The Houston Chronicles - Tales, Anecdotes and Perspectives from Space City

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December 10, 2008

Houston Snow Pictures

90 days removed from a Category 2 Hurricane (a once in two decades occurrence), we were treated to a once in a decade occurrence (a couple of inches of snow). Strange to think that after all those snowfalls back in Kansas that I actually walked around the neighborhood tonight in order to catalog the event:

West Backyard
East Backyard
Another of the Backyard
Frontyard
House Elevation from Street
Neighbor's House
Pine Tree in Frontyard
Neighbor's Yard complete with more Festive Decorations
More Holiday Lights
Vanessa in my Kansas Winter Gear
Collapsed Snowman Ornament
Vanessa and I in the Frontyard

Posted by TheColonel at 10:16 PM | Comments (0)

September 15, 2008

Ike Pictures Part 1

I am still trying to re-locate my camera, which between rapid relocation to beat curfew, and the lack of electricity is proving harder than expected. I'm still holding out hopes that it is not permanently missing and will post the pictures from it whenever I find it. Until then, here are some pictures of lower fidelity taken with my 1 megapixel cell phone camera over the past couple days:

Pre-Ike South with Shutters1
Pre-Ike South with Shutters2
Pre-Ike West with Shutters
Pre-Ike North with Shutters
Pre-Ike East with Shutters
Some Crazy guy in a bear costume running around Seawall just prior to tropical storm conditions in Galveston
Kirby and I-610 with Reliant Stadium damaged jumbotron in background (all road signs have similar forms of damage)
Line of people waiting for the HEB Grocery to open on FM646 in Bay Colony on Sunday morning
Damaged stoplight, Ike left no stoplight untouched
Ice and Water being handed out at the Target in League City
Picture of the approx. 4 ft waterline on the outside of Daniel's house
Mud from Galveston Bay now on Daniel's foyer floor
Daniel's kitchen with overturned refridgerator
Daniel's office, notice the waterline on the drapes
Daniel's bathtub (all tile and carpet used to be white)
Wider angle view of the Kitchen
Another shot of the Kitchen
Sunken boat and storm surged apartments in still overflowing Clear Lake
A boat relocated into the middle of FM-2094 in Clear Lake Shores / Kemah
Post-Ike East side of my house (notice shutters have been torn from the concrete anchors)

Many more to come of higher quality when I find my digital camera.

Posted by TheColonel at 11:22 PM | Comments (0)

Monday Update

Will post much more later, have alot to relay. But Internet service has now been restored to my house. Still have no land line voice, cell service is spotty at best, and the water is contaminated (I got a text message today from the CDC, go figure).

Posted by TheColonel at 11:05 PM | Comments (0)

September 13, 2008

4:00

Gusts are very strong right now, but they seem to have leveled off. They are reporting that all the Beaumont tv stations stopped transmitting in the middle of the night. The eye has slipped by to the east sparing us both the worst winds and the calm of the center.

Posted by TheColonel at 04:16 AM | Comments (1)

2:30

approaching hurricane force in the heights. The wind is actually driving the rain through the weather stripping on the balcony door. iPhone is at 50 percent power. We are still doing okay, vanessa is catching a nap, I just had a red bull And Daniel and I are watching the conditions.

Posted by TheColonel at 02:34 AM | Comments (0)

1:50 am update

conditions about the same. Clear lake is getting absolutely pummeled right now. Sustained hurricane firce winds at my house right now. Dickinson is inside the north eyewall right now, they are reporting the eyewall will hit NASA and seabeook in half an hour. I would guess we will be in the eyewall in about an hour and a half. We will move to the bathroom then.

Posted by TheColonel at 01:48 AM | Comments (0)

1:00 am update

not much more to report right now. Conditions continue to deteriorate, we are expecting to encounter the worst of the storm over the next three hours from both the front and then the backside of the eye. The flow of information has reversed. I am getting more info from tech messages from the outside world than the single radio station we are listening to.

