2008 Hurricane Season

[Chip R]

Can't they just use the Astrodome?

[RBA]

The Houston Texans will not be playing their home opener against the Baltimore Ravens on Monday night at Reliant Stadium.

The game was supposed to have been played at 7:30 p.m., but Hurricane Ike has caused damage to the stadium that has made it unsuitable for hosting the game.

"The facility will not be usable," said Shey Guinn, president of SMG, the company that manages Reliant Park.

"There's some structural damage to the roof. Part of it is off," Guinn said.

"There's also some other damage on the property caused by wind and water. We're in the process of assessing the damage," he said. "As far as the game being postponed again or played, that will be up to the NFL."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...s/5999358.html

Not very reliant, if you can't rely on it.

[SandyD]

southbound lanes of the freeway near galveston; from chron.com

[SandyD]

also from chron.com
that's the memorial to the 1900 hurricane victims

[OnBaseMachine]

Ike's damage
In it's wake, Ike has left a Texas-sized disaster. AIR Worldwide, Inc, is estimating that total insured damage in Texas and Louisiana will be $10 billion. An additional $3.4 billion in damage was likely done in the Gulf of Mexico, due to wind and wave damage to oil platforms and the indirect loss of revenue attributable to reductions in oil and gas production. Using the usual rule of thumb that total hurricane damages are double the insured damages, the price tag for Ike will be about $27 billion. That would make Ike the third costliest hurricane in history. Only Hurricane Katrina of 2005 and Hurricane Andrew of 1992 did more damage than Ike has. So far, the death toll from Ike has been remarkably low, considering the level of damage this storm inflicted. Let's hope it stays this way.

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/Jef...&tstamp=200809

[SandyD]

on a lighter note:

Marines may start hunting storms
Top U.S. Air Force brass may face tough questions at an upcoming Senate Armed Services Committee, after the Air Force’s “Hurricane Hunters” failed to destroy Hurricane Gustav.

“I just don’t see a whole lot of ‘hunting’ going on here,” said chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.). “It seems like all they do is go up there and fly around for a few hours. Why aren’t they using their missiles?”

Based at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss., the 10 WC-130J aircraft have never successfully “hunted” a named storm, despite flying through the eye-walls of these systems since 1944.

The perceived failure of the Hurricane Hunting program has led some Pentagon insiders to question whether the duty of annihilating tropical weather systems might be better handled by another branch of the military.

“Just let me send my Marines in there,” begged Maj. Gen. Neil Fredricks. “Hurricane Gustav would be Hurricane Goodbye!”

(from the New Orleans Levee, a monthly satirical newspaper started after Katrina)

[SandyD]

Heard from my sister:

When she woke up this morning, the water level was all the way up to her house, but it didn't come in. Seems to be going down now, tho.

She's still without power, and without water.

She's thinking about going to my brother's in Dallas for a few days.

[Reds Fanatic]

The remnants of Ike went through Ohio today and nearly 700,000 in the Cincinnati area and 100,000 in the Dayton area are without power tonight. It could be days before everyone in this area gets power back according to the news.

[deltachi8]

just a quick note from my cell as power is out here. we made it through ike safe and sound. the eye passes right over us at 5 am. quite the interesting experience was walking outside during the eye. so peaceful...then it all started again.

some neighbors have fairly significant damage. we were amazingly lucky...just some slight damage to our fence.

will check back when the power comes back.

[SandyD]

thanks for checking in, deltachi. Hang in there with the power out

[SandyD]

The remnants of Ike went through Ohio today and nearly 700,000 in the Cincinnati area and 100,000 in the Dayton area are without power tonight. It could be days before everyone in this area gets power back according to the news.

Hope it's not that long.

[LoganBuck]

Hope it's not that long.

From the sounds of the news we have as much damage in the area as if a large ice storm had come through. My guess is that it will take days. The news mentioned a call has been put out to crews from the Carolinas to come up and help restore power.

[SandyD]

You know, there were crews from Cleveland here helping in Baton Rouge after Gustav. They said while they'd have power restored to customers, but they expected to be there for months finishing off the work.

Houston has people coming in from as far away as California, that I know of.

It's kind of crazy.

My power went off during the night last night, but it just came back on.

[Unassisted]

Can't they just use the Astrodome?

I think I've heard that the Astrodome is a church now. It isn't public property.

[Reds Fanatic]

From the sounds of the news we have as much damage in the area as if a large ice storm had come through. My guess is that it will take days. The news mentioned a call has been put out to crews from the Carolinas to come up and help restore power.

I heard some of the local crews were already in Houston or on the way to Houston to help with their power problems and now they are trying to get them back to help with the power problems in the Cincinnati area.