Fun with hurricanes

(Reposting my email to family and friends)

Well this has sure been an interesting week for me.

Last Thursday, with Hurricane Ike predicted to come somewhere close to Houston late Friday night/early Saturday morning, NASA closed at noon to allow us to take care of our homes while at the same time Houston issued a mandatory evacuation for my area (among others). I didn't go into work but spent Thursday boarding up and taking pictures of my house, as early reports had the storm surge at 25 feet if it hit in just the right (wrong) place. My house sits at about 23 feet. On Thursday, despite the evacuation order, I was going to try to ride it out. But Friday morning as the storm got closer and targeted Galveston, I decided to leave ahead of the storm and spend the night at my parents house. They live in northwest Houston, I'm in southeast, about 40 miles away, and I'm about 30 miles from Galveston. I rode the storm out there and came back to my house on Saturday afternoon.

The stuff you're seeing on TV is probably Galveston, where the eye of the hurricane came ashore. It got hit hard. About 30 miles inland, where I am, we have a lot of downed trees and fences, damaged roofs and facades, and power outages. I've already got all my utilities back except internet (I'm borrowing my neighbor's wi-fi).

Damage to my house is, in the grand scheme of things, relatively cosmetic, but not cheap. I'm pretty sure I'll go past my deductible. I lost about half of the wooden fence around my house, and in falling down one piece knocked off a faucet in my back yard, causing water to gush out uncontrollably. My neighbors had to shut my water off at the street. The plumber couldn't make it until Monday morning (and had to cut a hole in my wall to fix the pipes) so I was without water for 2-1/2 days. My roof lost shingles in about a dozen places, some down to the tar paper beneath, some down to the plywood under that. Of course, that let water into the attic, where it flowed along the rafters and joints. I've got spots in 7 rooms or closets in areas ranging from fist sized to across the whole ceiling. I'm not sure if any of it needs replacing yet. The water also dripped down through my kitchen cabinets onto my stove and toaster oven, puddling on the counter.

Power came back on at my house on Sunday afternoon. I'm lucky, I was without power for only 36 hours. About 95% of the Houston area lost power, and I happened to be within the first 10% that got power back. But it's seemingly random, from street to street and even block by block some areas have it and some don't. My backyard neighbors do, but across the street from them, they don't. In those cases, there are orange extension cords running across the street from every house that has power to one that doesn't.

When not taking care of my house, I've been spending some time helping others, from helping to remove carpeting soaked with river water from a house that took on 3 feet of water to volunteering at the local delivery point where those without power can pick up free ice, water, and food.

I've also toured the area to see how badly others got hit. In general, the further south you go, the worse it was. You see the usual stuff like roofs missing shingles, brick walls fallen down, traffic lights mangled, etc., but also things like boats and yachts tossed up on to the lawn, the road, or each other. Low lying areas got flooded and the storm surge turned buildings into kindling. Even further south, towards Galveston, whole buildings are gone, down to the slab. Roads are washed away, and neighborhoods are giant debris fields. The mayor of Galveston has declared the city to be uninhabitable for now, with no power, water, sewer system, phone lines, cell towers, fuel, or food. Fortunately for the city of Houston, the storm hit on the east end of Galveston Island, meaning the worst of the winds and surge came up to the east (unfortunately for them). If the storm hadn't taken a jog to the east and had hit about 15 miles west, we would have gotten a 20 foot surge up into Galveston Bay and up into my area. But it did move east, so we only got about 10.

It's been 25 years since Houston got a direct hit from a hurricane, and this one was a lot worse in terms of the effects. After Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, Rita threatened Houston not too long afterwards, and the city evacuated. Fortunately for us it was a false alarm, but the city learned a lot from that and we were much better prepared for this storm. With luck it'll be another 25 years until the next major hit.

For pictures I've taken over the last few days, here's a map of the area showing what's where (or click here for just the pictures).

