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.“

Out and about this morning, and I picked up some last-minute supplies. We’re now stocked up with about 50-60 gallons of gas, probably 30 gallons of water, plenty of food, first aid items, flashlights, batteries, a crank radio with weather band, and of course, the generator and portable a/c unit. We’re adding a spare car battery and a power inverter for emergency use while power is out during the storm. And of course, the boarding of the windows has started

That makes us probably among the best prepared households; certainly in the top 5-10%.

But I’m rather concerned that as of midday, I’ve seen only a couple of stores and two other houses start to board up. It’s like they think they can wait until tomorrow — unfortunately, due to Ike’s huge wind field, they can’t. As for the homes, well most won’t board up — as I said before, there isn’t enough lumber in all of Houston to board up all of Houston. It’s possible that most people are either still at work or trying to get what they need to board up. I don’t envy them the lines. (See pictures below the fold of some parking lots.)

But its the official evacuation orders that concern me. As I posted before, the Houston-Gavleston area is divided up into multiple zones, and they are supposed to be staggered. Well, if Ike were a typical Cat 2 hurricane, the Coastal and A zones are supposed to be evac’d. B is evac’d for a Cat 3, and C has to bail in a 4 or 5. So even if Ike is taken at face value as a category two, they should be pulling everyone out of zones Coastal and A.

They’re not…. exactly. Instead, mandatory evacuation has been called for Galveston Island, and the Bolivar peninsula, and the various small municipalities in northern Galveston county have also made their own calls. But I can’t find anything to indicate that the Galveston county authorities have even called for a voluntary evacuation of the unincorporated areas.

During a press conference at Houston TranStar, Judge Emmett added Pasadena ZIP code 77507 to the already announced mandatory evacuations list. Already on the evacuation list are people in ZIP codes: 77058, 77059, 77062, 77520, 77546, 77571, 77586 and 77598.

Here’s the map of the evacuation zones: (note, it is NOT complete at this time; many small municipalities in zone A have called evacs and I havent’ marked them yet for lack of time. Please refer to an appropriate media outlet for your evacuation news)

Notice what’s missing in Zone B? The upper end of the bay. A prediction of 15′-17′ storm surge is the given right now, and it could be worse. Why haven’t 77522 and 77523 been included? (77520 is, but I failed to mark it, FYI). These two are low, low low, and at the very end of the bay. They are at the far east end of Harris County; they’re partially covered by Baytown, but not entirely. Is Harris County deferring to Baytown? And does Baytown have these zips on their mind?

After the mess of Rita, the governor’s office stepped in and dictated that emergency planning and evacuation calls would be done on a regional basis. Local officials didn’t like that at all, and I also argued against it I feared that an Austin bureaucrat would know less about the local conditions than the local officials, and make bad calls. I’m now wondering if I was right to think that.

I’ll try to develop that thought more later, when I have some time.

I’m not seeing a lot of windows being boarded up yet. Folks could be at work or trying to get lumber.

Update: Brenden Loy says all of Zone A and B have been called for evac. I might have missed the additional zip codes, as I’ve been to busy to keep up. But I just haven’t been seeing the sense of urgency from the Harris County officials that I’d expect. I may change that opinion after I catch up on the news. I can’t say the same about the Houston NWS:

LIFE THREATENING INUNDATION LIKELY! ALL NEIGHBORHOODS…AND POSSIBLY ENTIRE COASTAL COMMUNITIES…WILL BE INUNDATED DURING HIGH TIDE. PERSONS NOT HEEDING EVACUATION ORDERS IN SINGLE FAMILY ONE OR TWO STORY HOMES WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH. MANY RESIDENCES OF AVERAGE CONSTRUCTION DIRECTLY ON THE COAST WILL BE DESTROYED. WIDESPREAD AND DEVASTATING PERSONAL PROPERTY DAMAGE IS LIKELY ELSEWHERE. VEHICLES LEFT BEHIND WILL LIKELY BE SWEPT AWAY. NUMEROUS ROADS WILL BE SWAMPED…SOME MAY BE WASHED AWAY BY THE WATER. ENTIRE FLOOD PRONE COASTAL COMMUNITIES WILL BE CUTOFF. WATER LEVELS MAY EXCEED 9 FEET FOR MORE THAN A MILE INLAND. COASTAL RESIDENTS IN MULTI-STORY FACILITIES RISK BEING CUTOFF. CONDITIONS WILL BE WORSENED BY BATTERING WAVES. SUCH WAVES WILL EXACERBATE PROPERTY DAMAGE…WITH MASSIVE DESTRUCTION OF HOMES…INCLUDING THOSE OF BLOCK CONSTRUCTION.

Update 2: Ok, I missed the news conference a couple of hours ago, and the media was still playing catch-up on their websites. All of A and B are now under evac orders.

