The wall of water being pushed through the Gulf Mexico by Hurricane Ike is already flooding Galveston, Texas. - Update 1

This will be the new hurricane updates post. See one and two for earlier posts.

I am in inland La Porte and will move to Pasadena/Deer Park later. This area has flooded before and the surge will come right up the drainage systems. Nice day so far - nice breezes.

That won't last.

Galveston is being flooded now.

Animal instincts. One of the cats came upstairs and slept in the upstairs main bathroom last night. That never happens. All we have is low [barometric] pressure. Today my cat is hiding under the bed and won't come out. Again, nothing much is going on now. - Now it is hiding under the bed because it saw a cat carrier and won't come out for anything.

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Got over to my Dad's a little after 10 AM with no problems. Also nearby is a friend who called Harris County emergency service and they told her Pasadena and Deer Park would have no trouble with the storm surge - just the high winds. Quiet and nothing going on till recently except with the cats and dogs. We have three cats locked in the computer room with me and four very small dogs roaming the house and the back yard. I ate lunch and took a nap and emailed and phoned some people.

Now at 3:40 PM we are getting wind and sometimes bands of light rain. Looking at the radar that eye is huge. Why do I have the impression it is going to land a lot closer to the Texas-Louisiana border? My friend called me and said she didn't want to be in her house alone with her cat and so is headed for I-10 and Hwy 6 West of Houston to stay with a friend who left from Webster.

At this coming 2 AM, storm surge damage should be incredible in Galveston and Port Arthur and other places on the Texas coast. Will Galveston's seawall even completely withstand the battering it will get?

Last minute prepare to die instructions for Galveston and Surfside - have a magic marker.

Chron.com

"This is pretty much a worst-case scenario for flooding the Gulf Coast area."

FEMA is anticipating that about 100,000 homes will be flooded and as many as several million people could be without power.

8:00 PM Update - Winds have really picked up. We have had four power outages lasting up to one minute so I expect it will go down and stay down soon.

Ike batters Geraldo video.

8 PM NOAA Advisory:

DATA FROM NOAA DOPPLER WEATHER RADARS AND RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT INDICATE MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS REMAIN NEAR 110 MPH...175 KM/HR... WITH HIGHER GUSTS. IKE IS A STRONG CATEGORY TWO HURRICANE ON THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE AND COULD REACH THE TEXAS COAST SATURDAY MORNING AS A CATEGORY THREE...MAJOR HURRICANE. STRONGER WINDS... ESPECIALLY IN STRONGER GUSTS...ARE LIKELY ON HIGH RISE BUILDINGS.

IKE REMAINS A VERY LARGE HURRICANE AND HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 120 MILES...195 KM...FROM THE CENTER...AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 275 MILES...445 KM. DURING THE PAST HOUR...SUSTAINED WINDS OF 55 MPH HAVE BEEN REPORTED ON GALVESTON ISLAND AND A GUST TO 70 MPH WAS MEASURED AT A NOAA BUOY JUST OFFSHORE GALVESTON ISLAND BEFORE IT STOPPED REPORTING.

COASTAL STORM SURGE FLOODING OF UP TO 20 FEET...WITH NEAR 25 FEET IN SOME AREAS...ABOVE NORMAL TIDES ALONG WITH LARGE AND DANGEROUS BATTERING WAVES...

First acknowledgement of the "battering waves" that could tear down parts of the Galveston Seawall. Photo from Accuweather satellite imagery.


Texas Ike Houston Port Arthur Galveston