(Radar image of Hurricane Ike at landfall around 2 a.m. on 13 September 2008)
I sat up until dawn, switching from channel to channel to watch foolhardy television reporters venture out into debris-choked winds or the eye of Hurricane Ike, which made landfall at Galveston just past 2 a.m. Dr. Jeff Masters' at his WunderBlog reports "Ike carried a storm surge characteristic of a Category 4 hurricane to shore. The destructive power of Ike's storm surge rated a 5.0 on a scale of 0 to 6 just before landfall, according to the experimental Integrated Kinetic Energy (IKE) product of NOAA's Hurricane Research Division. This is about the same destructive potential Katrina had at landfall."
There was no sign of wind or rain in Austin by dawn. I finally fell asleep, waking up at 5:00 p.m. to discover that EVERY BROADCAST CHANNEL except PBS had on sports (football), and PBS was airing a repeat of Ask This Old House. I had to wait until 6:30 to get coverage of the hurricane's damage. If you cannot afford cable, this is the crap we must watch.
It's going to take a long time to assess the toll. One piece of good news is that at the last instant, Ike took a little jog to the east (funny how they keep doing that) and hit Galveston full on instead of a little to the south, which means the surge there only reached 13.5 feet. This is probably the reason there's any city left at all on the island. Houston got hammered by wind, especially the downtown area where gusts higher up in the air reached the 150 mph mark. Ike remained a Category 2 storm at landfall by the thinnest of margins, with top wind speeds at 110 mph -- the shift to Category 3 begins at 111 mph. The surge moved instead to Clear Lake, Kemah, and northeast to Port Arthur, where less populated areas mean the waters may have done less than anticipated destruction and loss of life.
(Post-Ike debris across Highway 146 on bridge Kemah to Seabrook, TX, 13 September 2008 -- AP Photo by Frank Franklin II)
Dr. Masters' states "Galveston was also lucky that Ike did not have another 12-24 hours over water. In the 12 hours prior to landfall, Ike's central pressure dropped 6 mb, and the storm began to rapidly organize and form a new eyewall. If Ike had had another 12-24 hours to complete this process, it would have been a Category 4 hurricane with 135-145 mph winds that likely would have destroyed Galveston."
Our local news says 4 million people in Texas are without power, most of them with the CenterPoint Energy utility, who is repeatedly saying it will likely take weeks to restore electrical power. The last major hurricane in that area, Alicia in 1983, left 750,000 people without power for 16 days. This morning, Austin had over 6000 evacuees in 22 shelters, plus 125 in a special needs shelter at the Austin Convention Center. In addition, every one of our 22,000 hotel and motel rooms were occupied, and every RV and trailer park were jammed. Our local Red Cross is begging for volunteers, and the area food bank is running constant requests for food or monetary donations.
However, the effort to evacuate, house and feed folks has run much smoother than it did in 2005 with Rita. Systems are now in place to do the work that FEMA once did. I have to wonder, thought, what will happen Monday or whenever local officials in Galveston and Houston say it is all right for evacuees to return. Without power, and with a boil water order in place, even if their house is intact, how will people manage? The Houston metro area has a population of 6 million. That can easily overwhelm local resources.
Despite the mandatory evacuation order, an estimated 140,000 people rode out the storm in Houston and Galveston. During the 4 hour period from the time the outer bands of Ike began hitting shore and nightfall, Galveston's 911 line received 1200 calls for assistance. By that time, no one could respond, and whatever trouble people were in, they were alone for the night. One elderly but tough-looking old guy in Surfside Beach was interviewed this afternoon, having survived in a frame house on stilts about 30 feet from the ocean. He intended to leave and had arranged for a ride with a neighbor, whom he said "ran into town to buy something and never returned." He was rattled but intact when the reporter discovered him: He was the only person to remain in that devastated town during the hurricane. Search and rescue was only this morning being able to begin the work of going door to door to check on the fate of those who stayed behind.
There are three known fatalities so far. One woman was asleep in her bed in Pinehurst when a tree fell on her house and crushed her. A 19-year-old man was on the end of a jetty in Corpus Christi as Ike began approaching, and was swept into the water. Two people with him jumped in to try to save him, and one of them suffered serious injuries, having to be flown out by helicopter to an inland medical center. The teenager's body has not been found. The most tragic death was earlier in the day, when a family was preparing to evacuate but at the last minute the father, a professional tree-trimmer, decided to cut down a tree which threatened to come down onto their house. His 10-year-old son was somehow under the tree when it came down. This is a parent's unthinkable nightmare, from which I cannot imagine recovery.
