Hurricane Ike

:( Really sorry to hear that, where exactly is their house is it around Tiki island or Bayou Vista or a bit further North around Texas City?
 
I know it's slightly off-topic, but wasn't there a BBC "what if" docudrama not long back about a hurricane hitting Houston?
 
I'm sure I've seen something similar, I've also seen a docudrama regarding the worst case scenario if a major F5 tornado ripped through Houston.
 
They're in Seabrook - half way between Galveston and Houston and right on the bay. What can you say.......they know the risks, they choose to live there I guess.
 
Curio said:
They're in Seabrook - half way between Galveston and Houston and right on the bay. What can you say.......they know the risks, they choose to live there I guess.
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I believe it's a lovely area, but from all reports Seabrook is underwater sadly :( and it is forecast for the worst Storm Surge as it gets funnelled up Galvaston Bay :(

And from what I have been seeing from tracks of Ike over at storm2k Ike moved more to the WNW making land fall on the centre of Galveston island, putting the Bay on the eastern and worst side in regards to the surge, as it stands it is the worst case scenario, combine the massive surge and high tide combining around the same time, there will be massive flooding.
 
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I know, I have that conversation with them everytime there's a chance of a hurricane striking them. It's like a few guys I know who live in "Tornado Alley" and have their homes devastated if they happen to get unlucky, I just don't understand it.

Then again, you could say the same thing about Californians too! They live there knowing the fact that they could get shaken out of bed one day only to find Fresno has a very nice sea front. :p
 
the video they have on bbc now looks like it bad enough, and this is just the beginning! oh dear.

makes you step back for a second and realise how trivial everyday problems in life are and that the sheer power of mother nature could kill us all at any moment.

i love the guy who's staying in galveston drinking beer because it "isnt his time yet".
even though the weather people say they face "certain death".
 
What's real annoying is that it's going through or past BayTown oil refinery, which makes people fear there will be an oil shortage. So of course at lunch time today petrol prices jumped up nearly 50cents!!! Probably take a while for it to drop down again now.
Hope this Hurricane is not as devastating!
 
willhub said:
Is this related to "global warming"? Or has there been much worse before?
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As above, 1900 saw the worst hurricane in terms of loss of life (in the the US) in this exact place, 6000+ people died which prompted the building of the seawall.
I don't think there is any link yet, maybe in the future but this is just one of those things.
 
Hmmm, wonder if they will have to evacuate places like new Orleans and Texas for good one day due to these stops, that hurricane does look huge, looks like its bigger than the UK!
 
VaderDSL said:
I believe it's about 600 miles across! Monster storm, the Cat 2 rating is severely misleading.
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Surely if they wanted they could make a new Cat6 and give it that? One day the UK might get storms like that, imagine that it could destroy the whole of this country!
 
willhub said:
Surely if they wanted they could make a new Cat6 and give it that? One day the UK might get storms like that, imagine that it could destroy the whole of this country!
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It's a Cat 2 as currently there is only one scale hurricanes are classed against, the saffir-simpson scale where they take wind speeds, at ground level over 1 minute I believe, the category 2 is around 100mph sustained and is generally not too bad, in regards to hurricanes, most properties can cope with a category 2 if designed and built to relevant codes.

The problem with Ike, is that it had a massive wind field, the area over which tropical storm and hurricane winds have been present and because it tracked fr such a long time over the gulf of mexico it is pushing a LOT of water with it.

A typical category 2 hurricane will have a storm surge if maybe 6 feet? or so, which typically isn't too much to worry about, at Galveston the seawall is 17 feet.
However in this case, Ike is threatening Galveston area with what is predicted to be 20 feet + storm surge which is up there at a medium category 4 hurricane.

I doubt the U.K will ever be subject to storm systems as powerful as these sorts of Hurricanes, mostly we'll be hit be extremely low depression systems off the Atlantic, these can be nasty but no where near Hurricane systems.
 
Curio said:
My wife's Aunt lives just north of Galveston and their house is 8 feet below sea level :( They've evacuated up to Austin and just hoping there's something left to come back to.

The State Governor has just been on TV saying that it's estimated that in Houston alone there could be 120,000 houses destroyed and damages estimated at $91 billion. I think Katrina caused about $50 billion :eek:
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I can't find any info to suggest it has caused anywhere near this kind of damage. In fact most reports are saying it didn't do as much as they were expecting.

Katrina caused ~$90bn in 2008 dollars worth of damage by the way.
 
Clipsey said:
What's real annoying is that it's going through or past BayTown oil refinery, which makes people fear there will be an oil shortage. So of course at lunch time today petrol prices jumped up nearly 50cents!!! Probably take a while for it to drop down again now.
Hope this Hurricane is not as devastating!
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I paid 486 for gas today. Last week I paid 329 :mad: Oh and all the stations are now empty, and i mean all.
 
Well the aftermath of the hurricane is ripping through our area today and causing all sorts of problems. Had power outage for ages earlier, and now next door at my g/f grandparents a huge tree has fallen over onto their house and car!! :(
 
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