My Running Diary Of Hurricane Ike
Sorry for the off-topic post. This isn’t about domaining, so if you’re sick of Ike now would be the time to click elsewhere.
I wrote this post and after I was done I decided to change it a little. So I don’t spam newsfeeds I’ll leave this as a running diary today. I’ll edit it as things change.
Ike has turned further north. It is now heading straight for Galveston. This is real bad. Galveston is an island south of Houston, with a population of about 60k (though right now it’s more like 1k). It’s a popular daytrip and tourist spot. Galveston was destroyed in 1900 by a hurricane, it’s a big thing down here; you walk into shops in the area and there is always something about the 1900 hurricane: books, calendars, models, mugs, etc. Ike can repeat this devastation.
Sure, Ike isn’t a Category 4 like the 1900 hurricane… but it’s the surge, not the wind speed, that will kill and destroy. When I say surge, I’m not talking about rising water. A surge is almost like a tsunami. They are expecting anywhere from 10 feet to 25 feet of surge. A 25 foot surge can will destroy Galveston.
Kemah, also a real popular daytrip and boardwalk party destination, will also be wiped clean.
Because the storm has turned north, it will head straight out of Galveston up I-45. I-45 is the main highway going through Houston; it leads straight into downtown. If Ike keeps it’s current track, and it’s certainly possible it will not, it will hit the heart of our nations 4th largest city. I’m not talking about clipping it, brushing against it or hitting part of it. The track that you can find on various sites has the eye of the hurricane heading straight into downtown Houston. And downtown Houston is BIG, both in size and height. But no one seems to be talking about that…
This coast is loaded, I mean LOADED with oil rigs, refineries and energy plants of all kinds. It is home to the largest refinery in the U.S. After all, it’s the energy capital of the world. These are all in the projected path of Ike. Even though a state of emergency has been declared, there has been price gouging at the pumps. This is illegal. I note these people and vow never ever to give them business again. Call me sad, but I hold these grudges. I still don’t visit the gas stations that gouged during/after 9/11.
HostGator is located here in Houston just 7 miles or so northwest of downtown. I’m not sure if it’s their only location and I don’t have a clue how they are set up, but be prepared for possible site downtimes just in case.
This change in direction puts the eye in my backyard now. Thankfully I’m away from the surge. I was planning on taking pictures, but I seem to have misplaced my camera. Hopefully I can dig it up and take some shots.
What’s so amazing is that much of this can be avoided, or reduced, if it just turned north a little bit more.
I’m curious how the media is reporting this outside of Texas. Does everyone realize how serious this can potentially be?
7:10am
The projected path was updated at 7am and they moved it a little more north. This is good news. This path has it not hitting downtown head on, but clipping it to the side. We want it to keep moving north. Picture to the right.
12:00pm
The path has not changed; they’re still forecasting it to clip downtown. I drove out to Sugarland to see how things were going and there many more people out and about than with Rita. I recall, with Rita, being at the center of one of the busiest interchanges in the city and not seeing a single car in sight. I pulled over, got out and took a picture. Not with Ike; there were people everywhere. Walmart was closed, but Target, Jack in the Box, McDonalds, CVS and Walgreens were all open for business and business was good.
Pic below shows Ike’s projected path alongside interstate 45. 85 mph sustained winds is tough, I’m getting nervous about our roof.
8:20pm
It’s getting late and things are starting to pick up. No rain yet, but the wind is getting strong and gusting pretty hard. Loads of surge flooding is happening by the coast. It’s looking like we will lose most of Galveston. I speculated that there were about 1k people still on the island. The news is reporting 20k still on the island. This is not good considering the entire island will likely be underwater within 24 hours. I can’t believe 20k people stayed behind ignoring a mandatory evacuation.
This will likely be my last post for the evening as power can go out at any moment. We’ll see tomorrow how things go.
Sept 16th
OK, not much of a running diary. I am still without power and water, but was able to charge my laptop today hence the update.
So wow, what a storm. I’ve found that anywhere from 20k - 40k people stayed on Galveston Island. I mean , seriously? A 25 foot surge, which was expected but didn’t happen, would have made this state about 20k - 40k people less.
