How many DUers are following the post-hurricane chaos

in Texas.

http://www.maroonspoon.com/wx/ike.html

Watch KHOU and see the people lining up for ice and food.

Texas DUers, please tell us who has power and who doesn't. How far away from Galveston are the power cuts.

where Mueller told him to get lost. They covered the anthrax case. I'll try to come back after my nausea subsides.

Heck of job out there, FEMA!

With a storm that big you couldn't even get close.

for these types of natural disasters. Not only that, but just three years ago we had a "practice" run named Katrina, then another followup "practice" run named Rita.

This is nothing short of criminally negligent. When you take the agency responsible for problems of this magnitude and put a lackey in charge instead of a PROFESSIONAL, this is what we taxpayers get.

I know someone who lives on North Padre Island (Corpus Christi) and when Ike was forecast to hit there, they went into full gear getting ready to get out. They shuttered up and got their stuff together before the storm turned toward Houston. They would have been wiped out just as the islands off Houston were. They lucked out this time.

It's a mess.

customers. That means most supermarkets are closed and people have no ice left on day four.
A person who can deliver dry ice could make a killing.

The goons don't care. They make money off disasters.

how to do it faster and slicker this time.

New Orleans and Texas. I hate this filthy government.

keep in mind that the prediction for the disaster was to be MUCH WORSE than it actually turned out to be

we are talking about a metro area covering some 8 million people, how do you not assume that a cat 2 with a cat 5 storm surge totally destroying galveston (which was, you'll recall, the forecast) would not involve a power outage to millions?

don't give me your "no one" when probably everybody watching the weather thought this storm would be much, much worse

the problem is, we were told "certain death" -- and you don't have to bother to provide supplies for dead people

another day, another bush/cheney/fema fuck-up if you ask me

the trillions wasted in iraq could have provided plenty of helicopters to drop food and water if you ask me, not that anybody did

If you read Masters's blog regularly, you'll note he's an advocate of a different manner of measuring hurricane strength. The Saffir-Simpson scale is based on wind and storm surge "typically" associated with that wind. But, there are many variables in what creates a storm surge and how big it will be. The experimental scale Masters advocates measures the kinetic energy of a storm, ranging from 1-6, and on that scale Ike made landfall as a 5.0. (It was a 5.4 at its peak.) By contrast, Katrina was a 5.1, IIRC.

Anyway ... here are a couple of his blog entries, the first noting that Ike made landfall as a Cat 2 storm with a Cat 4 level storm surge.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1084&tstamp=200809

In this earlier entry, he discusses the potential ferocity of Ike and why it was worse than what "Cat 2" might suggest.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=1081&tstamp=200809

And a pic ... just because it's an awesome pic with the trapped freighter visible as a tiny dot in the eye ...

warnings seriously. Governor Hair clearly thought it would be a non-event in Houston.

left on the shelf--and that's a stretch. Galveston Island is torn up and the roads are inaccessible in some places. I don't think they really imagined the magnitude of what Ike would do. I know I didn't. I live in Dallas and was just vacationing in Galveston two months ago. The gift shop on the seawall that has been there for many years is gone.

It's heartbreaking.:cry:

My aunt's neighbor was able to contact associates in Arkansas who rounded up generators, gasoline, and dry ice. He even called asking if we wanted to donate to help him with relief. This guy brought the stuff back in 2 U-Haul trucks and then proceeded to sell these items to his neighbors with a 200% markup (my aunt paid $6 a gallon for gasoline to run her generator). Needless to say, two years later he is not a welcome face at neighborhood cookouts.

on the strip of land on the north side of Galveston bay?

told us.

here at DU would have liked to see.

Media hysteria would like you to believe a hurricane is not survivable. It is, if you take proper precautions.

that area is not real big-however, there were some strong holdouts.

were of one lone woman and her dog waving from a deck, hopefully all of her neighbors left.

Another picture I saw was of (I think) Crystal Beach, where there was one house left standing. If anybody stayed to ride that out, they're now dead.

so we are very fortunate here in Richmond.

Sugar Land, just north of us, doesn't seem to be so well off - school will not resume until Monday the 22nd at the earliest. I'm told it's not because of damage to schools per se, but widespread lack of power.

