Two photos from Dr. Master’s blog at Weather Underground:
If you look at the road halfway across the peninsula, you can see the debris line in the trees. Dr. Masters quotes Dr. Abby Sallenger, Jr. of the USGS:
We saw vast areas flooded by storm surge; the water extended landward in places for tens of kilometers. The beaches served as rims that contained the flood waters. In Louisiana, channels were cut (naturally) through the beaches so the water would drain seaward. Where the max surge occurred (between Bolivar Peninsula and Sabine Pass), the returning water completely submerged the Gulf shore for kilometers. The maximum impacts were on the Bolivar Peninsula, the site of our example comparisons online now.
(Emphasis mine.)
Next up: Hurricanes: Evaluation Methodologies.
My first reaction to that second picture was that it looks like the kind of utter devastation you expect from tornadoes. Except that they don’t lift the grass and carry it away, so this was even worse.
Odds are even the houses that are still standing will have to be torn down. I bet they’re structurally insecure due to erosion of their foundations.
Almost certainly.
Notice the first row of houses is completely gone. In Texas, you can’t have a house actually “on” the beach; if it’s in front of the vegetation line, the state condemns and demolishes it. The question is, where will the vegetation line reestablish itself? The first row won’t even get to rebuild, and the second may not. Of course, the question is, where are the owners? There were an estimated 500 people trapped by the surge coming up early; 100-130 were rescued before the storm, 100-130 were found after the storm. This means that half of the people are unaccounted for, if the estimation is accurate. We may never know the exact death toll, but thank god it’s not the thousands I feared.
Which is really peculiar… almost John-Ringo-speculates-about-SARS peculiar.