Glenn Wilson

Via email:

This is an actual sign posted off Bunker Hill in West Houston. One must keep a sense of humor during tough times....

Power outages dropped to 114,000 customers Monday as crews worked block-by-block to repair transformers and lines serving individual homes and businesses.

At 9 p.m. Monday, 5 percent of CenterPoint Energy's 2.3 million customers were without electricity 17 days after Hurricane Ike knocked nearly everybody in the greater Houston area off the grid.

Early Monday, the transmission company announced all major line repairs were complete, but CenterPoint spokesman Floyd LeBlanc said later that crews were still wrangling with isolated problems among its 91,000 line fuses.
About 114,000 sit powerless as new issues pop up

Labels: Hurricane Ike

Ike made landfall about two weeks ago. The Laura Recovery Center lists over 300 people still missing in its database.

People reporting missing after Hurricane Ike, from a database by the Laura Recovery Center.
(from a comment):

This is the first I've heard about people trying to find the hundreds and hundreds of people who were on the coast for the storm, specifically on Bolivar, who aren't there any more.

Ike's missing

"We expect to see a huge improvement in outage count by the end of the weekend," CenterPoint spokesman Floyd LeBlanc said Friday when about 377,000 customers of 2.3 million still were without power because of Hurricane Ike.
Most may see power by Sunday

Warren Adams insists that there is nothing special about the way the home was constructed. It was built to Galveston County code, he said, which anticipates 130-mile-per-hour winds on the seaward side of the county.

But the elevation may have helped. Adams said he built high, in part, to get a break on flood insurance. The home sits 15 feet above ground.

"The piece of land my house is sitting on was probably one of the highest above sea level in the area, about 8 or 9 feet above sea level before we even started the house," he said. "I think the house is about 16 inches higher than it needs to be."
Ike obliterated most homes, but spared one on Church Street

Swimming in the shimmering Gulf of Mexico may seem inviting this weekend, especially after long hours spent cleaning homes, but people should say out of the water, said Peter Davis, chief of Galveston Island Beach Patrol.

Davis said an order prohibiting swimming in the Gulf that Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas issued soon after the storm remains in effect. It may be rescinded next week after water quality experts and debris removal teams assess the Gulf near the Seawall.

Ike swept debris as well as possible hazardous materials into the water, Davis said. Much of the debris is partially buried in the sandy Gulf bottom and is exposed at low tide. Concrete chunks, steel pipes, bushes, trees and other debris litter the sand.
Galvestonians warned to stay out of water

Labels: Hurricane Ike

GALVESTON, Texas — Thousands of Galveston residents are back on their island city — many for the first time since fleeing Hurricane Ike nearly two weeks ago.

Residents return to Galveston after Ike

"We were driving the other day and I said I can't look at it. It makes me want to throw up. It's so disturbing," Castillo said.

Roughly 75 percent of Galveston's homes are uninhabitable. There is limited sewage facilities and few medical services. Rats and snakes have infested the city's ruins. And the city is under a 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. curfew.

Roughly 75 Percent of Galveston's Homes Are Uninhabitable

Labels: Hurricane Ike

Labels: Hurricane Ike

Aside 1: I ran some errands earlier today and passed two gas stations. They were both open with no wait for gas.

Aside 2: A comment on this article Life and death after Ike says:

I have been in Houston for 6 weeks, and rode throught the Hurricane without damage. There is a lot of damage around, and unreported, there has been a huge loss in the bird population.

What struck me was how well everyone has behaved.

In Houston before the Hurricane, it was stated that emergency services would stop answering to calls when the wind speed reached 50 mph. I heard police and fire sirens at 3:30, when wind speed peaked at 90 mph. At that speed, branches and signs (from the frontage of shops) become deadly.

People with generators have hooked them to their own, and neighbors, refrigerators.

Supermarkets placed power points outside so that people could charge their cell phones.

As I waited in line for a supermarket to open, people with working phones lent them to people without.

May traffic lights are without power, the motorists automatically treated them as four way stops, allowing cyclists like me, to cross unhindered and in turn.

People down here been wonderful.

And I agree, people have behaved quite nicely.

Safe Room
Anyway, Safe Rooms. You need to have one if you are going to ride out a hurricane in case a window is broken and glass is flying all about, or a tornado forms near you, or a tree falls on the house or simply, for peace of mind. Ours is a deep closet under the stairs. We lined the floor with couch cushions and spent some of the night in there when the winds got bad and the big oak tree in front was dancing around. We had a battery powered radio and could listen to a TV station's updates on the storm progress and status.