On second thought

The latest models show storm surge a bit higher than I'm comfortable with:



I'm just a couple of miles to the west of the path as it crosses Clear Lake. The forecasts haven't changed in the last 12 hours, it's a direct hit on Galveston Island. Expecting 90 mph winds.

I think I'll bug out shortly and return Saturday night or Sunday morning.

Riding the Storm Out

Here's the latest forecast by the NASA weather guys:

IKE was forecasted to make landfall on the Texas coast on the west end of Galveston at 0200 Saturday morning, however with the newest update they have seen it shift to the east 15 miles. This eastward movement has been consistent with the last several updates. They are still expecting Tropical force winds at 1100 tomorrow morning. Hurricane force winds at JSC starting between 2200 and 2300 with sustained winds of 100 MPH between 0200 and 0600 on Saturday morning. They are projecting 8 to 10 inches of rain with a 13 to 15 foot storm surge in the Clear Lake area. This would occur when we are approaching low tide. They are expecting a 20 - 22 foot surge for the ship channel area.

The Eye of Ike Is Upon Me

Per the 4pm storm track, landfall will be over Galveston Island. Here's where the predicted storm track lies in relation to my house:

Should I stay or should I go?

Reposting earlier tweets from Twitter:

Noon - #ike trying to figure out best time to leave to minimize traffic, fwys are all backed up, will evac to W. Hou. Filled gas tank last nite.

12:15 - #ike Run from the water, hide from the wind: predicting 12-20 ft storm surge into Galveston Bay, 120 mph winds. Yikes!

1:30 - Hou traffic from #ike is too heavy, it's too hot, I'll wait til tonite to evac. Trip to parents house norm 45min but today could take hrs.

4:45 - #Ike now targeting Galveston, with eye moving over my house! Smaller storm surge but higher winds. Might hunker down instead of evacuate.

I haven't left yet, even though we had a mandatory evacuation at noon today.

The 4pm forecast has moved the landfall closer to Houston. Paradoxically, that might be better for me since it means lower storm surge. Might mean higher winds, though, and they're talking 100 mph. Zoinks! Traffic is better now, all of the inbound cars have passed through (like from Galveston) and now it's just the outbound freeways on the north and west that are clogged.

Maybe I'll set up my camera to record me on video looking like a TV reporter in the wind and rain.

Bug out

My zip code got the evacuation order, so I'll be boarding up and bugging out this afternoon. Hopefully the traffic isn't a mess.

Ruh roh

Crap. The 4am model has Ike even closer to Houston now.



The NHC winds forecast is ominous:



The sNHC wind model now predict 93 mph winds for my zip code 77062.

The models, though, are still all over the place:



The voices of reason here are Eric Berger of the Houston Chronicle and Jeff Masters of Weather Underground. All the local weather people are freaking out.

Masters says

Tides have risen one foot above normal in Galveston too. The water level will continue to rise as Ike approaches Texas, and NOAA's experimental storm surge forecast (Figure 1) is calling for a 10% chance that the storm tide from Ike will reach 10-12 feet at Galveston, and 18-21 feet on the south and east sides of Houston.

Ike is likely to be a extremely dangerous major hurricane at landfall, and will likely do $10-$30 billion in damage. The chances of hundreds of people being killed in this storm is high if people do not heed evacuation orders. It is possible that Ike will make a direct hit on Galveston as a Category 4 hurricane with 145 mph winds. The potential storm surge from such a hit could be in the 15-25 foot range (Figure 2), which is capable of overwhelming the 17 foot sea wall in Galveston. I put the odds of such an event at about 5%.

I Don't Like Ike

Ike doesn't look like it's going to be kind. After wandering all over the place, the models are narrowing down the landfall of Hurricane Ike and as of this writing, it's going to hit at the worst possible spot for Houston, about 50 miles south (though of course that could change by morning). That makes Galveston Bay the focal point for the storm surge, not to mention the fact that it's also the quadrant that gets the worst of the wind and rain (the "dirty" side). My house will supposedly be safe through a 20 foot storm surge.