Other areas were decimated. My boss lost his house. People are fiending for water, ice, generators, etc. Even though more and more gas stations, supermarkets and stores open every day, the lines are longer and longer. I stopped at a Subway and there were 25 people in line with only 2 people working the counter. That’s how it is right now.
I am completely shocked at the outrageously low loss of life this storm has caused. It’s absolutely amazing. I’m the first one to say that I can not stand Houston at all. But I have to give credit where it is due for being hit by a storm that massive and having such low casualties. Good job Houston and everyone that’s had a hand in helping.
So I’ve been bored out of my mind without the power and water. You know, I can live without one of those two for a good period of time. But both…. ouch. I’m taking showers using a gallon of water and sleeping with ice packs on my body. No lie. With my chronic asthma and other issues, I don’t do well in the heat at all. Thank goodness it’s only been in the 80s this week.
It’s amazing being ‘unplugged.’ I feel out of it. I feel like I don’t know what’s going on in the world. It’s freaky. How did we do it before the internet? Isn’t that question sad?
I noticed that received a ton of organic traffic looking for related keywords like “ike” and “hurricane.” Any domainers out there affected by Ike?
Sept 18th
Nothing much new. Still no power. Just got water, but it will be a few days before it is usable. Been getting conflicting reports on when the power will return. A Rep told me today, but their website says that my area won’t get power until ’sometime after monday.’ It could be worse, some zip codes have an ETA of the first couple weeks of October! really!
So, I found my camera. None of the hurricane pics turned out as it was just too dark. This first one here was in the morning after Ike just passed through. It got real bad after I took this pic, but none of those pics turned out well as there were just too many things moving for the camera to focus well.
Later that morning I took a stroll to see what was going on, here is my neighbor getting a REAL close call with this pole coming within inches of their car.
Another neighbor lost a great tree. This was a decent sized tree. My guess is that it’s crown was so full that it acted as a sail.
This is the underside of that same tree.
We got in the car and went sightseeing afterwards. It’s not advised, as there are downed lines and other things that could be dangerous. All the billboards got hit.
Many of the traffic lights look like this.
I’ve noticed that the Ike aftermath has already taken a back seat to the Presidential campaigns and the stock market woes. People are directly comparing it to Katrina and saying “oh it’s not as bad!” Let me get this straight, a major hurricane hits the nations 4th largest city, decimating smaller cities to the point of non-existence and it’s not that bad?
As you already know, Galveston Island was hit hard. But other areas were much worse. The Bolivar peninsula, just to the northeast of Galveston, was hit so hard that it is not even a peninsula anymore; it’s 3 islands.
Take a look at this pic of Gilchrist, a city on Bolivar peninsula:
That’s what the dirty side of a hurricane can do. For those that don’t know, the “dirty side” is the northeast quadrant of the hurricane. It packs the biggest punch of wind, rain and tornadoes.
Sept 20th
Still without power. Water is usable now though so we can take real showers. the entire west side of my subdivision has power, including half of my street. It suddenly ends 4 houses away from me. One Centerpoint worker told me we were on a different transformer and ours needed fixing. A different Centerpoint guy told us our transformer was fine and the problem was elsewhere. All I know is that there are about 15 trucks in my neighborhood right now so I’m hoping power is coming soon.
Then again, there were 10 here on tuesday and we didn’t get power then.
Anyhoo, can’t wait to join the real world. I miss football, surfing the web, buying/selling domains and other activities I take for granted.
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One Response to “My Running Diary Of Hurricane Ike”
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Total Chaos. Glad to hear that you are alright Scott. My whole family has been hit pretty hard too. I actually have an office in the Hostgator building and can say that they do not have their actual servers there - Most of’em are in Dallas area. I’ll agree with you that HTown does suck, and you’re right, we do know how to prepare and weather the storms. Well, looks like it’s gunna be a wild September, hang in there bud. I hope the lights come back on quicker than expected.
***EDIT***
Hey Jamie,
Hope your family is doing better. It’s amazing the amount of land this one covered. Even Conroe and Cleveland (TX) got hit real bad. I heard Cleveland/Splendora area shouldn’t expect power until October, and they are far inland!
-Scott