A refugee from Calhoun County, Ku Paw, was at an evacuation shelter in a New Braunfels middle school when she went into labor. Dr. Mark Burns, who specialty is geriatric psychiatry, happened to have stopped by the shelter to check on a few elderly evacuees. He wound up delivering his first infant in 20 years, on the floor of the girls' restroom. Both mother and baby were later taken to Christus Santa Rosa Hospital. When asked what it was like to deliver a child after such a long gap, Dr. Burns replied it was "like riding a bicycle".
A boat and yacht warehouse in Galveston began burning at nightfall and could not be reached by firefighters. Another neighborhood in Galveston lost several houses to an unchecked fire. The historic Balinese Room along Galveston's water front, built 79 years ago and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1997, is no more, swept away by the storm surge. It once had Howard Hughes as a patron, and featured entertainment by Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, George Burns and the Marx Brothers, among others.
The JP Morgan Chase Tower in Houston, the state's tallest building at 75 stories, suffered extensive damage and continued to rain down glass and office furniture on the streets of downtown this afternoon. It is theorized that the taller a building in Houston, the worse the damage because of the higher velocity winds at altitudes.
Austin never lost power, and as I type this a loaf of potato bread is filling my house with delicious smells. (I used Barbara's organic potato flakes and pepperincino flakes, plus a mix of organic whole wheat and white flour.) I feel lucky. Our mayor, Will Wynn, is currently meeting with others to figure out what to do on Monday, when our local schools being used as evacuation shelters will be needed for classes again. He can be a goober, but I trust him to do the decent thing, after his performance during Katrina and Rita when he went all out to bring in evacuees. Austin's current population is over 1.5 million. Since this is three times the population of Alaska, does this mean Will Wynn is triply qualified to be a Vice Presidential candidate? Let's put lipstick on him and find out.
[Cross-posted at Group News Blog]
Saturday, September 13, 2008
HURRICANE IKE -- UPDATE SATURDAY EVENING, 13 SEPTEMBER 2008
(Radar image of Hurricane Ike at landfall around 2 a.m. on 13 September 2008)
I sat up until dawn, switching from channel to channel to watch foolhardy television reporters venture out into debris-choked winds or the eye of Hurricane Ike, which made landfall at Galveston just past 2 a.m. Dr. Jeff Masters' at his WunderBlog reports "Ike carried a storm surge characteristic of a Category 4 hurricane to shore. The destructive power of Ike's storm surge rated a 5.0 on a scale of 0 to 6 just before landfall, according to the experimental Integrated Kinetic Energy (IKE) product of NOAA's Hurricane Research Division. This is about the same destructive potential Katrina had at landfall."
There was no sign of wind or rain in Austin by dawn. I finally fell asleep, waking up at 5:00 p.m. to discover that EVERY BROADCAST CHANNEL except PBS had on sports (football), and PBS was airing a repeat of Ask This Old House. I had to wait until 6:30 to get coverage of the hurricane's damage. If you cannot afford cable, this is the crap we must watch.
BREAKWATER
(The Orphans and Nuns of St Mary's Orphan's Asylum, Galveston, Texas; all but three boys in this photo perished in The 1900 Storm; photo from Rosenberg Library, Galveston)
BREAKWATER
I walk out to the jetty's end
that morning after the blow. Town
is behind me, little more than rubble
A sunny yellow rope is threaded between rocks
I tug it in. Bobbing up from green deep
are ninety orphans lashed together
Some wear nightshirts with names
embroidered on the collars, but many
are missing clothing altogether. We will
bury them under a single stone, mourn
as best we can, in moments over the
coming years. Leave the rest to god
We are years behind in the work of love
Will never catch up
© Maggie Jochild, 27 May 2004, 6:25 p.m.; published in Di-Verse-City, 2005 Anthology of the Austin International Poetry Festival
Note: The worst natural disaster in U.S. recorded history is the hurricane that struck Galveston without warning on September 8, 1900. More than 6000 people died overnight in this storm, including 90 children from the St. Mary's Orphans Asylum who were tied together in a line by the Sisters of Charity in the tragic hope that they could hold onto them as the building fell down. Galveston Island, at near sea level, was virtually scrubbed bare by winds that reached 150-200 mph and a tidal surge of 15-20 feet. A seawall now protects Galveston.