I'm listening to the TV, and they are saying that PODs (Points of Distribution) are running out of food.

We also want you to tell us where does not have power - what counties. Who was told to prepare and who wasn't. Are they rationing gas?

Have Dems organized any lunchboxes, ice, etc.

They told the coast and the ship channel area to evacuate and everybody else to shelter in place. Which was right, IMHO - power outages are nothing compared with being on the coast, and they needed to get out first.

Everybody within a large area was told to prepare, although I don't know if people were prepared for how far inland (Montgomery county) it was still at least a cat 1 - they are still to a large extent out of power.

Not rationing gas per se - just hard to find stations that have power so they can pump gas. Few and far between, even down here in Richmond. Actually, they may be limiting what you can get for all I know - I filled up before the storm the way you are supposed to do, so I can make it at least until the weekend, barring unforeseen circumstances.

Dunno about the Dems. I'm going to go to the headquarters tomorrow and see what is going on. I'm also looking into volunteer opportunities on the web.

Got this from Lampson:
http://lampson.congressnewsletter.net/mail/util.cfm?gpiv=1999879342.64053.70&gen=1

Check these guys out- http://deezlee.com/arrr/wp-register.php
These are the same people who set up the Waveland kitchen after Katrina.They could use help and donations.

I signed up. Most of the other stuff I looked at wasn't too helpful - like they still had listings for Katrina!

The power's not being restored in big chunks. It's being restored in patches from N. Houston to Santa Fe in the south, Katy to Baytown in the east. Gas stations and stores are among the top priorities. So lots of people don't need FEMA help, they just need to go to their local supermarket.

We did exactly that today. The first one we went to had a line (the manager was limiting the numbers of people who could go inside, with maybe 20 standing outside ... it was less packed inside than an average Saturday). The second had no lines, was fairly well stocked for most things (don't look for chocolate chip cookies or bread, though). We didn't check out any others.

Gas stations in the area were open, with maybe 5-10 cars in line. With four pumps each, the line would move quickly. I expect no lines tomorrow, when full bus service in non-evacuated parts of Houston is expected to be back. The light rail will take longer; about half of the power lines are reconnected, the other half will take a day or two longer.

Water's not a problem. Some neighborhoods have issued boil orders yesterday or twoday; Houston rescinded its boil order yesterday. Power to the areas with boil orders is also a top priority, they said. Since they fixed Houston's water system on Saturday, I take them at their word.

Everybody was told to prepare or to evacuate, depending where you live. To have 3 days' supplies of everything you'd need, more if necessary; if you were in a flood-prone area or an area affected by storm surge, they said to bug out.

Some areas are hopeless. Galveston will have a health crisis if people stay there, simply because there is no infrastructure and it's silly to create a temporary one to accommodate those scattered few who are staying. No water, no sewer, no electricity, and none for a month, probably. They'll rebuild, alas.

Yep people need at least three days of supplies although by today most people would be running out of ice.

I still can't believe that two million people lost power. That's hard to imagine.

I'd like to know how this compares with power loss in other storms that have hit Houston.

Even in our area, where the wind and water weren't so bad, power was basically completely gone for three days, except in a few places - fortunately some were restaurants! We didn't lose windows, or roof, or large tree branches, but we lost power for three days.

I noticed that most of the newly-installed red lights (we have a *lot* of new houses and shopping around here) are down. Makes me wonder about the workmanship.

That's something else.

clearly the power outages in the northeast corridor were much larger, thanks to the density of the population

i would believe the largest power outage in the history of HOUSTON or even in the history of TEXAS but obviously 2 million w.out power can't compare to 8 million w. out power in new york city back in the day, for one famous example

i was myself in a power outage in the capital of madagascar, a city of 6 million, and this is simply not an uncommon event in the third world, indeed, i had the impression that it's a fairly routine event in tana

2 million is just not a historical record unless they have major qualifiers (u.s. history is a qualifier but still i believe NOT correct)

It's not 2 million *people* without power. The numbers most of the outside world is getting are based on outage *households* for Centerpoint Energy only, which does serve most of the Houston area. Centerpoint had, at its height, 2.1 million customers without power, which means households and/or billing addresses.

