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Hurricane Ike

what are you doing to prepare for hurricane ike?

  • I'm evacuating

    Votes: 5 19.2%

  • I'm boarding up and I'm gonna ride it out

    Votes: 9 34.6%

  • I'm not doing any thing hoping it will miss

    Votes: 12 46.2%
  • Total voters
    26
  • Poll closed .
#141
Bassic83 said:
Yesterday we had 2.1 million without power, that was just the Houston area, and just the Centerpoint T&D customers. Add in the TNMP and Entergy customers and the total was more like 3.2 million. First reports I heard at work were 438,000 were restored, I'm expecting to hear good news tonite that more are cut on. There was a frustrating problem with the other T&Ds refusing to help. That might be over, I heard rumor that a Florida utility is sending help, as well as some Mississippi crews coming in.

There was a complete failure of the FEMA relief system (what's new there?) to coordinate with State, County, and local officials to provide PODs (Points Of Distribution) for water, ice, and food. We got a message from Texas City Dept of Emergency Management that there would be three convoys of trucks ready to pass out these desperately needed supplies, and that they would announce the locations of the relief supplies. That info turned out to be false, got a call later from them apologizing for the false alarm, that there was only a partial shipment (one ice truck only) of relief supplies and they were gone before they even had a chance to relay the pickup point! Galveston first responders went from Thursday night to Monday without food or water.

Through all of this weekend, we had a P-3 Orion circling our house, going from Galveston out and around to the bay, then back over Sante Fe/Hitchcock, circling, circling...those planes are hurricane hunters. For two days I watched it doing circles at 2000 ft, burning about 200 gallons of Jet-A per hour. Our tax dollars at work ;)! Nice to know they were on the lookout for more hurricanes that might sneak up and sucker-punch us while we were reeling from Ike!

FEMA has apparently got some supplies enroute, they should be here by tomorrow. The whole problem boils down to the firewall that exists between the different layers of government. They don't talk, they just point fingers while people die. Mega-frustrating. :mad:


If anyone out there has any spare electricity laying around, could you please send it to us? Even a bottle or two of 120v, 60Hz would help...:eyebrow:
Click to expand...
Yep, FEMA dropped the ball. Again. Even Clear Channel, headed up by (I think...) AM 740, was able to get supplies out to people before FEMA was. Hell, FEMA ain't even here yet...
 
#142
I got home yesterday from Austin. I live in the Montrose area and it's mostly just lots of broken and uprooted trees and fences down inside the loop. I have one broken window which let rain it and a lot of my cds and dvds and records got wet. The disks will all be fine but a lot of covers will be ruined. A few trees in my yard were uprooted as well. All in all it really wasn't as bad as I was expecting. I'm back in Austin now until I hear that I have electricity at my place.
 
#143
This is our family's Hurrciane Best Practices List which we just got done updating tonite fbased on our experience this time. This is based on the assumption that no one is coming to your rescue or clean up anytime quick and pwer will be off at your house for weeks, but you can get food and water after a week.


- Emergency getaway suitcase*w/ 3 days of clothes, soap, shampoo, medicines*ready.*
-*Cash
- cell phone with car charger (cell phone may not work well)*
-*PC with wireless card and car charger (highly recommended).
- List of all critical phone numbers plus photocopy of important paperwork. Insurance agent's phone number.*
- All car tanks full of fuel,
- New chain saw, with 4 gals*new fuel ( 2x2 gal containers), plus mix oil plus chain oil.
- Two or more 5 mil heavy plastic tarps to cover roof punctures
- Plywood and bracing, nails to do windows on whole house. Best practice is to make up frame with clips in advance with numbered parts for each window
-*8' 4x4*landscaping timbers*to uses as*levers and guards when cutting limbs away from house****
- 2x4s to act as hold downs for tarp
- short and long pry bar
- Camping Hand saw
- limb cutter with 3' handle,
- axe
- general tools, including hacksaw and wire cutter
- Shovel, steel tooth rake for clearing debris*
- leather gloves plus one set welders gloves for extra protection where thorny weeds, prickly ash or poison ivy is present.
- at least 80 gal/person non-potable water for washing, flushing toilet (two plastic trash cans)
- food to eat well for 4 days, food to survive for 4 days (canned beans, vegetables, chili, get wide variety).* Start using up everything in freezer*and refrig that will spoil quickly and fill empty space with water bottles.*
- 40x500 ml bottles water per person doing repair work, 25 if sedentary.* Also store as much drinking water as you can in plastic milk containers, 40 gal trash cans, tub etc.
- Bleach for water purification**
- Clear out half of freezer and refrig and stockpile water there.* Cool water is a blessing.* Also, water holds the refrigeration a long time and helps extend shelf life.
- Gatorade, bottled juice for strenuous work (at least 2 8 packs per person)
- Candy bars, marshmallows
- Gas or charcoal to cook*, lighter
- paper plates, disposable forks, spoons, knives
- First aid supplies
- Flashlights with lots of batteries
- Radio with handcrank dynamo.(highly recommended)
- Duct tape,
- 20' chain
- Baling rope for yard debris, heavy rope for towing*
- Buckets for lots of things including showers
- at least one trash can for hauling sticks and debris.
- Dollies for hauling sawed tree limbs. We use welding gas bottle dolly which has wide wheels (useful in soft wet dirt).
- at least 6 sets*clean work clothes (shorts, t shirt, hvy socks) plus work boots
- Lots of clean towels
- voltage tester
- Xanax, lots of it if you have kids
 
