Monster Ike Storms Into The Texas Coast - Updates & Videos As We Get Them
UPDATE Saturday 10:40 a.m. ET - The Morning After
***WATER***
Officials are currently checking into the water supplies in flooded areas for contamination. Public water pressure is extremely low and residents asked to NOT use water unless absolutely needed. Residents are urged to drink bottled water, and or bring tap water to a full boil for use. Citizens are urged to help clear neighbors’ debris to help emergency traffic to have access … DEVELOPING …
Hurricane Ike floods Galveston’s historic district: Over 4 Million without power
GALVESTON, Texas (CNN) — Hurricane Ike’s storm surge flooded Galveston’s historic district early Saturday, sparked fires and knocked out power.
Heavy winds continued to pummel the coastal region more than four hours after the storm made landfall as a Category 2 storm.
It has since weakened to a Category 1, the National Hurricane Center said in its 9 a.m. ET update.
Galveston County’s Emergency Management Coordinator John Simsen urged residents to be patient at a 7 a.m. briefing.
“We have a lot of work to do in terms of damage assessment,” he said. “We don’t understand yet what we’re dealing with …
“The last thing we want to do is put our citizens back into a situation where they may be in harm’s way.”
The storm flooded the historic district with 7 feet of water, which has since subsided to 4 feet, according to a Galveston county official. A foot of water flooded the city’s main courthouse, where many people rode out the storm, Margaret Bunch said.
The storm cut off power to more than 4 million people in the Houston area after it made landfall at 2:10 a.m. CT on Galveston Island.
Ike’s sustained winds eased to 90 mph, making it a Category 1 storm as it moved through Houston, the hurricane center said.
Hurricanes are ranked 1-5, with 1 as the weakest, on the Saffir Simpson scale of strength.
“Additional weakening is expected as the center moves farther inland, although Ike is expected to remain a hurricane through this afternoon,” the hurricane center said.
Gas prices jumped in some regions of the country.
“The Department of Energy, the Federal Trade Commission and, I know, the state authorities will be monitoring the gasoline prices to make sure consumers are not being gouged,” President Bush said during brief remarks at the White House Saturday morning.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff will travel to Texas Saturday evening to review the federal response to Hurricane Ike, the Department of Homeland Security said.
Richard Kotrla in La Marque, Texas, about 8 miles from Galveston Bay, said early Saturday that Ike was “shaking this house pretty good.”
“My gazebo is a pretzel,” Kotrla said.
Houston officials warned residents to stay put because it was no longer safe to try to escape.
Those who stayed were largely in the dark.
Floyd LeBlanc of CenterPoint Energy Inc. said 1.8 million of the power company’s customers — or more than 4 million people — in metro Houston are without electricity as high winds and heavy rains downed power lines. LeBlanc said 2 million customers represent about 4.5 million people.
“It’s going to take several weeks to get all this power restored,” he said. “We’ve been saying two to three weeks.”
The hurricane caused fires and heavy damage around Galveston County, according to an initial assessment.
“Much of the Galveston Island is currently flooded, and there are several fires in that area,” the Galveston County Office of Emergency Management said on its Web site. “Many roads in the county are impassable [because of] rising water and debris.”
Some residents of Orange County — which lies on the Louisiana state line — were stranded on their rooftops and in attics because of storm surge, the county’s emergency management office told the National Weather Service. (CONTINUE)
UPDATE Saturday 12:00 a.m. ET -
Emergency crews rescue people from homes - (READ Galv Daily News)
Stranded Galveston residents call in vain for rescues: Galveston, Harris call curfews to protect evacuees’ homes - ( READ Houston Chronicle)
Black Panthers standing guard at some gas stations - (READ Houston Chronicle)
Levees breached, homes flood as Ike passes Louisiana - (READ Houston Chronicle)
(FOX)
HOUSTON  Hurricane Ike’s gargantuan size  not its strength  will likely push an extra large storm surge inland in a region already prone to it, experts said Thursday.
Ike’s giant girth means more water piling up on Texas and Louisiana coastal areas for a longer time, topped with bigger waves. So storm surge  the prime killer in hurricanes  will be far worse than a typical storm of Ike’s strength, the National Hurricane Center said.
And because coastal waters in Texas and Louisiana are so shallow, storm surge is usually larger there than in other regions, according to storm experts. A 1900 hurricane following a similar track to Ike inundated Galveston Island, killing at least 8,000 people  America’s deadliest storm.
“It’s a good recipe for surge,” said Benton McGee, supervisory hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey’s storm surge center in Ruston, La. “We’re already seeing water being piled up in the Gulf. On top of that you’re going to have water forced into the bays along the coast.”
The National Hurricane Center is forecasting a 20-foot surge  a rapid rising of water inundating areas and moving inland  for a large swath of Texas and the Louisiana coasts. Above that, the center predicts “large and dangerous battering waves.” Waves could be 50 feet tall, said hurricane center spokesman and meteorologist Dennis Feltgen.
Some computer models have waves topping out at 70 feet, but the waves usually break well before hitting shore, so the maximum usually doesn’t get quite that high.
“It’s going to do tremendous damage over a large area even if its doesn’t strengthen anymore,” predicted former hurricane center director Max Mayfield.
That’s directly due to Ike’s size. Experts are trying to figure out when they’ve seen a storm this wide. Ike’s tropical storm force winds stretch for 510 miles, and weather radar from Galveston to Key West can see its outer bands. That’s about 70 percent larger than an average hurricane.
“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,” the National Hurricane Center warned late Thursday afternoon.
Areas that have a hurricane warning  Morgan City, La., to Baffin Bay, Texas  can expect storm surges up to 20 feet. Areas with a tropical storm warning  Baffin Bay to Port Mansfield, Texas, and Morgan City to the Mississippi-Alabama border  can expect five to seven feet of storm surge, Feltgen said.
The size and relatively slow speed means more water keeps building, pushing inland for hours after Ike hits the coast, McGee said.
Geography doesn’t help either. Experts say the Texas coast ranks second, behind Louisiana, as the worst region for storm surge in the United States. That’s because the water there is shallower than in most other regions. The energy from a hurricane needs a way to escape. Deeper water can absorb more of it, dissipating the surge, but along the Texas coastline, the water has nowhere to go but up on shore, McGee said. Think of the Gulf of Mexico as a shallow bathtub with a big-time disturbance in it, Mayfield said.
Storm surges reached 16 feet during 2005’s Hurricane Rita, which hit just east of Galveston, McGee said. Because the worst surge is always just east of the eye of the hurricane, the Galveston-Houston area was spared the worst of the damage.
Houston is buffered by Galveston Island  which sits in the way of the surge  and the bay system, but still is likely to get a rush of high water as the bay, rivers and canals fill up, McGee said. And water that rushes into Galveston Bay may not be able to get out after the storm, he said.
The U.S. Geological Survey on Thursday sent five teams to the Texas and Louisiana coast installing 80 storm surge devices to measure the flood to come, McGee said.
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