Update 3: I called it. In an e-mail discussion with Steven Den Beste last night, I noted:

I mean, if there’s an emergency, any drivers that live in the area are going to want to stay with their families and take care of them. So absenteeism skyrockets. I don’t really expect better here. (The last day before Rita, almost all of the TSA personnel failed to report to work at IAH.)

Granted this is only 2 buses… that we know of.

And in the last 20 minutes, it has clouded up and is acting like it wants to rain. (see note on the last picture below the fold.)

And now, back to the pictures.
Continue reading →

Evacuation called for parts of Harris County zones A and B.

The Chronicle is tracking all evac calls here, but hasn’t updated with that one yet (since 8:30 last night in fact).
KHOU has school closings here.
Harris County, Missouri City closed tomorrow. Nothing said about the city of Houston yet though. City of Houston closed tomorrow.

Washington Mutual (bank) is closed tomorrow.

The tracks from Ike are beginning to take a severe and pronounced rightward hook. From the 5 p.m. Eastern discussion:

THERE HAS BEEN A SIGNIFICANT NARROWING IN THE SPREAD OF THE
LATEST MODEL RUNS…WITH THE GFS…GFDL…AND NOGAPS ALL SHOWING
LESS RIDGING TO THE NORTH OF IKE LATE IN THE PERIOD AND SHIFTING
THEIR TRACKS NORTHWARD TO BE IN BETTER AGREEMENT WITH THE UKMET AND
ECMWF RUNS. IKE IS NOW EXPECTED TO RECURVE AROUND THE PERIPHERY OF
THE SUBTROPICAL RIDGE NEAR THE END OF THE FORECAST PERIOD. THE
OFFICIAL FORECAST IS ADJUSTED NORTHWARD ON DAYS FOUR AND FIVE…BUT
ALL OF THE BETTER DYNAMICAL MODELS ARE EVEN FARTHER TO THE RIGHT.

In other words, the better models are putting Ike right in our “danger basket” of Freeport to High Island. Worse case scenario is crossing either Freeport or the western end of Galveston island. That would push a storm surge of around 19 feet (for a Cat 3) into the bay, flooding significant areas of La Marque, Kemah, Clear Lake, Pasadena, Baytown, lower Channelview, etc.

I am really concerned about the hurricane hype; apparently KHOU and KTRK are up to their usual “panic the rubes” stuff. The problem is they always panic the wrong people — Folks in Kingwood and the Woodlands are hyperventilating and showing up in Eric Berger’s chats, wanting to know if they should evacuate tomorrow.

Not just “no” but HELL NO. If these people get on the roads (again) then people in the areas that really need to be evac’d are going to be screwed. Let me point out that aside from Clear Lake, which is relatively upscale, a lot of the threatened area is occupied by people of (being generous here) extremely modest means. Taking off from work and evacuating is a signficant financial burden to these people. Add another reason for them to stay home, and we’ve got a setup for hundreds dead if we get, God forbid, a Cat 3 crossing the southern end of Galveston Island. A Cat 4 would be frightening. Eric wrote three years ago:

Houston’s perfect storm would feed on late summer’s warm waters as it barreled northward across the Gulf of Mexico, slamming into the coast near Freeport.

A landfall here would allow its powerful upper-right quadrant, where the waves move in the same direction as the storm, to overflow Galveston Bay. Within an hour or two, a storm surge, topping out at 20 feet or more, would flood the homes of 600,000 people in Harris County

And at least one of the higher-accuracy models are bringing Ike ashore within 50 miles of that point, based on the current prediction. I’m not even going to think about a Cat 5.

Let’s be realistic, shall we? People are contrary and stubborn. The more the media runs around sounding like Chicken Little, the more some people will dig in and resist. That’s one reason why I was upset about the fuss over Edouard, which wasn’t a hell of a lot more than a glorified thunderstorm when it came ashore. (A very wet one, to be sure.) And the more hysterical the media gets, the less anyone listens to them.

As I said at the link, it’s tremendously disruptive to shut the city down; you cannot do that every little tropical storm or Cat 1 hurricane out there. It’s not like we’re below sea level, like some other cities I could name. Now we’ve got the Real Deal about to bear down on us, and too many people I talk to are rolling their eyes. This is the storm people need to be watching carefully.

I doubt my criticism had anything to do with it, but after the Edouard mess, Eric Berger seems to have settled down and is taking a hard-headed, no-nonesense attitude towards Ike. He’s definitely regained my respect, and upped it some besides, for his tireless work. (Ok, I admit it, I probably overstated the case against him during Edouard, from sheer disgust at all the hype. I apologize, Eric.)

KHOU: Seven stories on their front page related to Ike.
KPRC: only two.
KTRK: Six stories.

At least nobody, not even Joe Bastardi is asking why we haven’t evac’d Houston yet. I guess there are some limits.

Edit: and just for the record, it would be extremely hard for me to repeat this event.

Edit 2: And lest anyone forget what the Rita evac was like, read this and this. It might remind folks why I’m a little upset over hype.