its time to play, hurricane preparedness drills.

[Urwumpe]

Good that you're prepared guys. I remember the storm "Kyrill" that was here January 2007 and I only knew that it was coming after my school was closed earlier (all the other were in panic and did not know why :lol.

Kyrill was still "mostly harmless".

225 km/h peak winds somewhere in the alps is sure nothing to worry about for hurricane strengthened US citizens. I remember that I was driving that night, more careful as usual, but still not more careful as during other winterstorms. 13 casualties might sound large... but mostly people here did not evacuate. Or seek shelter. Most people had actually been killed by extreme carelessness, when you look how many crashed with their cars into fallen trees (not crushed by the tree) or died in accidents related to such fallen trees.

The storm damages in our garden here had been pretty usual over these days.

 

[Quick_Nick]

From the looks of things, the area that will be hit directly by Ike (Brazoria County) is going to have several homes and property destroyed and recieve MAJOR flooding possibly up to 15ft or so at the shore, higher than most of the homes that are on stilts.
Even over here, 'high' flooding is still expected. (enough to flood a house, but not really enough to 'drown' in)
The pressure of the storm is quite low, which may result in even higher winds than originally expected. (and we're supposed to get 100-120mph even here. Maybe 125mph at the center)
Simulations of the flooding are being played on news stations, and it is BAD.

 

[Heywood]

Sorry by these news.

Greetings to all folks of Texas.

Heywood

 

[Kyle]

This one's extremely serious. Don't write if off as 'only' a Category 2 storm.
In 2003 Hurricane Isabel hit me Directly as a Category 2 storm, a piece of wood caused such a long and deep gash in my body my Stomach and lungs were nearly rippled out, course it missed it by about 100000 of an Inch. Very lucky. Also Ike's carrying storm surge greater than Katrina, you heard me, Katrina, and is larger than Katrina.

 

[GregBurch]

Just plugged back in after the slog home from the orifice. The models have all tightened up on Houston/Galveston:

 

[Biscuit]

To everyone over in Texas, y'all be really careful and get out of the way of this thing while the gettin's good.

It's not really that close to us over here in Pensacola, FL, and we're getting surges in the Gulf of 6-8 feet or more this morning ... higher expected tonight. Coastal Alabama is getting hit pretty good by the surges according to the images on TV.

I hope that y'all manage to come through this ok, and my prayers are with all you Texans.

 

[Sherrif of Nottingham]

Greetings from San Marcos! I made it out fine using GPS and backroads, if yall can't make it out then hunker down and stay safe.

~Stupid iPod... Makes it hard to type...

 

[joeybigO]

Greetings from San Marcos! I made it out fine using GPS and backroads, if yall can't make it out then hunker down and stay safe.

~Stupid iPod... Makes it hard to type...

My brother left La Porte at 4:45 local he is still on the road with about 20 minutes to go at 11:03. He still has yet to come to my house that is about 30 minutes north. (Stoneoak for all those who know SA)

Good to see you made it out, San Marcos is nice to stay for a minute or two.

 

[James.Denholm]

Tex, don't you go and get yourself killed now.

I know everyone's saying this, but, to all of you guys, good luck. This is no time for suddenly falling in love with the hobby of storm-chasing!

 

[Quick_Nick]

Tex, don't you go and get yourself killed now.

I know everyone's saying this, but, to all of you guys, good luck. This is no time for suddenly falling in love with the hobby of storm-chasing!

I think he may have already left!

I'll be heading north in a couple of hours. We're not going *that* far inland, but enough so that we shouldn't be flooded and should have minimal power-outage. (hopefully we don't have to go amish :lol
If we were to stay, we'd surely be out of crucial power for quite some time. In either case, we may have our homes flooded which will really... suck, to say the least. :dry: Besides that, my dad's house isn't in the best condition to take on a storm. (my mom's apartment should be more than strong enough) And I think my dad may have chosen to stay for the storm... I'll see about convincing him otherwise.

I'll try to let you know the results of the storm whenever I can!

BTW, last night the projected tracks moved yet more to the east, basically all pointing to... us.