They're closing NASA/JSC at noon Thursday so I have a long weekend - unfortunately it will be spent boarding, shopping, hunkering, and cleaning. I guess I'll start boarding up in the afternoon or Friday morning. My boards are already cut (I did that for Rita 3 years ago) so all I have to do is screw them in. When my house was built they put those plastic drywall screw hole thingies in the mortar between bricks so it's easy to put the board up against the window and then use the power drill to put a few screws in. Unfortunately I can't get to my upstairs windows, but I've got trees and houses in the way of debris (hopefully).

I'm hoping for winds strong enough to ruin the shingles on my roof, but in a manner that I don't get rain damage in the attic. My roof is 20 years old and I'll need to replace it probably sooner than later.

There were already lines at the gas station. I don't have much food in the house (I need to go shopping anyway) but I've got frozen steaks and burgers in case the power goes out.

The 10pm forecast has the storm moving closer to Houston. It's now forecast to hit in Freeport, about 50 miles south of here. That's the worst possible location for a storm to hit (for us) since that means the storm surge at its highest would come right up Galveston Bay, plus that's the rainy/windy/dirty side of the hurricane.

The UT/Arkansas game has been postponed til Sept. 27th, we both had an open date that weekend. That was supposed to be our bye week in between Rice and Oklahoma.

Eric Berger from the Houston Chronicle has been the only voice of reason around here. All the TV weathermen are freaking out. I think they want the hurricane to hit so they can look all professional. Expect all the reporters to be out in the wind and rain telling us we ought to stay out of the wind and rain.

If they call for an evacuation, they'll be using this map. I'm in the green zone which means they'll call for me to leave for a Cat 4 or 5 (zip code 77062). If you look on the map at I-45 coming north from Galveston and go to the black arrowhead after the I-45 symbol, that's Clear Lake City Blvd. I live pretty close to where that brown road segment ends.

Winds are supposed to pick up here around noon Friday, with landfall early Saturday morning. If people wait til Friday they could get stuck on the roads again just like with Rita three years ago (and just a few posts down on this page).

Assuming I have electricity and internet, I'll probably try to liveblog the storm here (if it's worthwhile to do so). If I lose internet, I can at least Twitter (@mgrabois) via cell phone or send text/SMS messages with pictures here.

"Here I Am, Rock You Like a Hurricane"

The Scorpions, "Rock You Like a Hurricane"


It's 11:50 pm. It's nice and cool outside (mid 70's) but a just a little breezy.

We spent the morning cleaning up the house, preparing water reservoirs (bathtubs, plastic tubs, etc.) and making sure all the supplies were pre-positioned. I made a trip to the one convenience store in the area that was open, and bought some necessities (a case each of Corona and Coke). Amazingly, they even still had gas to sell.

After that, the only thing to do was wait, so we took a swim in the neighbor's pool, and came back to wait. The wind started around noon, the rain about 4:15 this afternoon. By dinner time it started getting dark, and we actually had a bit of sun to make a pretty sunset. After that, it's just wait and watch and listen, watching the banana tree in the back yard and the pine trees in the front yard. Fortunately, the wind direction is such that no pine trees should fall into the house, but we did move the cars to other people's driveways so my neighbor's trees wouldn't fall across the driveway.

We hear that a block in Galveston has caught fire due to power lines. I saw a transformer blow while I was in the back yard, with the familiar pop and flash. Someone is going to come home to a warm house and thawed food. We've got the air conditioning down pretty low so that if the power here does go out, it'll take that much longer to warm up.

The wind has picked up enough to blow the trees precariously and make some noise. Some small branches have fallen so far, but nothing major anywhere that I can see. We've had no more rain than a typical summer shower, and in any event I'm well outside the storm surge effects.

In retrospect, I'm glad we decided not to leave. It was the right decision based on what we knew at the time (which was that it had moved up the coast and was going to hit Beaumont to the east of us, not Freeport to the west), though others who left earlier could say they did the same since at the time the storm was going to come straight up Galveston Bay. But over 2.5 million people were "displaced" by the storm - they all seemed to be on the Houston freeways within the past couple of days. Fortunately all of the stalled cars were fixed or fueled during the night and nobody was left on the roads. I bet it'll be more of the same when people want to come home.

