After all of the stories on Katrina, the best the news media can do when it comes to Ike is that a bunch of FEMA ice melted. 29 people died. The survivors are being taken care of. There's no story anymore. Pack up your stupid satellite trucks and go home. We're sick of you. In the meantime. The picture below is of the Wedge Tower in downtown Houston. Everyplace you see brown squares is a piece of plywood to replace a window that was blow out during the storm.





The photo above is of the former Enron building, now occupied by Chevron. The black streaks are places where the windows and solar insulation was removed by the hurricane. Notice guys on the roof? They're are working this weekend due to safety concerns. Some of the glass has been falling and hitting the street. Many sidewalks downtown have scaffolding with plywood over the top for pedestrians to walk under.

Forgive me if this is a little "stream of consciousness" but I have a lot to say and it may seem a bit disjointed at times. It is now Tuesday morning. The power has been on for 20 minutes. We were in the dark for a total of 73 hours. The conventional wisdom, after Hurricane Rita was that we'd be inconvenienced for a few hours and everything would be great. If you have ever been in a hurricane you know there is a clean side and a dirty side. The clean side is typically the west side as was the case with Rita. It came ashore at High Island, Texas and we got some high wind and a lot of rain. Ike came straight across Galveston and up Interstate 45. I live a quarter mile from I 45. We experienced the phenomenon of all hell breaking lose and the calm (or false sense of security) of the eye passing over and the cycle starting over again. Once you realize you've survived and reality sets in, the next fun bit is venturing out and finding out exactly how lucky we truly were.



This does not begin to show the numbers of shingles that were blown off my building.



Help me State Farm man! A 100 year old plus magnolia tree slammed into two of my neighbor's cars.



Here is where the same tree took out a ten foot section of fence.



Any place there was a fence or anything flat facing straight into the wind, the wind won. The car that stayed in the garage sustained no damage other than perhaps some hurt feelings since we had to wait for the staff to manually unlock the door and rescue it . The car that braved the storm got some paint scratches from falling shingles. I wonder when Taco Bell will be open?

No, I am not looking for a building to jump off of. I just don't think that the power is going to stay on much longer. We are getting some rain now that is starting to pick up. While my Internet connection is underground, the power for my routers and goodies runs in through conventional crap on the pole. Here is the latest from the National Weather Service.



As things stand, the fit will hit the shan in downtown Houston around midnight.

Thank god for weather underground. Here is Doctor Jeff's best guesses. . . . .



What we're hearing is that the track depicted above is going to be close to the actual track and the eye will be crossing on to land between 1:30 and 2:00 AM tomorrow.

(banging head on computer desk)

Well, now I've gone and done it. Poo pooed Hurricane Ike. Its now forecast to come ashore at Galveston Bay and follow up the I45 corridor. If I didn't know better, I'd swear this storm is homing in on my house. Here is the latest track information as I blog.





There are two problems right now. For starters, this thing is HUGE! Around two hundred miles across. The second problem is that is slow moving. Like a bad Thanksgiving parade, it will take a long time for the tail end to get through. The tropical storm force winds (gusting to Cat 1 hurricane winds) are expected to come through my par tof the world between 3AM and 6AM US CST. Stay tuned.

407 PM - I don't know how much longer we'll be able to keep updating the live blog due to the real expectation that the power will go off for a protracted period of time. I do know that the amount of information we're being inundated with is staggering. As of right now, here is the situation (copyright weather underground)



As you can see, the category 2 outer bands are hitting the Galveston Island full on. The locals are saying its the worst they've ever seen. As was the case during Rita, the local stores are rapidly running out of supplies and closing. Have a look at the bread isle at the local Walmart.



The locals are taking this seriously. Thank god for Dinty Moore.

(sigh) Another Hurricane is heading our way. Ike. After Rita being touted as such a "bad girl", (yeah a weather channel guy actually said that) I can't help but be a little skeptical.

Queue the Nation Weather Service gibberish. . .

