HURRICANE SEASON 2008

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                                    Ike strands freighter in Gulf; Houston braces






By MICHAEL GRACZYK,
Associated Press Writer

48 minutes ago

Sept. 12, 2008
 
HOUSTON - A sprawling and strengthening Hurricane Ike steamed through the Gulf of Mexico on Friday on a track toward the nation's fourth-largest city, where authorities told residents to brace rather than flee.
 
The Coast Guard scrambled to respond to a pre-dawn distress call about a 584-foot bulk freighter with 22 people aboard that broke down in the path of the storm about 90 miles southeast of Galveston. The Category 2 storm with its 105-mph winds could cause 50-foot waves and made rescue by ship impossible, Petty Officer Patrick Kelley said.

"They're so far offshore, you're looking at only helicopter responses. Then you're dealing with winds," Kelley said, adding that the Coast Guard was weighing its response options.

Kelley did not provide the name of the ship, which was hauling petroleum coke, or details on where it was headed.

Ike's eye was forecast to strike somewhere near Galveston late Friday, but the massive system was already buffeting Texas and Louisiana.

The National Weather Service warned residents of smaller structures on Galveston they could "face certain death" if they ignored an order to evacuate; most had complied.

Evacuation orders also were in effect for low-lying sections of the Houston area. Authorities urged homeowners to board up windows, clear the decks of furniture and stock up on drinking water and nonperishable food.

Officials said residents should not flock to the roadways en masse, creating the same kind of gridlock that cost lives — and a little political capital — when Hurricane Rita threatened Houston in 2005.

"It will be, in candor, something that people will be scared of," Houston Mayor Bill White warned. "A number of people in this community have not experienced the magnitude of these winds."

The decision is a stark contrast to how emergency management officials responded to Hurricane Rita in 2005. As the storm closed in three years ago, the region implemented its plan: Evacuate the 2 million people in the coastal communities first, past the metropolis of Houston; once they were out of harm's way, Houston would follow in an orderly fashion.

But three days before landfall, Rita bloomed into a Category 5 and tracked toward the city. City and Harris County officials told Houstonians to hit the road, even while the population of Galveston Island was still clogging the freeways. It was a decision that proved tragic: 110 people died during the effort, making the evacuation more deadly than the eventual Category 4 storm, which killed nine.

With the lessons of that disaster, public officials were left with a vexing choice this time. Because Ike's path wasn't clear until just about 48 hours before the storm, officials didn't have a lot of time to make evacuation calls.

"Almost all of them are in a pretty tough spot," said Michael Lindell, a Texas A&M University urban planner and emergency management expert. "The problem is elected officials were not elected to be hurricane experts.

"It's staring into the barrel of a gun. It's a very challenging problem for them and there isn't any easy answer."

Ike was forecast to make landfall early Saturday southwest of Galveston, a barrier island and beach town about 50 miles southeast of downtown Houston and scene of the nation's deadliest hurricane, the great storm of 1900 that left at least 6,000 dead.

Though Houston didn't evacuate, low-lying communities predicted to be the bulls-eye of the storm did. People on the island were ordered evacuated Thursday, joining residents of at least nine zip codes in flood-prone areas of Harris County, in which Houston is located, along with hundreds of thousands of fellow Texans in counties up and down the coastline.

"I don't have a crystal ball, but if I did, I think it would tell me a sad story," said Randy Smith, the police chief and a waterfront property owner on Surfside Beach, just down the coast from Galveston and a possible landfall target.

"And that story would be that we're faced with devastation of a catastrophic range. I think we're going to see a storm like most of us haven't seen."

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Though Houston didn't evacuate, low-lying communities predicted to be the bulls-eye of the storm did. People on the island were ordered evacuated Thursday, joining residents of at least nine zip codes in flood-prone areas of Harris County, in which Houston is located, along with hundreds of thousands of fellow Texans in counties up and down the coastline.

"I don't have a crystal ball, but if I did, I think it would tell me a sad story," said Randy Smith, the police chief and a waterfront property owner on Surfside Beach, just down the coast from Galveston and a possible landfall target.

"And that story would be that we're faced with devastation of a catastrophic range. I think we're going to see a storm like most of us haven't seen."

