere, but I didn't remember it was Bridge City specifically. Sorry to hear what you've been through, but glad you're getting back on your feet. We have some friends who live in Bridge City who lost everything. They have been staying near where I now live since Ike, and they just got utilities to their FEMA trailer about a week or two ago. They started moving into it then and are planning to rebuild their home. It was a total loss.
Ike was such a nightmare... I hope y'all were able to save a lot of your personal belongings. And the most important thing... thank God you're ok!
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Re: Hurricane Ike Recovery

#36 Postby GalvestonDuck » Wed Feb 04, 2009 11:34 am

Amazing....

The stupid ice storm in KY is still in the national news eight days later. Ike was gone from the national news just four days after landfall.

And I've since lost the most irreplacable thing in my life. When the next storm strikes Galveston, I'm staying put!
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Re: Hurricane Ike Recovery

#37 Postby Ed Mahmoud » Mon Feb 09, 2009 2:41 pm

Speaking of Galveston getting back to normal, has the Flagship Hotel fishing pier or one of the other fishing piers been repaired yet?
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Re: Hurricane Ike Recovery

#38 Postby GalvestonDuck » Tue Feb 10, 2009 10:00 am

As far as I know, the end of the pier where everyone fishes is okay although I believe the bait/refreshment shack perished. But the driving ramp that leads from the 25th Street/Seawall intersection onto the pier is still a crumbled mess and the Flagship Hotel has not been repaired (although some squatters made it inside and took refuge in the vacant hotel post-Ike). There is a small ramp that one *could* walk on to get up to the pier. But it all appears to be off-limits for now.

So, as far as repairs go -- no, it hasn't been repaired yet. However, if they did allow people to walk up the smaller ramp, I don't see why a person couldn't fish out there. I think the biggest part of the battle is that the original owner is still dealing with legal issues from Katrina (he double-billed rooms and billed for rooms that were vacant) and the soon-to-be-new owner (Tillman Fertitta) is not willing to pay for repairs since he hasn't taken over full ownership yet.
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Re: Hurricane Ike Recovery

#39 Postby Ed Mahmoud » Tue Feb 10, 2009 11:03 pm

GalvestonDuck wrote:As far as I know, the end of the pier where everyone fishes is okay although I believe the bait/refreshment shack perished. But the driving ramp that leads from the 25th Street/Seawall intersection onto the pier is still a crumbled mess and the Flagship Hotel has not been repaired (although some squatters made it inside and took refuge in the vacant hotel post-Ike). There is a small ramp that one *could* walk on to get up to the pier. But it all appears to be off-limits for now.

So, as far as repairs go -- no, it hasn't been repaired yet. However, if they did allow people to walk up the smaller ramp, I don't see why a person couldn't fish out there. I think the biggest part of the battle is that the original owner is still dealing with legal issues from Katrina (he double-billed rooms and billed for rooms that were vacant) and the soon-to-be-new owner (Tillman Fertitta) is not willing to pay for repairs since he hasn't taken over full ownership yet.


Mi suegro and I like to go fishing. Sometime we surf fished in Jamaica Beach at my wife's grandad's house. "Popo" and I get along easier than I do with my father-in-law, he is just an easier going personality. He tries not to show it, but losing the beach house has hurt him, and with the open beaches law, he isn't sure he can rebuild.

My father in law was sort of cool to me when I was dating and then newlywed, but he is slowly warming to me. Almost nine years later. But if the Flagship is still closed, how is the other fishing pier doing?

BTW, 60 miles from the Gulf, this week, people in my neighborhood still have roofers working, still some blue tarp houses. 5 months after the fact.
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Re: Hurricane Ike Recovery

#40 Postby GalvestonDuck » Wed Feb 11, 2009 11:00 am

The other fishing pier was destroyed.

I'd take a blue tarped mobile home shack with no electricity or running water if I could go back a month and a half in time.
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