000
WTNT44 KNHC 102050
TCDAT4
HURRICANE IKE DISCUSSION NUMBER 39
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL092008
500 PM EDT WED SEP 10 2008


THE RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT DATA SHOW THAT IKE HAS TWO WELL-DEFINED
WIND MAXIMA OF ROUGHLY EQUAL STRENGTH. THE PEAK FLIGHT-LEVEL WINDS
OF 93 KT WERE FOUND IN A BAND ABOUT 90 NM EAST OF THE CENTER. A
DROPSONDE WITHIN A FEW MILES OF THE CENTER REPORTED LOW-LAYER MEAN
WINDS OF 97 KT...WHICH CORRESPOND TO 82 KT AT THE SURFACE. THE
ADVISORY WINDS ARE SET TO 85 KT ON THIS BASIS. THE LARGE EXPANSE
OF HURRICANE AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXPLAINS THE APPARENT
MISMATCH BETWEEN THE PEAK WINDS AND THE CENTRAL PRESSURE.
CONDITIONS IN THE GULF OF MEXICO REMAIN FAVORABLE FOR
STRENGTHENING...INCLUDING LIGHT SHEAR AND STRONGLY DIFLUENT
UPPER-LEVEL OUTFLOW FOR THE NEXT DAY OR TWO. ON THE OTHER
HAND...RECENT NORTHWARD SHIFTS IN THE TRACK NOW SUGGEST THAT IKE
MAY ENCOUNTER A COOL EDDY IN THE CENTRAL GULF AND MISS A WARM EDDY.
NEVERTHELESS...ALL OBJECTIVE GUIDANCE NOW MAKES IKE A MAJOR
HURRICANE AND THE OFFICIAL FORECAST IS INCREASED SLIGHTLY OVER THE
PREVIOUS FORECAST. OTHER THAN INTERNAL EYEWALL DYNAMICS...WHICH
ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO FORECAST MORE THAN A FEW HOURS IN ADVANCE...I SEE
NO REASON WHY IKE SHOULD WEAKEN APPRECIABLY AS IT MOVES INTO THE
WESTERN GULF.

THE INITIAL MOTION IS 310/7. THE TRACK FORECAST PHILOSOPHY IS
BASICALLY UNCHANGED. IKE IS MOVING NORTHWEST TOWARD A WEAKNESS IN
THE SUBTROPICAL RIDGE. THIS RIDGE IS FORECAST TO BUILD IN OVER THE
NEXT DAY OR TWO...WHICH SHOULD TURN THE TRACK BACK TO THE
WEST-NORTHWEST UNTIL IKE APPROACHES A DEEP LAYER TROUGH FORECAST TO
COVER THE WESTERN UNITED STATES IN TWO DAYS. ALL GUIDANCE TURNS
IKE NORTHWARD TO VARYING DEGREES WITHIN A DAY OR SO OF PROJECTED
LANDFALL. THERE HAS BEEN A NORTHWARD SHIFT IN SOME OF THE
GUIDANCE...MOST NOTABLY THE GFDL AND GFS. IT IS TO BE EXPECTED
THAT SUBTLE CHANGES IN THE MODEL EVOLUTION OF THE WESTERN TROUGH
AND RIDGE OVER THE SOUTHEASTERN U.S. WILL LEAD TO GUIDANCE FLIP
FLOPS OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS. WITH THAT IN MIND...THE
OFFICIAL FORECAST IS NUDGED ONLY SLIGHTLY NORTHWARD. IKE IS A VERY
LARGE HURRICANE...AND IS EXPECTED TO REMAIN LARGE AS
IT CROSSES THE GULF OF MEXICO. REGARDLESS OF WHERE THE CENTER
CROSSES THE COAST...THE EFFECTS OF IKE WILL BE FELT OVER A LARGE
AREA.

OK. So here is where the pointy headed weather prognosticators are saying he"ll (Ike) go.





In other words, it is forecast to come ashore somewhere in the Brownsville area. There's already a "voluntary" evacuation in effect that is expected to go mandatory at any time. We're keeping a close eye, but after Hannah, I'm not going to bust a gasket just yet.

Well the Gustav has bypassed us. Thank god. I remember Rita's brief visit and to be honest, I was feeling a little light headed from holding my breath. Thanks to everyone who emailed and asked, "Are you guys OK?"

The final wrap up . . . .

As I write this, we're in the middle of another weather problem. Remember Katrina and Rita? Yep, I lived in Houston when they showed up and lived through the aftermath and the thousands of refugees. Did we dodge a bullet? Oh, yeah. Here is a photo of the "damage" that amounted to nothing more than all of the magnolia trees being stripped of some of their foliage.



The aftermath was that instead of one groundskeeper with a leaf blower, we had three and most of the "debris" ended up on top of our cars. It's now nearly midnight Saturday and here is the 411. The hurricane is expected to make landfall (queue the sound effect of dice rolling) between High Island, Texas and Florida late Monday or early Tuesday. At this point we can only hope we're on the western side of this mess since that will be the relatively quiet side as was the case during Katrina and Rita. I'll keep this updated as time permits.

12:33 AM 8/31/08 - Update

Here is the latest predicted track. You guys tell me if I should be happy. . . . .