Most metropolitan residents appeared to be heeding orders and staying put. Edgar Ortiz, a 55-year-old maintenance worker from east Houston, said leaders were providing wise advice, considering what happened during Rita, but said people were inclined to make up their own minds.

"I guess people tend to want to stay where they're at," he said as he shopped for bottled water, toilet paper and canned goods. "A lot of people don't want to leave. I don't want to leave. You may be taking a risk, but that's just how it is."

Maria Belmonte, 42, of Channelview, said she was stuck in traffic for 18 hours as she evacuated for Rita. This time, she was comfortable with the recommendation to stay put — but she said she would reconsider if the forecast worsened Friday.

"We have small kids, and we need to think about their safety," said Belmonte, a records clerk at an elementary school.

Ike would be the first major hurricane to hit a U.S. metropolitan area since Katrina devastated New Orleans three years ago. For Houston, it would be the first major hurricane since Alicia in August 1983 came ashore on Galveston Island, killing 21 people and causing $2 billion in damage.

Ike is so big, it could inflict a punishing blow even in those areas that do not get a direct hit. Forecasters warned because of Ike's size and the shallow Texas coastal waters, it could produce a surge, or wall of water, 20 feet high, and waves of perhaps 50 feet. It could also dump 10 inches or more of rain.

At 8 a.m. EDT Friday, the storm was centered about 230 miles southeast of Galveston, moving to the west-northwest near 13 mph. Ike was a Category 2 storm with maximum sustained winds near 105 mph.

Hurricane warnings were in effect over a 400-mile stretch of coastline from south of Corpus Christi to Morgan City, La., and many residents who fled Hurricane Gustav two weeks ago only to be spared in East Texas were packing up again Thursday.

Tropical storm warnings extended south almost to the Mexican border and east to the Mississippi-Alabama line, including New Orleans.

The oil and gas industry was closely watching the storm because it was headed straight for the nation's biggest complex of refineries and petrochemical plants. The upper Texas coast accounts for one-fifth of U.S. refining capacity.

The first rain and wind was set to arrive later Friday. Residents were scurrying to get ready, and hardware stores put limits on the number of gas containers that could be sold. Batteries, drinking water and other storm supplies were running low, and grocery stores were getting set to close. Houston was slowly shutting down, and people beginning to head inside. The only thing to do was wait and see what Ike had in store.

"It's a big storm," Texas Gov. Rick Perry said. "I cannot overemphasize the danger that is facing us. It's going to do some substantial damage. It's going to knock out power. It's going to cause massive flooding."

___

Associated Press Writers Kelley Shannon in Austin, Paul Weber in Dallas, Juan A. Lozano and John Porretto in Houston, and video journalist Rich Matthews in Surfside Beach contributed to this story.

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                                      WARNING:  Ike May Bring "Certain Death"






HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- Floodwaters surged into Galveston Island neighborhoods Friday morning with the center of Hurricane Ike still more than 200 miles from landfall.


Gulf of Mexico waters wash into a neighborhood on
Galveston Island, Texas, on Monday morning.


On the Bolivar Peninsula, northeast of Galveston, the Coast Guard was using helicopters to rescue stranded motorists.

On Galveston Island, waves washed for blocks inland, the beginning of a storm surge that forecasters warned could reach up to 22 feet and bring "certain death" to anyone who remained in Galveston Bay homes.

Rarely do forecasters use such forceful language.

The last time they did was three years ago as Hurricane Katrina closed in on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

Forecasters expect Ike, a Category 2 storm, to strengthen before its center makes landfall late Friday or early Saturday. The storm is so big that it fills most of the Gulf of Mexico.  Watch waves wash into Galveston »

In the turbulent Gulf, 22 people were stranded aboard a freighter that had lost its engines and was adrift in the path of Ike, the Coast Guard reported.

The 584-foot Panamanian-flagged Antolena was trying to beat the storm steaming south from Port Arthur, Texas, when it lost power about 90 miles south of Galveston, Coast Guard Capt. Bill Diehl said. Condition made a rescue attempt too dangerous and the crew would have to ride out the storm aboard the crippled ship, Chief Petty Officer Mike O'Berry told The Associated Press.