Also, there are more people without power than just Houston/Galveston. The Woodlands, for example, which is on the far northern edge of Houston, has almost no power. Conroe, a little farther north, has major outages. Those areas are, I believe, served by a different energy company. I don't know what the numbers are today, but as of Saturday, another half million households were without power in these areas. In addition, there are areas up along the coast where there is no power at all.

In other words, you can't compare the population of an area to the numbers you are hearing for what is going on in the Houston area.

I don't know that it really matters what area gets the designation of "worst" anyway. It's not exactly a record to be happy about.

not single family households.

I found out just today my apartment complex is one "customer." There are about 200 people here. 'Course we're lucky in that we have power and have had it since Saturday ... underground lines. My lease renewal is coming up, and I think I just found my reason to stay here.

I have no idea where the number came from at this point, but what I heard thrown around on Saturday was that 5 million households/customers were without power at some point, with outages extending all the way to just south of the Dallas/Ft. Worth area and east into Louisiana.

I guess this means the Blue Bell factory is not hosting tours right now. :(

I was told when I moved here, "In case of hurricane, eat ice cream." Ate up all the Blue Bell. Now there ain't none.

Dammit.

:-)

involving a few months of long distance dating. His parents lived in Brenham (been thinking about them, the dad needed all kinds of equipment last I heard) and he took us out to Blue Bell and to all kinds of places. That was some pretty country.

I fell in love with Texans, too. They were, as a group, very different from the blunt people I'm used to or, maybe their bluntness was different. Different rules for what you say out loud and what you keep to yourself.

The air was like soup in July and it didn't bother me a bit. We never went down to Houston. I'm sorry about that now.

People like us who live in high risk places (this is earthquake country and we're in a tsunami zone) need to organize block by block. Because it's going to be a long time before FEMA is patched up or before the rest of our infrastructure recovers from these Bush years.

It's taken me awhile to get to know my neighbors down here ... different culture I think. (I came from Oklahoma, so I find it weird that it's so different, but it is.) But, I got to know them all really well between Thursday and Friday. It was sorta spontaneous throughout the whole complex. We just started gathering outside, exchanging pleasantries, eventually inventories of what we had, what we could part with if it came to that, what we needed. As I said, we got lucky so it never came to that, but I think we were all prepared. Guy next door had a grill. Couple next to him had a side of beef in the freezer. I had enough water and soda to last me a month. All that helped getting through the night when I didn't know if the power would come back.

Back in Oklahoma (especially Oklahoma City where, for some reason, everything built after the 70's has no storm shelter unless the buyer of the property put one in) it was a requirement that you knew your neighbors. Between the ice storms and the tornadoes, emergency/disaster scenarios abounded. FEMA never comes for that it seems. I don't recall if FEMA was in OKC after the May 3rd tornado (May 3rd, 1999 ... we just call it the May 3rd tornado, and everyone knows), but if they did, they didn't do much. It was definitely neighbor helping neighbor during that with assistance from local governments in some cases, the Red Cross, Feed the Children, and a few other groups.

And that's fine, but -- and I know you can relate -- it really, really pisses me off we have this massive bureaucracy in a federal organization that has one damn job, and they can't even do that job. What do they do? I have no idea other than provide a job for Skeletor.

It's enough to make me want to put on the tinfoil. Seeing how FEMA has operated over these past few years, I find less and less reason to argue against the notion that its only purpose is to protect government from the people ... to round us up and put us in holding pens out of sight when the fit hits the shan.

We had a terrible ice storm in December. Obviously, nothing compares to what Texas is going through at the moment, but not having power in December is a real problem, because as you know, many houses/apartments have electric heating. I think my husband and I, at one point, had 10 people staying in our 2 bedroom apartment, complete with animals--because part of our complex lost power, but our side fortunately didn't. So we had functioning appliances, hot water and heat.
I had professors who didn't want to burden us grad students camped out in their homes in front of fireplaces (if they were lucky), cooking on hibachis in their backyards with 10 colleagues in their houses.
It's a nice sense of community here in OK, though it can get a little annoying when you'd like some privacy :)

I did wonder about New York.

It was two million customers, and that was only for Centerpoint--Houston and some points south, including Galveston.

Areas north of Houston go with Entergy, with nearly 400k customers without power; they reported their first power restored *today*. Points east have some other provider, and they were hit by the worst winds. TXMN, whatever that stands for, has a small chunk of territory between Houston and Galveston, and has suffered a lot of power outages.