 

[GregBurch]

I'm looking at the projected track on the Chronicle's web site and right now (07:15 CDT) the line has shifted to the east of downtown Houston by c. 5-10 km. If that trend of eastward movement were to continue just a little, we could miss the very worst of it.

It is projected to pass right over JSC, though.

Still no well-formed eye, which is a good thing ...

 

[Quick_Nick]

Apparently Mission Control has moved to a temporary location in Austin.

Also, if anyone's been watching the videos, Galvaston is already starting to flood on the shores. Those who are still there are having to move their cars more and more inland... and probably regretting their decision to stay.

Unless this moves east(it's been doing it, why stop? :lol, there's near-certainty of some destruction.

BTW, our area has been under mandantory evacuation but it seems a LOT of people are staying. Probably because we haven't had a 'serious' storm in quite some time, and because Rita was a catastrophe of traffic.

BTW2, Greg, have you left yet? Or are you staying? (Houston is probably inland just enough to not have mandatory evacuation or too much flooding)

 

[Urwumpe]

Still no well-formed eye, which is a good thing ...

Exactly... it is a powerful storm, but the energy is pretty far distributed. And as far as I can tell, it had no chance to really gain energy over the Gulf because it was still too disturbed by top winds.

Still, not reason to feel safe... it will bring a lot of rain and water with it. But it would be sure worse if it would compress shortly before the coast and gain angular momentum.

 

[GregBurch]

BTW2, Greg, have you left yet? Or are you staying? (Houston is probably inland just enough to not have mandatory evacuation or too much flooding)

I live on the far west side. (To my oh-so-stylish, inside-the-loop, West-U, Rice Village law partners, I describe it as "East San Antonio".) So we ought to be OK. When we built our dream house out here -- under two miles from the little apartment in which we weathered Alicia 25 years ago -- I specified some pretty hefty construction techniques and materials -- think "bunker."

Anyway, with all the animals in our household, evacuation is pretty well out of the question. So I just arm the claymores and pour some more coffee.

UPDATE: The 0800 CDT model run just got posted. Looks like there's some stuff the models are having trouble getting a handle on -- they clicked around quite a bit, but within the same cone.

 

[Urwumpe]

I specified some pretty hefty construction techniques and materials -- think "bunker."

Anyway, with all the animals in our household, evacuation is pretty well out of the question. So I just arm the claymores and pour some more coffee.

You don't apply for becoming honorary lower saxon, do you? Storm-proof and ground-attached!

 

[Quick_Nick]

Good luck, Greg!
We're still getting our house setup for a flood. This includes raising our couch with a very improvized stand of boards of varying sizes and cans of corn.

 

[DaveS]

Seems like it's getting bad enough that NASA has decided to shut-down JSC entirely including the BCC and transferring ISS control to MSFC.

 

[Brad]

Having weathered Hugo and Andrew, I wish all you in Texas good luck!

 

[Cairan]

UPDATE: The 0800 CDT model run just got posted. Looks like there's some stuff the models are having trouble getting a handle on -- they clicked around quite a bit, but within the same cone.

Yeah we're tracking it as well at my university... This one is a strong sucker (literally). My best guess is that the waves and surge are going to be a major problem in Galveston and Houston, and cleanup is going to be long... If it doesn't dissipate fast, DFW-area damage is going to put quite a tab down...


Anyway, Good luck to Greg et al.! Hang on tight fellows!

Addendum:

SLOSH models with the latest track info are showing a bullseye on Galveston Bay, actually a little to the west and south so that means Ike is going to pump a lot of water in there... What's going to be really interesting is the strenght of the rip currents in the shipping chanel... If anything comes loose in Houston and drifts in the channels, it's gonna end up either in Galveston or Honduras...

 

[Urwumpe]

Yeah we're tracking it as well at my university... This one is a strong sucker (literally).

Yeah, I had the problem with pressure and area lately in my "secret" military spaceplane project... Took me a while to found the right solution for the many variables (Thrust force = Throat Area * chamber pressure is easy, but then solve the effect of the nozzle... ).