(St. Mary's Orphan's Asylum after the Hurricane of 8 September 2008, Galveston, Texas)
Friday, September 12, 2008
HURRICANE IKE -- UPDATE FRIDAY EVENING, 12 SEPTEMBER 2008
(Hurricane Ike from the International Space Station, photo by NASA)
Hurricane Ike -- Update Friday Evening, 12 September 2008
The grim forecast for Ike has not changed and in some ways has worsened. Honestly, evacuation is what you need to do if you live in its direct path on the Texas Gulf Coast.
Thanks to reader Kent's comment from yesterday's post here, I've discovered the best blog ever for understanding this hurricane, Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog. Dr. Masters co-founded the Weather Underground in 1995 while working on his Ph.D. at Michigan, and flew with the NOAA Hurricane Hunters from 1986-1990All of the information in this post comes from his research, so hop over there for the latest. I'll quote a small portion of the excellent information he has on tap:
Thursday, September 11, 2008
HURRICANE IKE
(AVN Satellite image of Hurricane Ike from NOAA)
Ike is approaching. Our local news tonight said Austin had opened 75 emergency shelters to hold 36,000 evacuees. They're asking for food and blanket donations. Interstate 35 is bumper to bumper (a block from my apartment complex). Ike is expected to reach Category 3 by landfall. The National Hurricane Center issued a warning for Matagorda County which the local meteorologist read on the air, saying he had never in his career heard them say such a thing: "In Matagorda County, people remaining in a single family one or two story home face certain death." Ike is larger in area than Katrina was.
(Red Cross Hurricane Evacuation and Storm Surge Map for Matagorda County, Texas)
This is a beautiful, fairly rural stretch of the Texas Coast, smack in the middle of the biggest bird flyway in the U.S. I lived in Palacios as a baby, and have gone birding in this area often. Tonight, however, I'm worried about all the people who can't travel.
The current path shows landfall slightly west of Galveston or directly over Galveston. With storm surges of 9-12 feet and the seawall only 10 feet, Galveston is worried about flooding. The wind damage, however, will come one county over, which is Matagorda: Counter-clockwise winds hit from the north and west.
(Latest three-day forecast track for Hurricane Ike)
If Ike continues as predicted, Austin will be hit with tropical storm strength winds as it passes to the east of us. I'm not worried about wind damage, because my windows face south and are few. I'm also on an elevation, so I've never had flooding. But a prolonged loss of electricity, which happens here with big storms, is concerning to me. Likewise the tornadoes that sprout on the edges of hurricanes. If my power goes out, you won't see me on line for while, but I'll be okay. I'll get help from a neighbor, if need be. I'm not who needs your prayers and assistance.
To track this storm via the National Oceanic and Atmospheric website, click here on NOAA. Please share news here as necessary.
GINNY BATES: THREE CAKES
Here's another installment of my Great American Lesbian Novel (in progress), Ginny Bates. If you are new to reading GB, go to the section in the right-hand column labeled Ginny Bates to read background and find out how to catch up.
Late November 2013
Myra found it strange to ride the train to Portland alone. She was reminded, several times, of the trip she'd taken on this same train after Gil died, to visit Kate. She'd begun writing poetry again because of that train journey. Now Kate lived in Seattle with a new lover, her son Rafe was going to Udub, and she had trouble remembering what Gil's voice had sounded like unless she worked hard at it.
Loving Ginny had moved her into a parallel universe.
It wasn't just strange, it was devastating to knock at Margie's door and not hear Narnia's woof, her sniffing at the other side and then the warble which meant a member of her pack had arrived. Margie's glad face was antidote for Myra's burgeoning grief. She took Myra's bundles from her and dumped them carelessly on the couch, then hugged her for a long time. They both walked downstairs for Myra's bag.
"What's with the tire on Frances' motorcycle?" asked Myra.
"She needs to get a new one, but hasn't had time and neither have I. She's got the Cerebellum today because it's so cold out and supposed to rain at any moment. If you and I go out, we'll have to take the bus" said Margie, already nosing into the shopping bags.
"Anything with wrapping paper on it, you have to save until tomorrow. The rest is for your larder" said Myra. Margie put three presents on the table, the bread and jars on the counter, opening the quart of apricots immediately and eating one with her fingers. Myra was looking again at the portrait of Frances, hung in pride of place over the couch. It really was an extraordinary painting, one of Ginny's best.