Something else we'll need to closely watch... the garbage situation. Trash pickup was supposed to be on Thursday, and we had 1-1/2 full bins. The city suspended normal operations on Thursday so we're stuck with all that garbage plus only half a bin's worth to last us the whole week.

Back after watching a movie.... it's 2:50 a.m. The wind is still going pretty good, still no damage other than some small branches down. But we still have power (for now).

"Lovely Rita, Metermaid"

The Beatles, "Lovely Rita"


Well, at this point it doesn't look like The Big One, but Katrina has sure put the scare into Houston as far as Hurricane Rita is concerned.

Early in the week it looked like Rita was going to hit the Texas coast south of Houston, far enough away that we wouldn't see too much. Then the landfall point started to move up the coast towards Galveston. Not good. On Tuesday it was going to hit Freeport, about 30 miles south on the coast. That's the worst possible place for Houstonians, since that would put the storm surge right up Galveston Bay and maximize flooding in the area.

I spent 2 hours in Home Depot waiting for plywood only to hear that they weren't getting any more in that night and to come back at 6 a.m. Wednesday when they'd get a truckload. Chris went grocery shopping for supplies in case we lost power for an extended period of time - canned goods, dry stuff, boxed stuff, but they were all out of water. On Wednesday I got to the store at 6:15 and waited, and waited, and waited. I broke for lunch around noon and traffic on I-45 going north from Galveston was a parking lot. I saw a flotilla of Galveston ISD school buses. To be honest, I have no idea whether government types in the Houston area saw what happened in New Orleans from Katrina and started the evacuation 3 days early, or whether it was in their plans already, but I thought to myself "that's what they should have been doing in New Orleans". At 1:30 they told us that trucks with plywood were having trouble getting into the city and moving around, and they "should" get a shipment in at 6 pm. No thanks, I wasted half the day already. I went with Plan B, which was 2x4's and a stack of cedar fence pickets (plus 4 cases of drinking water). If nothing else, I can use the pickets to repair my fence next week. I was lucky that my neighbor had 4 extra sheets of plywood, and combined with some scraps I had left over from my chili cookoff team's old booth, we were able to cover all the windows on the bottom floor.

Cell phone service has been spotty the last couple days as the circuits are overloaded.

With the new predictions coming in, the weather guys crunched the numbers and while Rita was a category 5, they expected it to downgrade to a 4. With my house's distance from the water and from landfall, we'd "only" experience a 3 here, with winds around 100 mph or so. I've done that a couple times before (Alicia in 1983, for one) and so that was my cutoff point for whether to stay or not. Flood projections said with a Freeport landfall, we'd get about a 20 foot surge, which is a hell of a lot of flooding, but my subdivision is supposed to be able to stay dry even with a 25 foot surge. So as of Wednesday night, we were going to stay and ride it out.

Meanwhile, the local governments (having jumped through all the right hoops as far as FEMA and the federal government response requires) announced mandatory evacuations for three zones close to the coast. Zone A is right along the coast, B is several miles inland, and C is further than that. I'm in the C region. Even though they ordered a "mandatory" evacuation, many people chose not to go. But way too many people did, including people who were in no danger of flooding. So many, in fact, that the evacuation routes got clogged with at least a million people trying to leave (the biggest evacuation in US history), leading to 100-mile bumper to bumper traffic jams on highways, especially to the north and west of Houston. Average speed in those jams is 2-3 miles per hour. How about 8 hours to get from one side of the city to the other (45 miles)? How about 24 hours to get to San Antonio (200 miles) or Dallas (250 miles)? Compound that with record heat (100 degrees on Wednesday, 98 on Thursday) and thousands of cars started to overheat or run out of gas. People were forced to turn around and come back home - a journey of 11 hours one way and 15 minutes on the way back, as people's gas supplies ran low. There are no open gas stations anywhere, they've all closed and left. They finally got some tanker trucks to bring gas to the stalled cars on Thursday afternoon, but if you watch the news, you still see (at 1:30 a.m.) bumper to bumper traffic getting out of town. People aren't going to make it to where they wanted, and so the Red Cross is setting up emergency shelters along the way in whatever church or warehouse is available. They didn't turn the southbound lanes into northbound ones until Thursday afternoon, but you still have to go 100 miles to get to that point. There's a traffic camera showing 15 lanes of northbound traffic with nobody moving. This is going to be the biggest failure (probably) after it's all over and being analyzed. I think that people were shocked by Katrina and everyone wanted to get out, whether they needed to or not. It took my parents 12 hours to get from their home in west Houston to Austin, a 150 mile trip that normally takes about 2.5 hours.