Our cats Simon and Schuster rode out the storm with us. When the storm was at its worse we had them with us in the safe room. They were locked into their cat carriers so we did not have to close the door or scramble to find them if something happened. We have two carriers that are the same and they were each in one. Well, Schuster just cried up a storm about being locked up. Meow. Meow. MEOW! MEOW! Nonstop.

After a while when the winds died down and we could not stand it anymore we opened up the cat carriers and let them both out. Simon left the safe room to investigate what he had missed. Schuster ran over to the other carrier, got inside, laid down and started purring. I guess he wanted to be in ther other (identical) carrier?

Labels: Hurricane Ike

Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble
And if I stay it will be double
So you gotta let me know
Should I stay or should I go?

Should I Stay or Should I Go? - The Clash

But in a bid to avoid the panicked response to Hurricane Rita in 2005, in which 110 people were killed in the evacuation compared to only nine in the storm, Houstonians were told to board up their windows, clear their rooms of furniture and stock up on food and water.
Hurricane Ike: Houston residents ordered not to evacuate as deadly storm hits

I live in an area that was not under a mandatory evacuation order. In fact, we were requested to not evacuate to keep the roads clear for those in low lying areas (the mandatory evacuation areas). Isn't that insane? Don't evacuate? Actually, it is a very reasoned, thoughtful approach:

Authorities confirmed a total of nine deaths in the Houston metropolitan area, all from post-storm debris-clearing work, house fires or carbon monoxide poisoning by generator use.
Ike's US Toll Hits 51

On the other hand many people in low lying areas that were subject to storm surge that were under a mandatory evacuation order chose to stay put:

After hurricane Ike pushed churning floodwaters 30 miles onto the so-called "Cajun prairie" of southwest Louisiana, National Guard and other rescue crews fought the elements for three days before reaching some 200 oil rig roughnecks, fishermen, and cattle farmers who ignored evacuation orders.

What rescuers found is an image that will confound and concern emergency managers everywhere after a historic storm where an estimated 140,000 people ignored dire warnings of "certain death" in the storm's path.
Defying Ike: Why 140,000 stayed behind

I think the Houston area approach towards evacuation was pretty good but we need to improve at getting people to leave (or get help to leave if that is what is needed) in mandatory evacuation areas and we need to get better at keeping people from killing themselves with generators and power tools after the storm.

Labels: Hurricane Ike

Some Photo and Video Collections:
Pre- and Post-Storm Photo Comparisons - Bolivar Peninsula, TX

IKE BLASTS HOUSTON, GALVESTON


DEVASTATION ON THE BOLIVAR PENINSULA

Interview with Storm Survivor Frank Sherman and other footage from KHOU.com

Liveblog note: As of 1:17 the number of confirmed dead in Texas from Ike now stands at 23. I believe this does not include the dead friends of Frank Sherman (see video above) as those bodies have not been recovered as far as I know. This is just the number of confirmed dead.

Liveblog note: 2:20 PM: Houston Independent School District (HISD) announced that approximately half of the 300 HISD schools will be opening Tuesday morning. Update: Here is a list of opening HISD schools.

Labels: Hurricane Ike

Just in from KHOU:

Another 3 people dead from carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator. If you run a generator put it outside and not near an open window.

Do not put it in the house. Do not put it in the garage. Do not put it in near an open window. People that do these things are killing themselves and their family.

Katy ISD will reopen Monday.

Port of Houston has just reopened.

Labels: Hurricane Ike

Gilchrist is or was a town on Bolivar Peninsula.

Via Weather Underground's Dr. Jeff Masters September 17 blog entry The destruction of Gilchrist, Texas.

Many of you have probably seen the photo of Gilchrist, Texas showing complete destruction of the town of 750 people, save for one lone home. High-resolution satellite imagery made available by NOAA's National Geodetic Survey (Figure 1) confirm that of the approximately 1000 structures existing in the town before Hurricane Ike, only about five survived the hurricane. Approximately 200 of these buildings were homes, and it is thought that some of the residents attempted to ride out the storm in their homes. According to media reports, about 34 survivors from Gilchrist and the neighboring communities of Crystal Beach and Port Bolivar have been fished out of Galveston Bay in the past few days. Rescuers who have reached Gilchrist have not been able to find any victims in the debris because there is no debris. Ike's storm surge knocked 99.5% of the 1,000 buildings in Gilchrist off their foundations and either demolished them or washed them miles inland into the swamplands behind Gilchrist. Until search teams can locate the debris of what was once was Gilchrist, we will not know the fate of those who may have stayed behind to ride out the storm.