OBAMA OR ELSE
(Obama Or Else postcard by Liza Cowan)
They say in Spider Solitaire, theoretically every hand is winnable. I never have the patience to try thinking through each move or using "undo" to make a crappy layout winnable. In fact, if on the first layout I don't have several moves to expose hole cards, I'll usually re-deal. But that's just a game. It's not deciding who will become the most powerful leader in the world.
I got a direct challenge from a precious friend yesterday, Liza Cowan, who was a leader before I was out of junior high, whose blazed trail literally saved my life. She's an artist, not a politician, but she said "We have to win this election. There's nothing more important right now." She's 59 and has two children about to enter adolescence (her second go-round at parenting). They've both girls, so she's not looking at them being drafted if McCain wins, but she's sharp enough to not see that as a consolation because she lived through the Vietnam era draft, which scarred us all in different ways. She's made the decision to do at least one thing every day, one concrete action, to make sure Obama wins this election. She asked me to do the same.
So here we go. My goal is to come up with a simple act you can do every day that, directly or indirectly, helps us put a sane, accountable human being in the White House and/or restore basic human rights to the daily life of America. I'll aim for an action besides donating money, because (a) giving money is something we already know how to do and (b) if you're like me, you don't have money to give. Although as Liza says, lots of people can afford ten bucks.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
GINNY BATES: MERCURY IN RETROGRADE
Here's another installment of my Great American Lesbian Novel (in progress), Ginny Bates. If you are new to reading GB, go to the section in the right-hand column labeled Ginny Bates to read background and find out how to catch up.
October 2013
Two days later, Myra woke up in the motel in Anacortes because the phone on the nightstand was ringing. She managed to find it without opening her eyes and said thickly "Hello?"
"Hey" said Allie. "Once again, I can't get through on your cell, and of course Ginny's is turned off."
"What's wrong?" said Myra, opening her eyes wide.
"Nothing, everybody's okay. But I need to ask you a question about this foreword you've written, my editors want to send it on today" said Allie.
"I'm looking at my cell right here, it's plugged in and the power light is on. Let me check -- oh, damn, it's on vibrate. Ginny, that's the funny noise we kept hearing, my cell vibrating on this tray here" said Myra.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
HELP STOP "RELIGIOUS BELIEF" ASSAULT ON CONTRACEPTION
(Graffiti billboard photo by Jill Posener.)
On July 23, I posted at Group News Blog about a proposed change to Department of Health and Human Services regulations which would allow the re-definition of contraception as "abortion" and the subsequent denial of contraceptive services on religious grounds. A month later, despite action by Senator Hillary Clinton, the ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project, and others, those suggested changes were made into formal proposals.
According to the ACLU, "The rule leaves open the possibility that -- based on religious beliefs -- institutions and individuals can deny women access to birth control. It also permits individuals to refuse to provide information and counseling about basic heath care services. And it expands existing laws by permitting a wider range of health care professionals to refuse to provide even referrals for abortions.
"The public comment period on these insidious regulations is open until September 25. Help generate a massive outcry."
Click on the link below to submit a form with your objection. The response thus far is very encouraging. And please help spread the word.
LOLCATS WEEKLY ROUND-UP, 9 SEPTEMBER 2008
Here's the weekly best of what I've gleaned from I Can Has Cheezburger efforts. There are some really creative folks out there. As usual, those from little gator lead the pack.
Monday, September 8, 2008
GINNY BATES: DAUGHTER, DAUGHTER
Here's another installment of my Great American Lesbian Novel (in progress), Ginny Bates. If you are new to reading GB, go to the section in the right-hand column labeled Ginny Bates to read background and find out how to catch up.
October 2013
Allie arrived at 8:00 the next morning. Ginny was sitting at the table, eating toast and sliced apple. Allie kissed her on the head as she went to the coffee maker.
"If you're hungry, there's leftover homefries and turkey ham in the stove staying warm" said Ginny.
"Myra eaten yet?" asked Allie, opening the oven.
"No. I don't know when she'll get up. There's plenty for both of you, though. And these apples are wonderful."
Allie made a plate and brought it to the table with her coffee.
"Margie and Frances still in bed, too?" she asked as Ginny handed her slices of apple.
Posts
