Only thing left is to reinforce the garage door and a few odds and ends. I’m bushed. Wrote this one in snatches here and there also. (Don’t look to me for timely information, I’m just blogging my experiences and thoughts.) Weather is currently hot and humid, but clear, after some brief showers.
Word is, I-10 east is parking lot to the Trinity River. I-10 west has cleared out, until you reach Katy, then it’s solid to the Brazos river. I-45, well a family member had made it from I-10 to Conroe (about 30 miles). It took four hours. It’s cleared out behind that, but Conroe is bad. (Conroe is always bad, even on a normal day. I’ve bitched about that funnel before.) Hwy 290 is not too bad until you get way out. I missed any other reports.
Of the friends I have mentioned on this blog, only a few are left in the Houston area, these days.
Redneck Guy is in 77523, at the very top of the bay. I think it should have been ordered to evacuate earlier, and information is still hard to come by. He was already boarding up by the time they finally called it, and now I-10 is jammed. After his experience in Rita (24 hours on the road) he has chosen to board up and ride it out.
(I wonder how many people Rita is going to kill by proxy? I hope not me or my family members, but no one knows.)
Master Plan is on the ride-out crew at a Medical Center hospital. He’ll be safe, but he’s worried about his Clear Lake-area apartment being looted. To be safe, he’s going to pull the hard drives from his computers and put them in his backpack.
I’ve tried to reach Deacon but no luck. I suspect he’s going to ride it out with his sister, or if his mother returned to Port Arthur, he might have gone there.
El Jefe and Dr. Heinous relocated to Dallas a while back.
Hitman is in the Woodlands. Short of a tree falling on his house, he should be fine. (That is some risk, given the number of pines around his house.)
I don’t know about the Mack of Steel. (FYI, if I never explained his name before, he got it by using his time at the mike during an anime fan convention Q&A session to ask a voice actress out on a date.)
President Evil moved to Austin maybe five years ago.
Update: From the NHC 5pm advisory:
BECAUSE OF THE VERY LARGE EXPANSE OF HURRICANE FORCE WINDS…IKE WILL CREATE A STORM SURGE WELL IN EXCESS OF WHAT WOULD NORMALLY BE ASSOCIATED WITH A STORM OF ITS INTENSITY.
Commenter Andrew over at Brendan’s site remarked:
Ugh. My coworker has elderly parents that live right on the water’s edge in Clear Lake, TX, and refuse to evacuate after their Rita experience. Instead they are boarding up the townhouse and taking the oxygen tank to the third floor to wait it out.
My other coworker from Houston is adamant that scores of people, also scarred from the botched Rita evac, will stay. This is bad, bad news if everything you guys are blogging ends up being accurate.
Personally, I’m now pulling for Ike to keep turning right and give us the left side of the hurricane. Otherwise, even if it weakens all the way down to a tropical storm, it’s still going to be riding a big dome of water. What it sounds like is that Ike’s been having an extended eyewall replacement cycle, and now that the pressure is dropping again (after rising a bit) we’re looking at it finally getting it’s act together. Based on how light the highway traffic is this time, compared to before, a lot of people have stayed. Galveston authorities estimate that 20% of the island’s residents did not evacuate.
All I have to say about that is, if we get the worst-case scenario, this year’s Darwin Award should be a collective award.
Update 2: From Dr. Jeff Masters: “According to the NOAA tide gauges, the storm tides along the Mississippi coast have peaked at 4 feet above normal, and are currently running 5 feet above normal on the east side of New Orleans at Shell Beach in Lake Borgne. A storm surge of 5.9 feet was observed in New Orleans’ Industrial Canal at 10:45 am CDT, and 5.75 feet in Waveland, Mississippi. Coastal Alabama is reporting a 4-6 foot storm surge, with 10-15 foot waves. Considering the center of Ike is over 250 miles south of these locations, it is not hard to imagine that Texas will get a 15-20 foot storm surge, even if Ike does not strengthen.“
Seriously, I’ve been saying Houston should have been domed over for years. Of course that’s just because of the mosquitoes, heat and humidity.
Still, since family is up here in DFW for the second time in such a short period, I’m glad I don’t live in Clear Lake anymore.
If I ever do end up back there, I swear I’ll build a house capable of surviving submersion.
I’m staying, ‘course I’m way up in Spring so our issue will be downed trees and powerlines and creek and bayou flooding. Well, that and flying garden gnomes…..=D We’ll ride it out, we may leave if we’re going to be out of power for a long time, but that’ll be after the storm passes. I bought myself a generator used at a pawn shop that is big enough to keep the fridge and freezers cold. (and keep the internet connection and the laptop running. =b). Our water district has a big NG fired Generac to keep the pumps running. (I haven’t seen one to keep the sewage treatment plant running, I ASSUME they have one, but I haven’t looked close enough to see it.) so we’ll have water, we may have to boil it if the wellheads get contaminated from floodwater, but at least we will be able to take a shower and flush the toilet. All of my kitchen appliances except for the oven are NG fired, so I’ll be able to cook. The latest track has the eye passing dang near directly over my house. This will be the second major hurricane that passed directly over my house. (Alicia was the first.) If we are out of power for more than a day or so, we’ll probably go elsewhere and find a hotel room. We may have to go as far north as Tulsa to find one though…..