They are 0.75 million without power now. Not many reports from clear lake which is not a good sign. One if the more suprising things in all of this us how many fires are raging in the city right now which firefighters are only trying to prevent from spreading and not extinguish.

I will report in again in awhile, it us going to be a long night. I hope the cell phone network can survive the worst of the storm coming up.

Posted by TheColonel at 01:16 AM | Comments (0)

September 12, 2008

11:30 PM Update

we are still hunkering down but our attention has gone exclusively to the radio. The rain is atarting to come down sideways outside and the noise from the wind is becoming more formidable. They are rporting that the storm gas slowed a bit and should make landfall around 1:30. Have not been getting slot of reports from the coast. West Galveston is in bad shape, underwater, but we have not heard much else.

It's hard thinking about what the bay area must be going through right now, and the anticipation of it all. But at the same time it is a testament to technology that I can still relay status to everyone with no power in the midst of a hurricane.

There continues to be scattered reports of people trapped on rooftops on Galveston island. The clouds are still a pink color outside here which indicates that slot of buildings still have power. Although we have been watching some of the light posts on the top level of the parking garage. The wind is really whipping them around as it is continuing to pick up. There are reporters on seawall blvd right now which is surprising given the conditions. Will report back in in a little while, going to Move some vital tjings to the bathroom.

Posted by TheColonel at 11:36 PM | Comments (1)

water

quick update, our water has been turned off. It seems premature but they must suspect thatvit has been compromised by flood water. No worries on this front though, we have plenty: I would estimate at least 20 gallons of bottled water.

Posted by TheColonel at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)

update

we just received very bad news indeed. Clear lake is up 6 feet, clear creek is full and they are projecting a 20 foot surge in nw Galveston bay. If this is true it is devastating to our friends homes, the places we know and even the spacecenter itself. There is more good news about the bayous, they are saying they will drain normally which gives more hope for my home. But unfortunately the news for the rest of the bay area is not good. Nevertheless I want everyone to know that we are safe, our mood is still as positive as it can be under the circumstances, and we are trying to play card games by lamp light to provide some minimal distractions from the onslaught of unfortunate news about se Houston.

Posted by TheColonel at 10:17 PM | Comments (0)

10:00 PM Update

Getting reports that the power is somehow still on in league city and Dickinson. We are listening to channel 11 on the radio. There are now 350k people without power. the inner doors to the hallways in the apartment complex were on electromagnetic locks and automatically slammed shut when the power went out. We suspect that this was at least one of the noises we heard when we lost power. Not much news about the surge. And while I urge everyone to text me sparingly in order to preserve battery power I would welcome any info about the surge that anyone could provide from varios news sources.

Posted by TheColonel at 09:50 PM | Comments (0)

just lost power. Heard the transformer explode.

Posted by TheColonel at 09:13 PM | Comments (0)

9:00 PM Update

Wind is really going outside right now, the sustained winds are definitely in tropical storm force and have to be increasing toward hurricane strength. We are sheltered very well by the parking garage, so I would imagine the actual wind speeds in our area are a might bit worse.

Getting some information about clear lake. Daniel is sheltering with us and his house is in Clear Lake Shores. The police chief from CLS was reporting that there is a 7 foot tidal surge right now which if we understood him correctly brings the water right up to the level of the island. He said that there was still a couple of families that refused to leave, but other than that the island was completely evacuated including all emergency personnel, deferring all further support requests to the Galveston county level.

The reporters in Galveston have now been required by the San Luis resort in which they are staying (which is on a hill and quite well protected from surge) are no longer allowed to go out on the balconies in that hotel and will have to report from inside the hotel rooms. The power is now out on the entirety of Galveston island.

Posted by TheColonel at 09:02 PM | Comments (0)

8:55 update

test post from Vanessas iPhone. I will use this to attempt to stay online after we lose electricity. And as you might have noticed my posts are a bit in haste hence the poor proofreading.

