Regarding the surge, I have a few more comments, drawn from an upcoming article on hurricane predictions.

The first day after Ike’s landing, there was much hoopla over how the surge was overhyped–only to discover that it wasn’t so much overhyped as just not where the reporters were. The observed surge was at the lower end of the predicted scale for a Category 3 storm (15-20 feet, but Ike was Cat 2) and just went east of the bay, which is exactly as predicted for the actual landfall point.

Predicted surge for a Cat 3 Ike hitting the north end of Galveston Island. From SciGuy’s blog.

The SLOSH model as seen here is set to predict what might be called the 90th percentile of a Cat 5 storm; there is only a 10% chance the actual surge would be worse. If you want to save lives, that’s as it should be — for a Cat 5.

But the picture I posted above is the most relevant to what we actually had, a high-end Cat 2 landing across the north end of Galveston (albeit Ike was headed more northerly, and the eye passed east of downtown). Notice the predicted surge height on the islands? Nine to eleven feet from Galveston Island through the eastern end of the Bolivar Peninsula…whereas observed heights appear to be in the 12-13 foot range on Galveston island and 14-15 foot range on the Bolivar Peninsula. In short, the inner bay got off lighter than expected but the barrier islands got hit worse than predicted by a storm that was slightly weaker than predicted. And we don’t have any reports from the areas predicted to be hardest hit; the media has made Houston/Galveston/Bolivar the story, so we don’t know how anyone else is doing at all.

Take your so-called “hype” and shove it. Ike was the real deal.