Although the weather service reports when a hurricane's center will hit land, it also says that the worst of the storm can hit before or after that.

Roughly 3.5 million people live in the storm's impact zone, according to federal estimates. iReport.com: Are you in Ike's path? Share your story

The weather service painted a vivid picture in its warning of the destruction it expects: a towering wall of water, possibly up to 22 feet high, crashing over the Galveston Bay shoreline as the brunt of Ike comes ashore. That wall of water could send floodwaters surging into Houston, more than 20 miles inland.

"All neighborhoods ... and possibly entire coastal communities ... will be inundated during the peak storm tide," the weather service warned. "Persons not heeding evacuation orders in single family one- or two-story homes will face certain death."

But farther inland, 4 million Houston-area residents were told to hunker down and stay home, even as government offices and schools prepared to close Friday in anticipation of the hurricane.

"We are only evacuating areas subject to a storm surge," said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, the county's chief executive officer. "Yes, we know you will lose electricity. But you're not in danger of losing your life, so stay put."

Forecasters find Hurricane Ike so intimidating because of the location they expect it to land -- near Galveston Island, just south of Houston. The city of Galveston is on the island.

If that happens -- hurricane tracks are hard to predict and subject to change -- the storm's counter-clockwise rotation would push water into Galveston Bay for hour upon hour, battering sea walls and structures.

The final storm surge, the one that could exceed 20 feet in height, would come as the hurricane's eye crosses the shoreline.

Galveston spokeswoman Mary Jo Naschke estimated Friday morning that just over half of the city's 58,000 people had been evacuated.

Others chose to stay.

"I've decided not to evacuate," said iReporter Matteu Erchull on Galveston Island. "We have a lot of faith in the seawall, and we have boards on the windows. Most people on the island live on second or third stories, so they don't have to worry about the water so much.

"The actual stores down here ran out of sand so we took some ice bags and filled them with sand from the beach," he said. iReport.com: See Erchull bracing for Ike

Paul King of Galveston said hurricanes are part of life on the Texas coast, according to CNN affiliate KSAT-TV.

"You enjoy it 360 days of the year," he said of his Galveston Island property. "And the other five, you have to get out of town."

A slight northward change in Ike's path could spare much of the Houston area and its millions of residents from catastrophic flooding by keeping the surge out of the bay and pushing it to less-populated areas.

The August 2005 warning for Katrina said "most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks ... perhaps longer" and that people and animals "exposed to the winds will face certain death."

The warning proved largely correct. Parts of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast still bear the scars of Katrina and remain uninhabitable.

More than 1,800 people died as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Hundreds more were never accounted for.

Ike's outer bands began moving across the Texas shore Friday morning, even though the storm's center was hundreds of miles from land.  Watch CNN meteorologists track Hurricane Ike »

"Do not take this storm lightly," Michael Chertoff, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, said Thursday afternoon. "This is not a storm to **** with. It is large; it is powerful; it carries a lot of water."

Chertoff and representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency said their efforts were focused on evacuations as Ike moved northwest at 13 mph across the central Gulf of Mexico with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph.

Chertoff also urged people not to succumb to "hurricane fatigue," referring to concerns that authorities were overestimating Ike's potential impact.

"Unless you're fatigued with living, I suggest you want to take seriously a storm of this size and scale," he said Thursday.  Watch how one family plans to avoid Ike »

Houston Mayor Bill White said he's heard that some people who live in areas under a mandatory evacuation order say they plan to stay home. He strongly urged against it.

"If you think you want to ride something out, and people are talking about a 20-foot wall of water coming at you, then you better think again," White said.

At 8 a.m. ET Friday, the hurricane center said hurricane-force winds extended outward up to 120 miles from Ike's center. Tropical storm-force winds extended outward up to 275 miles.

The storm was centered about 365 miles east of Corpus Christi and about 235 miles southeast of Galveston. It was moving west-northwest at near 13 mph.  Track the storm »


Mandatory evacuations remained in effect for low-lying coastal areas northeast and southwest of Galveston, in Chambers, Matagorda and Brazoria counties.

