Ike Day One, Afternoon Report (Complete)

The enemy: Greens Bayou, about noon. This is not much above sea level, as it feeds directly into the ship channel. I have seen it far enough out of its banks to close off the road I was on as I took this picture; the bridge and a bit of ramp was left sticking out of the water.

Here’s the flood gauge station map for Harris County. You can double-click the dots; gauge for this point is #~~1619~~ 1613, sorry.

Now here’s the same point at 5pm today. Can’t see much difference in the photo, due to the change in angle, but it was visibly higher.

After a two hour nap, I started working on the “morning” blog post again, but stopped as we decided not to have all our eggs in one basket. We moved one vehicle to a relative’s house about three miles away. The idea is, hopefully at least one will remain undamaged and unblocked by fallen debris. Though I don’t care for having to walk to get it, if that’s the case.

Quickie observations:

HCOEM front page still only has the limited evac from a few zip codes listed on the front page. Don’t they have anyone in the emergency center who can update that? Did anyone depend on it for information this morning? I hope not.
The wind hasn’t picked up yet as of 5pm CDT. Still out of the south.
Confirmed; the apartment parking lots are full. I see evidence that a number of families in houses have evac’d, though not a lot. This is the one everyone needed to evac for, but they’ve stayed thanks to hurricane and hype fatigue. God I hope the folks in the evac zones didn’t do the same thing, but I’m sure many did.
Almost everything is closed now. A few gas stations and small convenience stores are open.
Not many boarded homes, but more than this morning. Unsurprisingly, it seems to be more by economics than anything else. Nicer the neighborhood, the more houses are boarded.
In one neighborhood we drove through, full of elderly and immigrants, they are going to take a huge amount of debris damage. I cannot believe the amount of crap these people left in their yards. Plants, toys, junk, you name it.
Saw some trailers. Clearly, people still in them. Let’s hear it for Darwin.
A lot of people were sitting out in their front yards. Couples, families, guys who looked like they’d just finished boarding up and were enjoying a beer. Everyone’s watching the sky.
Hotel near I-10 flooded; it was being evacuated when we drove by. This place always floods in a heavy storm; the city or government should figure out some way to buy it out or shut it down; it has absolutely NO business being in operation during a hurricane strike. I couldn’t get a better picture because I was trying to snap that one while dodging all the other folks pulling over to watch, take pictures, etc.