Thursday morning we woke up to find that the track had shifted north and instead of Freeport, Rita was supposed to come right up Galveston Bay. I'm just a couple miles from there, so that would mean that we'd get the full eye-wall winds of 150 mph. Time to bug out! I finished boarding up what I could outside and started to pack what I'd need and what I wanted to save. Important papers, tax returns, insurance info, photo albums, other things of sentimental value, and enough CDs to last 12-24 hours in the car. I started to plot a route to Victoria, a city southwest of Houston, via back roads only (hoping that nobody else would think of that too). By 10 a.m., though, the new track had gone even further north and east and was going to hit near the Texas/Louisana border. Those poor New Orleanians who evacuated to Houston - close to half the city came through here, and thousands are still here as either temporary or new permanent residents. Just a few weeks after their disaster, they're having to leave again. But now, the storm is going to hit east of us, which is bad for the residents of Beaumont and Port Arthur but good for us, since we'd be on the "clean" side of the hurricane with slower winds (from the north instead of from the south, as on the "dirty" side) and less rain. Weatherman predictions said we might not hit even 100 mph winds, with 8-10 foot storm surge. So based on that, and not wanting to get stuck in traffic while the storm hits, we've decided to hunker down once again.

I took a drive around the neighborhood this afternoon, now that so many people are gone. The Gulf Freeway (I-45) is nearly deserted, with a couple of stragglers here and there going north or south. Every place of business is closed, though I did find two gas stations still working. It was eerie seeing everything so deserted - I half expected to see tumbleweeds blowing down the main roads. NASA, where I work, is closed. (Ironically, NASA facilities in Louisiana and Mississippi were damaged by Katrina, and the launch center in Florida got hit bad last year by two hurricanes. Expect further hurricanes to hit Maryland, Ohio, Virginia, and southern California soon, as someone has it in for NASA centers! At NASA here, Mission Control handed over the International Space Station temporarily to their Russian counterparts so they could shut down MCC-Houston.

It's very quiet here now. I don't even hear any birds out.

Houston's last major hurricane was in 1983, when Alicia came to town. We didn't consider evacuating or boarding up (as far as I remember) The eye came right over Galveston Bay and went just west of downtown (it passed over the Galleria, if you know where that is). But that was a generation ago, and only us old-timers remember it. Everyone else just sees Katrina and is scared.

They expect the winds and rain to start up here in the early afternoon, with hurricane force winds and rain from around midnight Friday to noon Saturday. Power should go out sometime during the night. We're boarded and taped as best as we can be. We've got our rideout supplies with three tanks of propane if we need to cook on the grill for a while. The latest tracks show the storm still hitting the Beaumont area, which is good news for us. Hopefully we don't have to spend too much time without power, as they're still expecting temperatures in the 90's once the storm passes. As long as my trees fall away from the house, I'll be OK (and with north winds, they shouldn't hit). However, I did recently wish for a small storm that would let my insurance company pay for a new roof. I was talking about just the shingles, I really don't want a whole new roof.

Keep your fingers crossed that Rita doesn't take a jog to the west back closer to us. Damage report to come later, some time after I get my power restored.