Posted by TheColonel at 08:54 PM | Comments (0)

8:45 PM Update

There are projecting 3 million without power and upwards of 2-3 weeks to get everything going. There is a developing story that the transformers are blowing in Galveston and starting house fires. And since the rain is not heavy enough to put them out, the wind is strong which is spreading them from house to house and the streets are flooded so there is no way to get to them. The reporters that remain on Galveston island are reporting that the power is out, but the sky is lit up from the size of the fires on the islands west end.

Sciguy has an updated post: blogs.chron.com/sciguy and is reporting the realization of the worst case scenario for Houston. There is little time left for up to be spared from the surge into the Galveston Bay from Ike which apparently intends to do a Lake Ponchartrain-Katrina repeat on Galveston Bay into southeast Houston and the surrounding suburbs: Kemah, League City, Dickinson, Webster, Nassau Bay, Bacliff, Texas City, and others...

Posted by TheColonel at 08:46 PM | Comments (0)

8:30 PM Update

Power continues to blip, no telling how much longer it will be on-line. Things are progressing as expected, the surge continues to rise, we heard that the roof has been torn off the roof of the NASA Hilton which is on the northwest corner of Clear Lake.

Some potential good news, the chron.com is not listing Dickinson Bayou which runs by my house as a potential inland watershed flood area. Not sure exactly what that means, but it is again, potentially good news. Maybe there is not alot of drainage into the body of water. Or maybe they omitted it. No telling.

Link: http://weather.chron.com/US/TX/Houston.html

The watershed, pun intended, moment this evening will be when the surge overtops the seawall in Galveston, thereby putting the entire island under 10 feet of water in minutes. Should the forecasts hold and the surge proceed as expected, that should happend sometime in the late even / early morning hours. With the hurricane making landfall under darkness, we may have to wait until dawn for images on exactly how bad the extent is. Channel 2 was reporting that there are an estimated 20,000 people still in Galveston, with 90,000 people still in the lower bay area. Again, judging from the evacuation traffic I would say that that is a sound estimate.

Posted by TheColonel at 08:20 PM | Comments (0)

Power Update

We just heard a transformer blow outside and the power blipped but remains on. The trees are really moving now, gusting well into hurricane force.

Posted by TheColonel at 07:34 PM | Comments (2)

7:30 PM Update

The reports from the locals continue to echo a common theme, that this is the worst surge they have ever seen before landfall. Channel 2 has some sort of heavy duty vehicle with a dashboard mounted camera and continue to drive around Galveston island. They are reporting that everything north of broadway is flooded. There are several fires raging on the island now, one including a yacht which collided with a support building. The firefighters are using dump trucks to attempt to reach the site.

A curfew is in affect for most of the area in order to severly punish looters. The first most reason I heard for not evacuating was that the storm was only a Cat 2. A close second was the fact that people did not want their obviously hurricane prepped and empty home to be looted. The curfew is an attempt to stem any sort of looting that might take place. How you arrive the morale decision that a hurricane is a chance to take advantage of stealing private property is beyond me. The local authorities have promised extreme punishment for such individuals which I whole heartedly support.

Posted by TheColonel at 07:21 PM | Comments (0)

My House

My neighborhood still doesn't show up on any online maps because it is too new. I don't have time to make a hyperlink, but if you want to see my house's locale, you can go to google maps and google the show home in the neighborhood:

1023 Riverwood Dr, Dickinson, TX

I live in the back of the neighborhood on Misty Cliff, which is (the source of my concern) across the street from Dickinson Bayou. As you can see I am about 10 miles from the water and the surge would need to be pushed up the Dickinson Bayou from Galveston Bay for that 10 miles in order to cause a substantial increase in water level. But there is not much margin for error, my house is about 5-6 feet above the Bayou's nominal water level.

Posted by TheColonel at 06:48 PM

6:30 PM Updates

Wind is really picking up here, especially between the buildings, I would estimate it is gusting close to 50 mph now.

They are talking about the Bayous on Channel 11 now. They are worried because while the storm surge pushes water UP the water channels, Houston is flat. So all of the drainage from the entire area flows DOWN the bayous. If the Bayous are already full of sea water, then the precipitation from the entire area will exacerbate the problem in the bayous while also flooding the rest of the city.