A "customer" is a name on a bill. "Pete's Pizza" is a customer, "Huge Mega-Store" is a customer, and "Bill Smith", with his family of 4, is a customer. Mr. Igil is the official customer here, with Mrs. Igil and the Igiling. It's likely that there are more like 4 million Centerpoint users, a million for Entergy, etc. So the numbers are worse.

But they were out fixing stuff quickly. No longer hard to imagine. Oddly, most people are taking it in stride; even where there's no power, today I saw people out cleaning up the deadfall. Businesses are getting open or ready to open. They're predicting 50-75% power restoration in Houston by 9/23, 10 days out from Ike. Considering that some of the remaining 25% was wiped, that's not just horrible: Places like Galveston and Kemah need their substations essentially replaced.

People are being told it may be as long as Friday or Sunday.

hoping to get mine back on soon. :hi:

Didn't the east side get the worst of it (other than the islands)?

We got Ike on the downswing, so yes, areas east of us got it worse than we did.

Almost nonstop. It's a nightmare scenario...FEMA, lack of electricity and other necessities.

The storm had passed in our area by midday Saturday, much less Sunday. Yet, from what I heard, the trucks did not even start to roll out until Monday.

By Sunday night Centerpoint had over 200k customers back on the grid.

Centerpoint trucks rolled around noon on Saturday. You can look on the Centerpoint webpage to see a map of where power's restored. Westside has more than eastside, but it also had less damage. Near the Galleria/Afton Oaks didn't lose power at all.

Entergy dawdled. I don't think they started repairs until Monday morning. Can't say anything about others, I haven't heard.

Must have been Entergy.

We're Centerpoint, and we got power back Monday PM.

By the way where is Tom Delay?

Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Most hilarious comment to date - man at Jamaica beach examining his damage saying it could have been much worse. He added that he felt very sorry for all those atheists who said 'god was their insurance policy'. That's one for the books. The interviewer asked him if he was an Xtian demonstrating a higher level of 'cluelessness'. Priceless.

I'm going to start working on a paper on the politics of hurricane responses in the Caribbean and US. There is too much material out there.

Where does that leave the poor people whose houses were destroyed? God doesn't like them?

Anyone who uses that line to me gets a tongue lashing.

Delay called into msnbc to complain about the coverage he said that they were exaggerating and that he wasn't leaving he said that he was staying and hunkering down to protect his property..

Delay in name and nature.

If you mean why isn't he touring the area, he's not our rep anymore, thank God.

It's FUBAR!

Very apt. :toast:

of people trying to get into Galveston (after the mayor said the residents could come for a "Look and Leave" until 6:00 p.m.). There are 15 miles of traffic jam. (KTRK, the ABC channel).

Now they have under an hour until they are supposed to be out of Galveston... and many of the people who have come from a long way to have a chance to see what has happened to their homes are going to have to turn around and leave before they ever get there.

The utility trucks are stuck in the monster traffic jam, too.

This is going to turn into a shitstorm...

I am so sorry for the people who had to evacuate and now have no idea if they still have a house or not.

http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou080915_tj_galveston_health_mosquitoes.7ecbe139.html
Health conditions deteriorate on Galveston

02:37 AM CDT on Tuesday, September 16, 2008

By Leigh Jones / Galveston County Daily News

GALVESTON — Search and rescue missions are continuing on Galveston Island, but health conditions are deteriorating at a high rate.

Mosquitoes have become a serious problem for anyone left on the island. One man had about 1,000 mosquito bites and had to be airlifted out. There are no reports of mosquito-borne illnesses yet, but city officials are trying to get the island sprayed with insecticide as soon as possible.

Air reports also confirm water is filled with oil and chemicals. City officials are ordering people to stay off and out of the water.

Water came on at the San Luis at 10 p.m. Sunday, and the service is likely to be expanded soon. However, the city is under a boil water notice. City officials are asking those on the island to avoid consumption of the water — use it for showers and flushing only. Officials are desperately trying to keep people off the seawall as well

and the snake Tom Delay is about to cash in.

One nice thing I saw on KHOU was a man with a portable generator - a combo of wind and solar helping out officials so they could charge their communications equipment and cell phones. He drove for miles to help them out. That was cool.