#145
Satellite pics are up now.
Link Removed
Link is to a clickable map to get tiles from a satellite. Not all areas are posted yet, but there are lots of pics of the Bolivar peninsula. Not much left over there. Crystal Beach, Gilchrist, High Island...pretty much all gone. You can see at the bottom of the hi-res pics a black snaky-looking thing going through the sand, that is the "geotubes" that were supposed to hurricane-proof the coast there. What amazes me is that there wasn't more loss of life.

Saw my friend Tino interviewed on the news last night, his whole family was there- all 21 of them. They're leaving the island, or left yesterday, no idea how to contact them, but I know they're safe.

Talked to my friend Tony who works for Centerpoint and has been down there twice now. The northbound causeway now has two lanes bulldozed. He said, and I quote, "Conditions down there are bad. It stinks...it's rank, it smells like death." He also said he hasn't been able to breathe clearly since he got back from his first trip. On his first trip to the Service Center (power distribution center for the island), they have an 8-foot high chain-link fence with another two feet of razorwire , or concertina, on the top. He said there was still about two feet of water in the streets, and there were sodden wood doors up in the top of the fence. Water was probably 6-8 feet high there on the back side of the island. There are dead cats and dogs all over the island, adding to the aroma. He didn't see any dead people, but imagines from the smell that they could yet find a few. Stil giving a 2-3 month timline on letting people back on. They let some business owners go down there for 12 hours to try to secure their places and get pictures for insurance purposes. My wife's boss went down there to try to get his place situated, he actually lives across the street from his restaurant, so he is doubtless trying to save some stuff from their house as well. Not a good situation, there was at least 6 feet of water inside the restaurant, probably 8 feet inside their house.
 
#146
Bassic83 said:
Satellite pics are up now.
Link Removed
Link is to a clickable map to get tiles from a satellite. Not all areas are posted yet, but there are lots of pics of the Bolivar peninsula. Not much left over there. Crystal Beach, Gilchrist, High Island...pretty much all gone. You can see at the bottom of the hi-res pics a black snaky-looking thing going through the sand, that is the "geotubes" that were supposed to hurricane-proof the coast there. What amazes me is that there wasn't more loss of life.

Saw my friend Tino interviewed on the news last night, his whole family was there- all 21 of them. They're leaving the island, or left yesterday, no idea how to contact them, but I know they're safe.

Talked to my friend Tony who works for Centerpoint and has been down there twice now. The northbound causeway now has two lanes bulldozed. He said, and I quote, "Conditions down there are bad. It stinks...it's rank, it smells like death." He also said he hasn't been able to breathe clearly since he got back from his first trip. On his first trip to the Service Center (power distribution center for the island), they have an 8-foot high chain-link fence with another two feet of razorwire , or concertina, on the top. He said there was still about two feet of water in the streets, and there were sodden wood doors up in the top of the fence. Water was probably 6-8 feet high there on the back side of the island. There are dead cats and dogs all over the island, adding to the aroma. He didn't see any dead people, but imagines from the smell that they could yet find a few. Stil giving a 2-3 month timline on letting people back on. They let some business owners go down there for 12 hours to try to secure their places and get pictures for insurance purposes. My wife's boss went down there to try to get his place situated, he actually lives across the street from his restaurant, so he is doubtless trying to save some stuff from their house as well. Not a good situation, there was at least 6 feet of water inside the restaurant, probably 8 feet inside their house.
Click to expand...

wow, just wow. like i said, if you need ANYTHING...........
 
#151
This was pretty bad. We still don't have power. We're staying at my dad's until the juice comes back on. They got power a couple of days ago. We had no damage to the house, but we have a lot of big trees and have tons of broken limbs. After four days of clean up I'm taking the day off. I've got some help coming tomorrow to take care of the last of the ground cleanup. There's lots of broken limbs hanging that I'll eventually have to get a tree trimmer to take care of.
 
#157
Still no electricity here either. It was turned on the other day, but 4-5 hours later the transformer blew. So half of our street has power, the other half (mine) does not.


But I haven't missed any meals, I have water, and I've slept mostly comfortably with the weather being so nice, so I can't complain all too much. I have some friends/acquaintances that have significant losses/damages, so I feel lucky in that regard.
 
#160
Valerus said:
Beaumont got owned...along with Crystal Beach.
It's weird to think I might not ever go back to that beach...
Click to expand...

My aunt has a beach cabin in Crystal Beach. We looked at some satellite images today and we can see a structure, but it's hard to tell if there's a roof on it. She lives in Beaumont but her house is fine. It'll be months before she can see what the status of the cabin is. She was thinking about having it remodeled, but I don't think there's probably much left.
 

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