Figure 1. The town of Gilchrist, Texas before and after Hurricane Ike. Image credit (top): Googlemaps.com, DigitalGlobe, GeoEye, Houston-Galveston Area Council. Bottom: National Geodetic Survey.


Liveblog Update 12:40am from Galveston News Conference, Galveston County Judge Jim Yarbrough:

We are starting to have conversations with Chambers County because there are debris piles over in Chambers County and areas that surround the Peninsula that have not been fully reviewed yet and we'll be working with Chambers County because they may be physically over there but they may find bodies that originated over in our county...

Undoubtedly we know we will find more and some we may not find that just may be missing persons that are never found. That's reality.

Labels: Hurricane Ike

This is the continuation of my initial Ike post from my chess blog: We're fine after Ike. I intend to do several more posts on Ike. Hurricane Ike made landfall Saturday morning but we could start feeling the effects where I live on Friday, one week ago. Let's start with some background in the form of some geography and some history.

Geography
Here is a map of the Houston/Galveston area. We live on the far west side of Houston near Interstate 10 and Highway 6, just to the east of Katy, Texas. Our house is about 80 feet above sea level and 60 miles from the coast. Galveston Island is to the southeast of Houston and the Bolivar Peninsula is to the northeast of Galveston.


View Larger Map

[Live blog note: (9/19 10:50am) I'm watching TV right now and the Marines have just landed on Galveston.]

History

A well respected man in his time, Cline was the first meteorologist to provide reliable forecasts of freezing weather. He also provided some of the first available flood warnings on the Colorado and Brazos rivers. However, in 1891, he wrote an article in the Galveston Daily News in which he gave his official meteorological opinion that the thought of a hurricane ever doing any serious harm to Galveston was "An absurd delusion". Many residents had called for a seawall to protect the city, but Cline's statement helped to prevent its construction.

He was proven tragically wrong on September 8, 1900 when the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 hit the island killing thousands in what remains the biggest natural disaster in US history. Cline's wife, Cora, who was pregnant with their fourth child at the time, was one of those who perished in the storm. Cline himself was nearly drowned, but he managed to survive, as well as to save his youngest daughter, six-year old Esther. Joseph Cline saved Isaac's other two daughters, 12-year old Allie May and 11-year old Rosemary.

In his autobiography, Cline claimed that he took it upon himself to travel along the beach and other low-lying areas warning people personally of the storm's approach. However, no eyewitnesses reported seeing Cline warning people along the beach. It is known that at around noon on September 8, Cline issued a hurricane warning without authorization from the Bureau's central office in Washington, D.C.. However, writer Erik Larson argued in his book Isaac's Storm that Cline did not warn anyone in Galveston prior to that.

Galveston is the site of the worst natural disaster ever in the United States.

The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 is to date the deadliest natural disaster ever to strike the United States.

Estimates of deaths from that storm range from 6,000 to 12,000. Thousands were washed out to sea making it very difficult to determine the number of dead with any precision.

From the Amazon page for the book Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History:

In Isaac's Storm, Erik Larson blends science and history to tell the story of Galveston, its people, and the hurricane that devastated them. Drawing on hundreds of personal reminiscences of the storm, Larson follows individuals through the fateful day and the storm's aftermath. There's Louisa Rollfing, who begged her husband, August, not to go into town the morning of the storm; the Ursuline Sisters at St. Mary's orphanage who tied their charges to lengths of clothesline to keep them together; Judson Palmer, who huddled in his bathroom with his family and neighbors, hoping to ride out the storm. At the center of it all is Isaac Cline, employee of the nascent Weather Bureau, and his younger brother--and rival weatherman--Joseph. Larson does an excellent job of piecing together Isaac's life and reveals that Isaac was not the quick-thinking hero he claimed to be after the storm ended. The storm itself, however, is the book's true protagonist--and Larson describes its nuances in horrific detail.

[Live blog note: (9/19 10:59am) It was just reported that 1.2 million CenterPoint customers are without electricity (I think that is about half) and 50% of Entergy's customers are without electricity.]

Labels: Hurricane Ike