Ships in port were told to leave, said Port of Houston spokeswoman Linda Whitlock. The area's two major airports, George Bush Intercontinental and William P. Hobby, also halted all commercial flights.



CNN's Mike Mount contributed to this report.

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                                    In Hurricane Ike, bumpy ride with bird's-eye view






By MARY FOSTER,
Associated Press Writer
Fri Sep 12, 2008


 
                                                 INSIDE HURRICANE IKE -


Amid the engines' roar, the Air Force Reserve pilots and navigator worked calmly as their huge plane neared the eyewall of Hurricane Ike.
 
The gray cloud, looming 50,000 feet into the sky like a colossal concrete barrier was four miles thick, and the Lockheed WC-130J was hurtling into it.

"It's a big one, and it's going to get bigger," said Lt. Col. Mark Carter, 54, a pilot who has chased storms for 31 years. "It's off land now, and feeding on the warm water down there while it gets itself back together."

"Down there" is 10,000 feet below, where the swirling dark water and foaming waves of the Gulf of Mexico are only visible intermittently through the clouds.

Carter, and his fellow Hurricane Hunters of the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, were finishing a fourth trip across Ike, during a 10-hour, 3,000-mile trek to monitor the storm taking aim at the Texas coast.

The aircraft carved a 210-mile giant "X" pattern through Ike and its eye, just off the western tip of Cuba.

"We're the only military aircraft that has permission to fly through Cuban airspace," said public information officer Maj. Chad Gibson. "We share the information we gather with them."

Using high tech equipment aboard the $72 million plane, the crew gathers data on wind speed, barometric pressure and other information for the National Hurricane Center.

"The plane makes two observations a second," said Maj. Deeann Lufkin, 35, a meteorologist who stood behind a bank of screens as she monitored the storm.

Lufkin, who has more than 50 hurricane flights behind her, took the jostling of the storm as easily as a New York City subway rider handles rush hour.

Like everyone on the crew, Lufkin, of Northfield, Minn., is an Air Force Reservist — a civilian who works summers with the Hurricane Hunters, based at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss.

"I love this job," said Lufkin, whose husband is also a Hurricane Hunter. "It is endlessly fascinating, and it is also extremely important. We provide information the satellites can't get. And we provide something satellites will never have — a human eye and brain."

The C-130 has been a workhorse of the U.S. military for nearly five decades, is a squat, broad aircraft, painted dull gray, with four black propellers curving over the wings like exotic flowers.

Inside, it resembles a high-tech auto mechanic's garage. Metal grids on the floor offer secure places to stash equipment, insulation covers most of the walls and ceilings, wires shake everywhere, red mesh behind the armless seats offer something to grab onto when the plane starts bucking and tilting in a storm.

Despite its plain looks, Tech. Sgt. Scott Blair, a big man with close-cropped gray hair and tattoos running up his arms, calls the aircraft his girlfriend.

"I've been married 21 years," said Blair, 38, who runs Fat Boy's BBQ restaurant in Picayune. Miss., when not flying into storms. "She's never had call to be jealous until I started flying on this plane. Now she calls it my mistress."

Flights can run as long as 15 hours, not counting preflight and post-flight briefings.

Once ordered into a storm, the 10 crews made up of six people each, fly on a rotating basis, 24-hours a day, seven days a week.

The flights go into everything from developing tropical storms to Category 5 hurricanes. But they don't fly into a storm over land because of the danger of tornadoes.

Since the flights officially began in 1943, only four Hurricane Hunter planes have been lost in the bump and grind through the clouds — the last in 1974.

It doesn't take much to draw out stories of the storms that have tilted the plane at dangerous angles, sent shudders down its metal spine and through its human occupants, banging untethered people against the ceiling as ride-along journalists scramble for plastic bags amid lurching stomachs.

Blair, who dozed in free in-flight moments with a copy of the book "Unholy War" spread across his stomach, was nonchalant about the Ike flight.

But he remembers others that were more eventful.

"Hurricane Charlie, what was that '03, '04?" Blair said. "That almost beat us to death. We made a pass through it as a Category 2, and 45 minutes later, when we went back through, it was a Cat 4. Every reporter on board had a bag up to his face."