Hiccups re supplies says Mr KHOU - now that's a euphemism.

they are going to start turning people away. I hope it doesn't get ugly... If I sat in a traffic jam all day and they turned me away because I got to the "checkpoint" outside the city at 6:01 p.m... I would go batshit.

and it's four days after the hurricane - ice is running out even in homes where people prepared.

:eyes:

:kick:

www.chron.com

There are some great pictures of people with their pets here:

http://www.chron.com/channel/petshouston/photogallery/How_animals_are_weathering_Hurricane_Ike.html

That warms my heart.

Anita Kasper cleans outside a west Galveston clinic the staff wants to reopen for emergency care.

Bravo Anita :yourock:

they need to keep the food, water, and ice coming to these people, and get the lights on ASAP

we noticed w. katrina and gustav that authorities gave overly conservative estimates for when power would be back, for example, after katrina it might be "two or three weeks" in our neighborhood, it was really only 10 days and we were able to sneak in before the evacuation period was lifted, and so on -- let's hope the same is true here and that many, many people will be getting back to normal sooner than they're being told

i'm concerned about loss of life, so far, it sounds like it could have been much, much worse, let's hope we don't have any ugly surprises coming

have all the missing DUers checked in? what about swamp rat? last i heard he evac'd for gustav and had not yet returned?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=3984446&mesg_id=4012021

#44 By TahitiNut: "He'll be around when he recharges his batteries. I advised rest, food, and smooth jazz. Swampie's a "keeper" ... someone I'm glad to share the planet with."

.

The mayor of Galveston just suspended this "program." Doesn't look like much planning was done---A big misjudgment of looks like.

Not just to save their lives from the immediate storm, but so that the S&R folks don't have to deal with keeping the survivors alive while they start recovery.

I can't believe they opened Galveston back up to the masses at this point. Dumb move.

and have no idea what complete dislocation means. People have to return home to save what they can and then start over.

In most parts of the world people help clean up their neighborhood after disasters and they survive without power and piped water. If they are forced to go to shelters they return home as soon as the storm passes.

Sheesh, I cannot believe the crap people post.

Every person they keep from returning will more than likely be one person who will NOT evacuate in the future.

it sure does look like a sequel to Katrina. Fema strikes again.

I keep it on all evening while surfing the 'net and DU. KHOU (rt upper) and ABC 13 (rt lower) have been outstanding, especially the field journalists.

They were interviewing a woman who said that her dog was still there and she couldn't bring him out that day for some reason, maybe it was because of who she was riding with. She said she had to come back and get him tomorrow. That's just before they announced that.

You need a hug. :grouphug:

got their power back at 4:30 PM central time on Sunday.

and there were road signs telling people NOT to travel to Houston or Beaumont.
Said there wasn't gas down there or en route.

So if you wanted to take supplies and a generator to your family in Houston, what happens?

I can't EVER remember seeing a sign saying anything remotely similar about traveling to other areas.

I do remember signs warning of limited gas on roads to Houston following Rita.

work is my only connection with the outside world, home is very dark and desolate. all the stores are out of ice and batteries and very few stores open around here.

place them in the sun. They'll be warm enough for a bath when you get home.
Buy a bag of coal and cook on your BBQ in your garage, patio or backyard.

Hope things improve soon.

won't hold water so I do the quick in & out technique with the shower. so far 200,000 in my county still without power the eta is Sunday for everyone. The Mrs and I work 2nd shift so at least we have some mornings there with daylight and we spend out late nights reading in bed with mag lights.

or a large pot. You'd be surprised how good one bucket of warm water makes you feel when you don't have regular power and water. I was without power from September to November back in 88. Hurricanes are like that.

Constantly. I have family that lost their homes due to Ike.

:grouphug:

How far from Galveston are the power cuts? Ohio

I know it sounds crazy, but Hurricane Ike came through Ohio on Sunday leaving 2.6 million customers without power. Personally, I lost my power Sunday about 3:00 pm and it just came back-- about 54 hrs. w/o electricity. I'm really lucky because it's estimated that there are a million people still without power here. I'm missing a deck and all my gutters. I was definitely caught unprepared. I know to stock up for snow storms, but who thinks about a hurricane in the upper midwest? This was one heck of a strong storm.

