Deadliest US Natural Disaster ...Galveston, Texas

Ya, apparently the last time they said it was certain death was katrina and look what happened.

I bought this book on ebay a few weeks ago on the 1900 Galveston Hurricane. It was written and published in 1900. A fascinating book detailing widespread looting and crime in the wake of the storm.

One of the more interesting stories was about how 8 people were caught looting the bodies of the dead. Paraphrasing .. ?8 ghouls were caught robbing the dead. Six whites and two blacks. The hahahahahahas were shot?. Many variations of that story throughout the book.

The amount of water put in motion by Ike is estimated to be just slightly less than in Katrina.

The 1am update had it weakening.. and maybe turning north.

the 4am update.. has it growing considerably.. with more of a westerly move than a northerly move

bye bye Galveston.

http://houstonhidefromthewind.org/

check the winds in zipcodes of loved ones.
HOver over the zipcode and see the predicted wind speed.

Local TV coverage
http://flhurricane.com/ikecoverage.html

My husband's UK company has a small branch in that area and he got a call in the night (our time) to remotely log into their system and shut the servers down because the staff was evacuating.

Current reports state that in just three counties more than 90,000 have NOT evacuated! I hope it doesn't get ugly.

Holy shit ... the camera in the top right and on foxnews is showing a huge fire that keeps exploding

you mean 50% more than katrina,

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/Jef...&tstamp=200809

At the time I posed the IKE number (no relation to the storm) was 10% less than katrina's landfall IKE number.

50% more than Katrina was the estimate at 930 am on Sep 11 (probably bad recon data BTW)
At 12pm am on the 12th the number was 10% more than Katrina
At some point in between the number was 10% less.

In fact, if you scroll down on the url you listed to the commentary on figure 2 you'll find
"Hurricane Ike at 12:30pm EDT had an IKE of 134, 10% higher than the value of 122 Katrina had at landfall in Mississippi."

The reason it jumps around is that the number is based on the windfield which changes. Recon flies in an x shape through the storm sampling winds to the NE, NW, SW and SE of the storm. This wind profile is then used to generate the IKE numbers which can be used to make such statements as above. All estimates of course and something akin to the Safir Simpson scale for wind damage. Ballpark-ish at best

the katrina damage was mostly New Orleans levee failures.

If anyone hasn't watched this, please do, it shows you the flooding in NO and how it went down with Katrina. I live 10 miles from there and it didn't have any flooding here like in NO.

http://www.nola.com/katrina/graphics/flashflood.swf

then Rita came up the wetlands and caused a lot of damage, but Katrina really did its own thing in the bowl that is nola, because they drained swamps for their housing over there when some guy invented a pump, and they thought it was a great idea.

I've learned way more than I ever wanted to know moving to hurricane land 2 years ago from So Cal. way more.

PS. Katrina was huge, 900 miles across when it hit land! people fail to mention that... Katrina was HUGE... I learned this from a guy who lost his home in Mississippi.

and we are watching the news on this Ike... SW Louisiana used to have wetlands, areas that have levees that didn't have levees before even are flooding now. Its very messed up down here and I don't think some of the places like Grand Isle are going to recover and flourish to their glory days ever again.

I have an uncle who owns a hotel on Grand Isle, been fixing it up for years and then Katrina/Rita came... they've still been working on it since then. After this storm season, I wonder what their plans are. Insurance claims are insane.

I have learned so much... there is such a huge industry down here surrounding these storms, its insane. The things it does to the economy is wild, the preparations and things people go through to stay down here is crazy. People who lost it all in Katrina are getting hit again this time. Rebuild? suuure.

It only took one evacuation and a a lot of missing shingles upon return for me to realize the consequences of living a few miles from the gulf. And the days since our return, almost two weeks and a week away, all I have dealt with is stores out of products and atm machines not working or out of cash. It is just insane the affect its had on this place. I'm not talking about a couple weeks of problems, there are still shelters open and thousands of people crying about food stamps.

I can't stop purging about it online either, text is just never going to explain this shit.

It's a very difficult problem. Part of the problem stems from the offshore oil industry, which really helps the Louisiana economy. My thought would be to tax those offshore operations and use the money for wetlands restoration projects.

The Louisiana Wetlands are huge and help reduce tidal surge. Their shrinkage is much more than an environmental issue; it's an economic and human issue too.

The wetlands are somewhere around twice the size of the Everglades. The Everglades conservationists have done a much better job at promoting their cause. Maybe the Louisiana Wetlands need a better name to start. "Everglades" is pretty tight.

Winds from Ike are already hitting here in southern Ontario.

They've been clocked at approx. $1.35/litre yesterday afternoon.

Yeah I have family here that has been here for decades and many many employees and friends of employees of big oil here. Oh the stories.... they've been ruining the wetlands forever, and political scum like Mary Landrieu want to drill more. Its sickening.

I have an uncle buried on his land in the bayou, they won't even sell over his dead body. But still, one day his ancestors might change their mind. Its so sad.

This past summer there was a huge oil spill on the river, turns out the tug driver wasn't even licensed. They stopped talking about that real quick too. Animals and environment are still suffering over that no doubt. They cost the city millions of dollars and its been swept under the table.

it really is a mess down here, and yeah its a shame they can't get it together to really preserve things.

some efforts here: http://www.selaprojects.com/

... and when I get back to California, unfortunately I will have to buy gas to get there, I plan on going green as possible with my transportation means, because I am so sick of these petro politics and the scumbags involved.

Comparison of Bolivar, TX before and after. Not sure this is the exact same neighborhood but you get an idea of what it looked like before.

BEFORE


AFTER

Hurricane Ike approaching Galveston Island, as seen by Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). The white dot in the eye is the freighter Antalina, which got caught in the storm when its engines failed. A tugboat towed the Antilina safely to port on Saturday, and all 22 crewmen are well and the ship is undamaged.