The storms are most dangerous as they build or break apart, Blair said. That's when a potentially deadly microburst of wind and huge up-and downdrafts threaten the plane.

Dangerous or not, the flights, with their combination of boredom and adrenaline-pumping moments, appear to be addictive.

"I'm going to keep doing this until I get too old or my hearing goes," Blair said. "Then I'll just sit up in Picayune (Miss.) and drink beer and eat barbecue and dream about it."

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               THIS IS THE HYMN THAT THE CHILDREN OF THE ORPHANAGE SANG DURING THE



                                    'GREAT GALVESTON STORM' OF SEPTEMBER 8, 1900












                                                Q U E E N   O F   T H E   W A V E S




From a French hymn,

author unknown

 





Queen of the Waves, look forth across the ocean
From north to south, from east to stormy west,
See how the waters with tumultuous motion
Rise up and foam without a pause or rest.

But fear we not, tho' storm clouds round us gather,
Thou art our Mother and thy little Child
Is the All Merciful, our loving Brother
God of the sea and of the tempest wild.

Help, then sweet Queen, in our exceeding danger,
By thy seven griefs, in pity Lady save;
Think of the Babe that slept within the manger
And help us now, dear Lady of the Wave.

Up to the shrine we look and see the glimmer
Thy votive lamp sheds down on us afar;
Light of our eyes, oh let it ne'er grow dimmer,
Till in the sky we hail the morning star.

Then joyful hearts shall kneel around thine altar
And grateful psalms reecho down the nave;
Never our faith in thy sweet power can falter,
Mother of God, our Lady of the Wave.

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                                    Ike threatens to devastate Texas coastal towns







By JUAN A. LOZANO,
Associated Press Writer
 
10 minutes ago

Sept. 12, 2008
 


GALVESTON, Texas - A massive Hurricane Ike sent white waves crashing over a seawall and tossed a disabled 584-foot freighter in rough water as it steamed toward Texas Friday, threatening to devastate coastal towns and batter America's fourth-largest city.


Ike's eye was forecast to strike somewhere near Galveston late Friday or early Saturday then head inland for Houston, but the sprawling weather system nearly as big as Texas was already buffeting the Gulf Coast and causing flooding in areas still recovering from Labor Day's Hurricane Gustav.

Because of its ominous size, storm surge and flooding were the greatest threats. In unusually strong language, forecasters even warned of "certain death" for stalwarts who insisted on staying in Galveston; most had complied, along with hundreds of thousands of fellow Texans in counties up and down the coastline. But in a move designed to avoid highway gridlock as the storm closed in, most of Houston's 2 million residents hunkered down and were ordered not to leave.

White waves as tall as 15 feet were already crashing over Galveston's seawall. It was enough to scare away Tony Munoz and his wife, Jennifer, who went down to the water to take pictures, then decided that riding out the storm wasn't a good idea after all.

"We started seeing water come up on the streets, then we saw this. We just loaded up everything, got the pets, we're leaving," Tony Munoz, 33, said. "I've been through storms before but this is different."

Ike's 105-mph winds and potential 50-foot waves initially stopped the Coast Guard from attempting a risky helicopter rescue of 22 people aboard a 584-foot freighter that broke down in the path of the storm about 90 miles southeast of Galveston, Chief Petty Officer Mike O'Berry said. The ship was hauling petroleum coke used to fuel furnaces at steel plants.

But midday Friday, the Coast Guard changed its mind and decided to stage a rescue. Petty Officer Tom Atkeson said rescue swimmers and Coast Guard and Air Force aircraft were on their way to reach the ship.

Coast Guard helicopter crews plucked 60 people from the town of High Island on the Bolivar Peninsula, a 32-mile spit just up the coast from Galveston, after rising waters covered the only road, authorities said.

"You can assume, to some degree, those people were surprised at the level of the storm surge," said John Simsen, Galveston County's emergency management coordinator.

But dozens more decided to stay, said Ryan Holzaepfel, the emergency management coordinator for nearby Chambers County.

"Believe it or not, there are some people who refused to leave, and now they are trapped," he said.