All my thoughts and good vibes are heading to the citizens of Texas. :hug:

No one would expect people in Ohio to prepare for a tropical storm. Luckily your damage is nothing like Texas, but that must be quite a mess without power.

It sure has been a year of floods and storms in the US.

Lots and lots of downed power lines and damaged transformers. Lots of structural and tree/ damage. 84 out of 88 counties were hit--
Parts of my area 3 blocks away still don't have power. By Monday they were predicting some areas may not have power until the weekend!
There was then a huge run on generators and other survival/camping gear. By late Monday, stores for miles around were completely sold out of generators; even lanterns were hard to find, but many restaurants and business have been open throughout; there has been plenty of ice, and grocery store shelves have remained well stocked.


I've been in a news/internet blackout since Sunday. There's been very little talk on the conditions on the local area radio stations.
It's been very surreal. Still, none of this compares to the far deeper suffering in the Gulf. My heart aches for those experiencing so much loss and dislocation.


http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/apwire/888dfa4aa48fd58dd2cff31db038ef1b.htm

Ike-related storm deaths state by state (AP)

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ilxhMhul3CK8kuMhNNBOXeAhtUuQD9387B6G0

Governor declares state of emergency in Ohio

http://www.bizjournals.com/dayton/stories/2008/09/15/daily9.html

She has a generator and is the only person on her block with power.

She's suddenly become very popular with the neighbors.

INSANE amounts of rain here this weekend. One hell of a storm.

This is western PA - about thirty miles east of Youngstown, OH. They may not get power back until thursday at the earliest. We got the remnants of Hugo years ago, but it was nothing like this.

Getting power back after a major storm -- even one that is weakening -- can take some time. In 2003, Hurricane Isabel made landfall in North Carolina. By the time it hit the DC suburbs it had weakened but overall that storm knocked out power to millions of homes; in my case, living 20 minutes from downtown DC, I was without power for a solid week.

It was just in the past day or so that the last areas of Baton Rouge to lose power from Gustav finally got their power restored -- two weeks after the storm hit.

so on Monday, many counties had to ask for help from Canada to come down and help get the power back up. Some states are recalling their crews from down in the Gulf, because of their own disasters.

Chad Meyers, meteorologist on CNN, just said that Iceland was struck by the cell that had been Ike, with winds up to 75 mph and heavy rains this morning.

Many of the much bigger category Hurricanes have ended up affecting the Great Lake's lands over the years, but never with the intensity that Ike managed to carry. As you've said, "Nothing like this"!

he called the evening Ike came through from his home in Dublin (near Columbus). He said that he had NEVER seen those kind of sustained winds in a storm. Note to our fossil fuel overlords; climate change can and will effect EVERYONE!

and my brother (also near Columbus and also in his sixties) could not get over the speed and power that wind managed to sustain for so long. He was out in it, trying to shore things up with twoxfours, until the trees began coming down and he had to give up. Yesterday, that's all he kept saying..."Never saw anything like it".

My 90 yr old mother, all alone over to the west, thought it was the end of the world...she said it blew the soybeans right off the stems, threshed the wheat right off the straw, and laid the corn down, like a quilt pulled tight up a bed. And she NEVER saw anything like it!

they are connected in a tragic way.. aka insurance

Chewing gum and walking at the same time can be hard

Martial Law to force people out of the Bolivar peninsula.

meanwhile all sorts of techniques will be used today to find missing people. Relatives are calling TV stations non-stop.

sp.

I don't believe that I've ever followed the track of a Hurricane as closely as I have Ike, wore out the damn weather maps. Power in Ohio has just come back up for some, since the remnants of the hurricane tore threw the state on Sunday. Corn crops flattened, huge old trees down all over the state, winds lasted for hours, my brother said it sounded like a jet turbine, almost as loud as a tornado but the wind never changed direction and never let up. Never seen anything like it. Winds clocked north of Columbus at 78 mph.

Over in the western edge of the state, winds were at 70, same story, no power, crops destroyed, mass trees downed, silos ripped apart, water towers damaged, windmills knocked over.

Meanwhile, I sit thousands of miles away, worrying.

Ike was a bastard.