Lets just say that "concerned" about by property and belongings doesn't even begin to describe it.

They are now reporting that the storm has indeed strengthened and is on the cusp of category 3. The eye has visibly shrank on radar and is no longer 50 miles across, but looks to be closer to 20 which dispells many hopes of my previous scenario where the large eye will prevent from flooding out the Houston bay area.

Posted by TheColonel at 06:25 PM | Comments (0)

Storm Chasers

There are some storm chasers out there on the front line that can provide some additional accounts of what is happening first hand. I would recommend google maps also in order to give some geographical perspective for the places they are talking about.

http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou080910_tnt_storm_chaser_ike.6131e028.html

Posted by TheColonel at 06:19 PM | Comments (0)

Power

We are getting much heavier winds here in the past 10 minutes. And the lights just flickered. Don't know how much longer we will have power...

Posted by TheColonel at 05:37 PM | Comments (0)

5:30 PM Updates

I have been saying this all day, but the governor's representatives just came on and said they are projecting $100B in damage, more than Katrina. If that ends up being the case, then the categorization of Hurricanes needs to be revisited. This Category or "cat" emphasis needs to be dropped. One of the root causes that people did not leave their homes was that it was "only a cat 2" storm. Yeah! But with a Cat 5 storm surge!

They need a better metric for measuring hurricane strength which is a composite of all of the damaging aspects of a hurricane and not just sustained wind velocity. How about rain fall potential, forward movement, or surge potential? Those are all equally if not more important from a damage perspective. One metric I have been reading is ironically, Integrated Kintetic Energy potential or IKE. Again, how ironic.

Posted by TheColonel at 04:35 PM | Comments (0)

4:30 PM Updates

Just capturing local news items, it helps me pass the time and not think about how much water could be in my house.

The Galveston historic strand district is now under 4 feet of water
The Bolivar peninsula is completely underwater, the Coast Guard is rescuing people with helicopters
I-45 on Galveston island is now showing that the southbound lanes are underwater
The Kemah boardwalk is now underwater and impassable
Bacliff which is on Galveston Bay is now showing heavy winds and the dykes there (the Bacliff / Texas City area is below sealevel a la New Orleans) are about three feet from being overtopped
There is a fire next to the UTMB hospital in Galveston and is unreachable due to the flooded streets

Posted by TheColonel at 04:27 PM | Comments (2)

Hurricane Ike - The horrid realization of Rita aftermath

I am (somewhat) safe and sound at Vanessa's apartment just west of downtown Houston and watching the Houston bay area become inundated with storm surge with Ike still about 12 hours out. This is going to be bad, they preach down here, especially at NASA which is extremely safety conscious, that the worst case scenario for southeastern Houston would be a strong storm surge hurricane making landfall just to the west of Galveston. Unfortunately that is happening. And due to the boondoggle that was Rita, things stand to get worse. They are projecting 40% of the population of Galveston is STILL there. And anyone that has seen the seawall knows that once it is overtopped, the rest of the island is lower, so you will immediately go from having no water in your house, to about 10 feet. Not a good situation at all. I will try and provide updates as long as we have power if for nothing else that to pass the time and the anxiety of watching the flood waters approach your home, your friends's homes and your work and everything else.

But for now, chew on this, I this is point #5 from my list of lessons learned for authorities that should have been heeded following Hurricane Rita evacuation. Posted this back in Oct. 2005:

5. In the future, play chess not checkers. And this is the most important one of all. I guarantee you that just as you saw a strong comittment to evacuate for Rita because of Katrina, you are going to see a strong comittment to NOT evacuate for the next hurricane threat because of this traffic boondoggle during Rita. Knowing that, prepare for it, people are not going to leave next time simply because they don't want to submit themselves to such turmoil again. You're going to have to assure them that this time you'll do the things I mentioned above, and even then you're not going to be able to convince everyone of your competence. So prepare for the worst, because of the traffic blunders this time, you're going to need alot more helicopters to pull people off their roofs next time. Concede that and be ready.

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