Daniel Brown, a forecaster at the National Hurricane Center, said Ike was about 600 miles across, roughly the distance between Houston and Panama City, Fla. "It takes up almost the northern Gulf," he said.

The hurricane center said tropical storm-force winds of at least 39 mph extended across 550 miles, and hurricane-force winds of at least 74 mph stretched for 240 miles. A typical storm has tropical storm-force winds stretching only 300 miles.

Yet a stubborn few defied orders to leave. Emory Sallie, 44, of Galveston, said he had braved storms in the past and didn't think Ike would be any different. He didn't believe the dire warnings — he was more worried about the wind, not the flooding.

"If the island is going to disappear it has to be a tsunami," he said, as he walked along the block where his home is located, drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette. "If it ain't your time you ain't going anywhere."

In Surfside Beach, a small coastal town of about 805, water was already knee-deep in the streets and skies were growing increasingly dark. Police were going around in a dump truck trying to get holdouts to evacuate while there was still time. The police chief asked one stubborn couple to write their names and Social Security numbers on their forearms in black magic marker "in case something bad were to happen." They soon changed their minds, and police were wading an aluminum boat through floodwaters to rescue them.

About 60 miles inland in Houston, officials said residents should not flock to the roadways en masse, creating the same kind of gridlock that cost lives — and a little political capital — when Hurricane Rita threatened Houston in 2005. Some evacuation orders were in effect for low-lying sections of the Houston area, but for the most part, people stayed. Large hospitals in the city moved some patients away from windows, but they did not send them away.

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                                   Texas holdouts urge Hurricane Ike to "bring it on!"






By Tim Gaynor
Fri Sep 12, 2008
 
GALVESTON, Texas (Reuters) - Hurricane Ike may be taking aim for the low-lying coast of Texas, but grocery store worker Jacqueline Harris is staying put -- in a flimsy, wooden beach bar.
 
"If nature is going to come and get us, bring it on!" Harris said as she sipped a Bud light beer at the Poop Deck, a tavern a stone's throw from the sandy coastal strip thrashed by white-capped waves.

"Everything I own and love is on the island; I'm going down with the ship," she added.

Residents of vulnerable coastal areas like Galveston Island are under a mandatory evacuation order. They face 111 mile per hour (177 kph) winds and tidal surges of up to 20 feet if Ike makes landfall as a dangerous Category 3 storm as expected late on Friday.

Texas governor Rick Perry urged residents to heed evacuation orders in such low-lying areas of the Gulf of Mexico that face severe flooding from tidal surges and heavy rains.

Some have decided to stay, boarding up their windows and preparing to move to higher floors ahead of the storm's surge, which is tipped to top Galveston's 17-foot (5-metre) sea wall and flood the island from end-to-end by daylight on Saturday.

A Category 4 hurricane that made landfall in Galveston in 1900 killed at least 6,000 people, making it the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

The manager of the Poop Deck Marie Aldrich-Creasy says she has no plans to leave. She has stockpiled batteries, candles and a few tins of food, but said would not be shuttering her bar, which faces the sea a few yards (meters) across a highway.

"I don't believe I am endangering anyone. The doors are open; if they choose to come, that's their free will," she said, sipping a vodka and mocha cocktail in the bar.

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THRILL SEEKERS AND THE WEARY



Every hurricane has its holdouts. Those who risk all to stay put do so for a variety of reasons.

"This is our home. Why run and come back to nothing?" said Harris, sitting at a table with other regulars in the bar.

Waitress Nanette Crouch said she was put off by the huge traffic jams she faced fleeing the coastal strip ahead of the last hurricane, Rita, which barged ashore in Texas three years ago.

"I've been praying a lot, I'm scared, but I'm never going in that traffic again, not after Rita, it was 17 hours of hell," she said, as she stood on the deck of the bar, with her mother Nancy.

Others opted to stay for the extreme thrill of riding out the storm, which has grown in size since roaring through the Caribbean, wreaking havoc in Cuba, Haiti and the Bahamas.

"I know it sounds crazy, but it's something I've always wanted to do -- experience a hurricane," said Andrew Lawrence, a former convict turned builder, as he knocked back beers and shots in the bar.