And yes, I'm once again following the devastation down on the Gulf. They reported this morning that the total death toll in Texas is now at 17 and more than 350,000 are still without power. It may be weeks before they'll be able to restore utilities to some areas, water lines are broken, gas lines damaged...one hell of a mess.

It seems bound to get much worse, before it gets better.

She lives in Louisville, KY. They lost power as Ike moved up through Arkansas and into Ohio. The power company is telling them it could be Friday before they have power back on because they sent all their trucks and crews to Texas. This storm was so much worse than anyone anticipated. I don't know how so many people missed the mark on how much destruction was going to happen (parts of St. Tammany Parish where I live were flooded Friday and Saturday before the storm even hit Texas).

in several states?

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ilxhMhul3CK8kuMhNNBOXeAhtUuQD9387B6G0

Central Ohio update this morning--

http://www.nbc4i.com/midwest/cmh/news.apx.-content-articles-CMH-2008-09-17-0001.html

....was staying at his girlfriend's house outside Louisville because they still had power in their suburb....said it was really BAD in Lousiville!!

My friend in Beaux Bridge sent me pictures yesterday of Erath and Delcambre...only 20 miles south of them and there was EXTENSIVE flooding shown there.

and they only lost power for about four hours. And they are just across the river from Louisville.

:hi:

but there is a group from Galveston that has decided to be their own media. They have a message board here. Pictures and vids will be posted on a Myspace page.

carrying signs of "Evacuation - Never Again". They are desperate to begin recovery of their own homes, with losses growing every day they cannot get in to start clean-up.

return to Galveston island today.

Imagine the power grid this way.

First, they fix the highways.

Then, they fix the major roads.

Then, the fix the less travelled roads.

In other words, one small neighborhood can be cut in half - half with electricity, half without. And if the first half with electricity is on a major "highway," but the second half isn't, the second half might not acquire power for days or weeks after the first half.

For that reason, you can drive through the "burbs" here and see extension cords going across one side of the street to the other. Thankfully, people really are helping each other as much as we can.

http://www.maroonspoon.com/wx/ike.html

Special interests getting into Galveston while others are being denied entrance. Frustrations boiling over - people getting angry - rumors spreading.

Chertoff press conference coming up.

(My power was restored late Monday, my mom's yesterday, but her business is still without.)

http://www.centerpointenergy.com/staticfiles/CNP/Common/SiteAssets/doc/Ike%20outage%20MAP_9.17_noon.pdf

for me, power went out 1:30 am Sat. and returned late Monday. Fortunately, I filled my gas tank before the storm and still have 3/4 left. Gas lines are now very, very long (some wrapping out into the streets.) I've been to the grocery store 3 times since Sunday. Sunday, I had to wait in line to get into the store. There was no frozen or refrigerated foods or any fruit or produce. (Some restaurants opened Sunday, but only took cash.) Monday, there was fruit and produce, still no cold items (no cheese, sandwich meat, ground meat, etc.) I had to throw out all my food in my fridge on Monday. :( Tonight, I will go back for milk and cheese and coffee filters. :)

All home owners have cleaned their own property. That happened Saturday. We had our first trash pickup yesterday, but they left all storm debris and that won't be picked up for two more weeks. Tree removal of major streets in my neighborhood has only happened if the trees obstructed the road. If they are in the median, they haven't moved.

Seems to be plenty of water. Ice was scarce, but then a shipment came in and people turned into greedy pigs and were buying multiple carts full. Finally, ice was rationed.

Some people have power restored, but still no phone lines. Today is the first day that my calls are going through on the first try. Saturday through yesterday, I communicated mostly through text messages.

Schools are closed all week and park and ride-type services resume on Monday. I think we're still under curfew, which is weird.

On the plus side, the weather has been beautiful. Nice and cool with a breeze, so at least we weren't sweltering in the heat.

Okay, I can't think of anything else yet, but if I think of something, I'll post.

Another golden rule for hurricane preparations - take out that old phone that does not need electricity. Forget hands set for a while.

Glad you're coping. :grouphug:

(they are cable-based), but a couple neighbors are without, and according to the phone company (ATT), will be restored after the 25th.

(FYI: I've posted a Centerpoint power restoration map and a Galveston link in the Texas forum if anyone needs info.)