Be safe Texas.

[DonnieS]

If they live in the zone thats possibly going to be hit by the surge, thats scary and the governor is right. I live 14 -15 miles from the beach, though the back bays are about 3 miles away - so storm surge type issues are not an issue for us. My not-so-bright brother lives on the padre island, out of the line of fire this time, but I chose not to live out there when we moved back to Texas. You can build strong enough to survive hurricane wind, you cant build strong enough to survive against hurricane surge. Its a localized tsunami that wont stop. My brother is a doctor, i.e. (God-syndrome) , and is smarter than those hurricanes so he is not in danger.

Right now, its 10:30 friday morning, and the wind is hardly blowing but the very front of the storm bands are about here. They are telling us to expect 40-70 mph wind starting this afternoon and through tomorrow, providing the storm moves to the NW, and heavy rain 4-6 inches Saturday and Sunday. If the storm moves more west, then we will get a little more.
This one, because of how far inland we are and our house is not in a flood area, we have been flooded before by run through water, water running down the slope behind us, we have sand bags back there that should prevent that this time, but anyway, we are not too worried. This house and most of them around here have been through 100-120 mph storms and this should be much less.

[frito_burrito]

Im amazed how many people so close to the coast are still at home planning on riding this storm out. They are not only putting themselves in harms way they could eventually put others in danger.

Should be interesting the next 36 hours.

[DonnieS]

Im amazed how many people so close to the coast are still at home planning on riding this storm out. They are not only putting themselves in harms way they could eventually put others in danger.

Should be interesting the next 36 hours.

The sad thing is if the storm comes up the slot its going right now, a lot of people are going to die tonight, wouldnt surprise me to see it exceed the Katrina death toll, mostly caused by the storm surge on Galveston. We are 190 miles down the coast, south of where the center of the storm is, it is very still outside, very quiet, looks spooky, strange colors of the clouds out there. We are supposed to start getting some wind in a while, though only tropical storm strength here - 50-60.

The very aggravating thing happening here is some very fine young Coast Guards men are putting their lives in jeopardy out doing search and rescue for some sfb types. They went out on a jetty and a large wave washed them off, two are missing, two are injured and had to be choppered to the hospital, the Coast Guard guys are out looking for the two missing - mostly likely drowned, but the sea is so nasty here that if the coast guard guys had any kind of trouble, they woulld really be in jeopardy.

[javiertovar]

Well is 930 pm and its getting bad for those in Galveston and Houston. Hopefully everyone decided to leave and get out of dangers path. Lets all say a prayer for those being affected by this storm.

javier

[Tucson]

Amen.

Donnie, We will be hoping to hear from you in the morning.

[DonnieS]

Amen.

Donnie, We will be hoping to hear from you in the morning.

Thanks for the concern, Amy, this will be no problem here but pray for the folks that stayed on Galveston Island. I just talked to some family over in Sugarland, a southern suburb of Houston, she and her daughters are all in a center room playing cards, I didnt ask if they still had power but she said the wind was pretty loud outside, but all was fine. Sugarland is well inland, no surge worries there, just wind and rain.

[CB_8]

It's 10:00 here, i'm in Alvin, between Houston and Galveston the wind is at about 50mph. It is something to see. Work kept me here, family has evacuated and we are in a building rated at 150 mph and in no danger of storm surge. Just hope I have a home to go to in Lake Jackson when this is over.

[DonnieS]

Here in Corpus, we were predicted a few days ago to take a direct hit from Ike, lots of people left, the majority of the homes were boarded up, we got not one drop of rain, not one puff of wind. When people ask why people who should but do not evacuate when asked, sometimes these situations are why. A lot of people will bring up the evacuation around Rita a few years ago when 110 people were killed evacuating, and less than 10 were killed by the storm, but the question remains, how many would have been killed by the storm if they hadnt left, but people will remember the 110.

Our weather guy here on NBC gave an explanation on Tuesday night detailing each weather system that was affecting Ike, a high pressure system to the north east of us, a cold front coming from the north west, explaining how the timing and progress of each system was affecting the direction of Ike.


They were just listing the storm surges and the surge they were telling us they expected which was 25 feet if the storm came where it actually did come, turned out to be 11 feet, and the highest surge, at Sabine, north of houston, south of Beaumont, was 13 feet. And with the local tv stations very breathlessly showing us support columns that fell at a Motel 6, if thats the worst that they can find, my guess is the overall damage is much less than the Weather Channel super-hypers told us to expect.

[CB_8]

the damage is substantial between Houston and the coast. It is nothing compared to what Rita did though. I don't think there is power anywhere southeast of Houston. The storm surges in Galveston and Surfside were close to advertised. Surfside was really hit hard.

I'm working in Alvin (about 20,000) and have seen 30 or so homes with significant damage and as many businesses.

It could have been worse though.

I finally heard a meterologist say Thursday that he did not know why they try to forecast so far out, they RARELY get it that close much less right.

For you conspiracy minded people, do you think Lowes, Home Depot and such get with The weather channel and say forecast it for Brownsville, then you can move the forecast and we will sell plywood and generators to the entire Texas coast before it is done.

[DonnieS]

>> we will sell plywood and generators to the entire Texas <<

My son went to home depot today and he said there was a long line of people returning generators.