"I've been in prison, I've been shot ... I figure if I do this, I'll be the Michael Phelps of travesties," he said, referring to the U.S. swim champion who won a record-setting eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympic games.

Staying on was not for all though. One couple said they were preparing to get off the island, and faced gentle mockery from others in the bar.

"They're voted off the island!" quipped housewife Eva Broughton. "This is 'Survivor,' this is reality."



(Editing by Eric Walsh)

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                                       Hurricane Ike puts Houston's mayor in spotlight






By JAY ROOT,
Associated Press Writer
Sept. 12, 2008
 


Houston's quiet-spoken mayor is hardly one for bold moves. But there was Bill White, telling Houstonians to ride out Hurricane Ike because it was too late to escape.
 
It may seem like the wrong advice when a monster storm is on its way. But given the chaos that ensued in 2005 when the city evacuated ahead of Hurricane Rita, the risky move may be the safest one.

White, a low-key and unassuming Democrat, was new to office when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005. He scored high marks then for welcoming evacuees from that storm into the nation's fourth-largest city.

A few weeks later, he faced another test with Rita. Evacuations were ordered and millions fled, causing traffic jams so big that cars ran out of gas or overheated. Ultimately, the evacuation proved deadlier than the storm itself. A total of 110 people died during the exodus, including 23 nursing home patients whose bus burst into flames while stuck in traffic.

Somehow, White deflected most of the blame, in part because any missteps were overshadowed by the devastation in New Orleans following Katrina, said University of Houston political scientist Richard Murray.

"White sort of had these hurricanes that defined him, generally favorably," Murray said. "If you're not a klutz, you can usually make a natural disaster a plus."

With Ike, White and his counterparts in Harris County took a decidedly different approach. In the days leading up to landfall, inland residents were told to stay put. One of the lessons of Rita, White said, was that too many people fled who didn't need to. Instead, only the lowest-lying areas were evacuated this week, while others were told to stay home.

"Nothing good happens from a hurricane that hits right close to you," White said. "I would ask all Houstonians to think about their neighbors."

The son of schoolteachers, White made a fortune as a Houston attorney before leaving his practice in 1993 to join the Clinton administration as deputy energy secretary. He resigned in 1995 to become state Democratic chairman, then made another fortune in private energy business before embarking on the costliest mayoral race in Houston history in 2003.

He spent more than $2 million of his own money to get elected, eventually winning a runoff against a Republican former city councilman. Now many see White, barred by term limits from a fourth two-year term as mayor, as the party's best hope in a state dominated by Republicans. He's often mentioned as a candidate for the U.S. Senate or a possible gubernatorial in 2010.

White remained coy last year when asked about his next move.

"I'm not real keen on people who seem to spend more time thinking about what office they'll run for next rather than what they're doing every day in their current job," he said.

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                                   Citing faith and fate, some choose to ride out Ike






By ALLEN G. BREED,
AP National Writer
Sept. 12, 2008
 
SURFSIDE BEACH, Texas - At first, even the threat of "certain death" was not enough to persuade Bobby Taylor to flee this small town directly in the path of Hurricane Ike.
 
His wife, Elizabeth, had already decided to leave before police drove a dump truck through flooded streets, urging people to get out. Those who refused were told to write their names on their arms in black marker, so their bodies could be identified later.

Elizabeth came back to persuade her husband to leave and was waiting for him when he waded in waist-deep water up the main street, towing a blue kayak. She greeted him joyously. "Now I'll pray for our neighbors," she said.

More than a million people evacuated southeast Texas ahead of Ike. But citing faith and fate, tens of thousands more ignored calls to clear out, coastal authorities said. The National Weather Service warned that people in smaller structures in some areas "may face certain death."

The choice to stay — always questionable, sometimes fatal — was an especially curious one to make so close to Galveston, site of a 1900 storm that killed at least 6,000 people, more than any other natural disaster in U.S. history.

By afternoon, Mayor Larry Davison said only one person was believed to be left in Surfside Beach, a Gulf Coast town of about 800 people 30 miles southwest of Galveston.

Davison said authorities had been told the man had left, but later saw him on his porch. He had no phone.

