ATL: IKE Discussion

[PTPatrick]

from HOU CHRON:As Hurricane Ike pushed a swelling surge onto Galveston Island tonight, many Galveston residents who ignored a mandatory evacuation order phoned for rescues to no avail because emergency workers were called off the streets, officials said.
Help wasn't expected until after dangerous storm conditions subsided.
"We don't know what we're going to find tomorrow," said the city's mayor, Lyda Ann Thomas. "We hope we'll find that the people who didn't leave here are alive and well."
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.
Power was out all across the island, much of which already had flooded. Two house fires are burning, as did a boat warehouse that was widely photographed earlier today.
Power lines are down, he said, and it may be weeks before it can be restored. Assessment teams will get out Saturday morning after the storm. Fifty people were rescued from high water and about 260 are in a shelter at Ball High School.
LeBlanc said he didn't know how long it would take before evacuated residents could return. The city may briefly allow them back in to check on their homes, but will then ask them to leave again until the city is safe.
"We feel the city of Galveston will have suffered from this storm," she said.
Power outages extended across the Houston area, well beyond the coast but mainly south of Interstate 10 as of 11 p.m., CenterPoint Energy spokesman Floyd LeBlanc said. At least 510,000 customers were without electricity, with outages ranging as far northwest as Jersey Village and northeast as Humble.
Entergy Texas, which services communities to the east of Houston, had about 29,300 customers without power at 9 p.m. Friday night, according to spokeswoman Debi Derrick. The company said it would be the last update until Saturday morning.
Galveston ordered an 8 p.m. curfew because 40 percent of the city's 58,000 residents ignored calls to evacuate. The curfew ends at 5 a.m. Saturday but will continue along the same schedule for Galveston and Pelican Island through Monday morning.
"We're going to make sure these homes are safe when they return," said Thomas, the mayor.
Earlier today, LeBlanc expressed dismay that so much of the city's population remained behind to ride out the storm.
''It's unfortunate that the warning we sent out — the mayor's mandatory evacuation — was not heeded,'' he said.
By comparison, nearly 100 percent of Galveston left the island during Hurricane Rita, just three years ago.
Galveston Island was the site of the nation's deadliest natural disaster the hurricane of 1900, which claimed at least 6,000 lives.

[Extremeweatherguy]

The Weather Channel's Mike Bettis is getting pounded in Clear Lake right now. His last report featured winds that could easily be gusting to near hurricane force. It looked nasty!

[Deathray]

People were claiming a previous wobble was also a shift to the East, but it was a repositioning of the center, and shortly after, the center shifted back west... need some time

[cycloneye]

I turned on CNN to see whats going on with the Hurricane and we're talking about the presidential race!

Geraldo is just sensationalizing the situation. His job is to get the ratings. A lot of mis-information being thrown out from Fox. Shep said we were minutes from landfall and this was like before 10 pm CST. Geraldo swearing they are getting Cat 3 winds and he is standing like it's no big deal. This is false info from our FOX Friends.

You have to switch to The Weather Channel as is doing a great job covering Ikes landfall.

[soonertwister]

Thats not parts of the seawall. Below that wall (vacation there every year) its about 12-15 feet down and at the base of that wall is piles of rocks from small to large. I've see those broken rocks all over the road throughout the day. I'm pretty sure thats not sewall.

I could be wrong but i don't think so.

I don't want to be argumentative, but what I was shown looked like about a one-foot piece of asphalt, not a rock.

My bad. When he said Seawall, he must have met Seawall blvd which is the street he is on. Sorry for the misunderstanding. Pretty sure that seawall won't breech.

That makes sense, and I guess I didn't make myself clear either. It was roadway surface (or looked so to me), so that wouldn't have been the seawall itself.

[El Verde]

Geraldo's false and over dramatic reporting tonight is a disgrace, and serves no purpose other then getting ratings.

This is why you should always get your information from official sources.

Tonight? Every night for the past 20 years.

[WxGuy1]

People were claiming a previous wobble was also a shift to the East, but it was a repositioning of the center, and shortly after, the center shifted back west... need some time

That is true. However, in this case, a single wobble could be the difference between billions of dollars of damage in Galveston and around Houston. There is a huge difference in surge between the area right (northeast) of the eye compared to the area left (southwest) of the eye. It's so close to Galveston, a single wobble for an hour one way or the other means the difference between being the horrendous rightward side of the storm or the relatively weaker leftward side of the storm.

[jinftl]

TWC estimates 33 miles to center of eye reaching shore...

[capepoint]

TWC was showing graphic reporting surge levels. As of 10:00 mouth of bay was reporting over 9 feet of surge.

[fasterdisaster]

Surge is now too high to register, as no number showed up when the east side of the bay showed 9.4 feet. I'd guess it's around 11 or a little higher feet right now. Going to be increasing rapidly for the next 2-3 hours.

[kurtpage]

Yes...the emergency shelter is Galveston Ball High School...ironically, their mascot is the Golden Tornados...

I bet if this keeps up that the NHC will adjust the intensity to Cat 3 after evaluations....

[Extremeweatherguy]

KHOU live feed just showed some impressive shots of wind blowing through downtown Houston right now. Those 60mph gusts reported at Hobby airport 50 minutes ago are probably now reaching that area.

[fasterdisaster]

TWC was showing graphic reporting surge levels. As of 10:00 mouth of bay was reporting over 9 feet of surge.

This was the east end, Galveston island is considerably higher and doesn't register.

[johngaltfla]

KHOU live feed just showed some impressive shots of wind blowing through downtown Houston right now. Those 60mph gusts reported at Hobby airport 50 minutes ago are probably now reaching that area.

The KHOU feed is excellent. They were warning people in Downtown Houston about the winds being accelerated between the buildings earlier.

This is going to be bad gang. Godspeed Texas.

[Deathray]

That is true. However, in this case, a single wobble could be the difference between billions of dollars of damage in Galveston and around Houston. There is a huge difference in surge between the area right (northeast) of the eye compared to the area left (southwest) of the eye. It's so close to Galveston, a single wobble for an hour one way or the other means the difference between being the horrendous rightward side of the storm or the relatively weaker leftward side of the storm.

True enough... I'm not arguing the impact of a wobble at this point, just saying that it has wobbled one way then wobbled back the other way

Plus... I think it still needs to wobble about 30-40 miles NE to save Galveston (heard that from the NHC report earlier in the day)

[fasterdisaster]

Emergency personnel pulled early, everyone's on their own from here on out.

[jinftl]

There could be quite an extended calmer period of that large eye moves over galveston....dumb question....does surge rush out during the time when winds calm down or do waves still pound and difficult to notice appreciable drop...then the right eye wall moves over

[soonertwister]

A Galveston police lieutenant just reported that they've gone out on 4-wheel vehicles and boats and made roughly 200-250 rescues of people requesting help tonight, those who they could reach.

[Deathray]

A Galveston police lieutenant just reported that they've gone out on 4-wheel vehicles and boats and made roughly 200-250 rescues of people requesting help tonight, those who they could reach.

And 10's of thousands decided to stick around...

[kurtpage]

There could be quite an extended calmer period of that large eye moves over galveston....dumb question....does surge rush out during the time when winds calm down or do waves still pound and difficult to notice appreciable drop...then the right eye wall moves over

I wish that I could answer this, but I can not with difinity answer it. If I were guessing, the waves still stay...the wind and rain are lessened during this time....

Once again just my guess...