"When we finally saw him, it was too late to get back in there," the mayor said. "We had to retreat."

A mandatory evacuation order was in place, but there were no signs anyone was being forcibly removed.

"We're not going to drag them out of there and handcuff them," Davison said. "They've made their decision."

Forecasters said Ike could pack a 20-foot storm surge when it rolls ashore early Saturday near Surfside Beach. By midday Friday there was 5 feet of water in some places, with more coming in.

It was enough to persuade the Taylors' neighbors to relent. David Fields, 45, and wife Dondi, 50, had written their Social Security numbers on their arms. Dondi Fields added "I (heart) U" on her right arm — for her kids, she said.

"We didn't want anybody to have to risk their life to come and get us," Dondi Fields said.

Nearby Freeport was all but deserted, and quiet except for the increasingly roiling sea. Truck driver Darryl Jones Sr. and his neighbor, Keith Glover, talked about the impending hurricane without concern. Nearly everyone around them had obeyed a mandatory evacuation order.

"I'm just enjoying the serenity, really," said Jones, 48, sitting in his electric golf cart. "You never know what the aftermath might hold, but right now it's very peaceful."

Glover, who works for the nearby city of Clute, will work removing debris after the storm, but said he would have stayed anyway.

"Worrying's a sin," he said.

At By George Automotive repair shop, owner George Elizondo and others in Freeport gathered to grill chicken leg quarters, shoulder steak and tortillas with pico de gallo. Coolers from the nearby grocery store sat filled with soda and beer.

The hurricane block party tradition began with Hurricane Rita in 2005, when Elizondo and others stayed behind to offer mechanical help to anyone those heading out.

"If it really gets bad, we'll get in our trucks and we'll drive out," Elizondo said. "Where's the burden in that? We're driving, we're ahead of the storm and there's no one on the road. There's no danger for us."

Water already covered one low-lying road in Freeport near refineries and a listing shrimp boat. The road became an attraction for those who stayed. Truck after truck pulled up, drivers jumping out with video cameras in hand. One woman leaned comically into the wind, smiling for the camera.

"It's going to be fun," Jerry Norton said as he snapped a cell phone image of the flooded road. He said he was sending the picture to his children and grandchildren who fled inland to Austin.

Norton said he had filled his bathtubs with water — for drinking, but also for flushing toilets in case the sewer system breaks down. He bought groceries and secured doors and windows.

"If my stuff is going to get washed away, I'm going to watch it get washed away," Norton said.

Some who stayed behind in Galveston relied on faith. Retiree William Steally, 75, said he was planning to ride it out, but his wife and sister-in-law left Thursday.

"She got scared and they left. I told them I believe in the man up there, God," Steally said as he pointed to the sky. "I believe he will take care of me."

Others quieted their own concerns and rolled with it.

Clarence Romas, a 55-year-old handyman, said he would ride out the storm in his downstairs apartment with friends.

As for the "certain death" warning? "It puts a little fear in my heart," he admitted, "but what's gonna happen is gonna happen."

___

Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Freeport and Juan A. Lozano in Galveston contributed to this report.

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                                    Gasoline rises on Ike, but crude dips below $100





By MADLEN READ,
AP Business Writer
Fri Sep 12, 2008
 
NEW YORK - Gasoline prices jumped at the wholesale level Friday as Hurricane Ike swept through Gulf of Mexico, prompting companies along the Texas coast to shut down refining and drilling operations.
 
Crude oil on the futures market, however, briefly sank below the psychologically important $100-a-barrel mark for the first time since April 2 — showing that investors believe a worsening global economy will continue to drive down demand for some time in the United States and elsewhere.

The fact that U.S. fuel demand is so weak right now might mean the recent surge in the wholesale price of gasoline — which rose to about $4.85 a gallon in the Gulf Coast market Friday — might not be passed along to consumers unless Ike's impact is severe and long-lasting.

"Major oil companies are sensitive to raising prices in this environment," said Ben Brockwell, director of data pricing and information services at the Oil Price Information Service.

Ike is forecast to land early Saturday as a Category 3 hurricane near Galveston, a barrier island about 50 miles southeast of Houston. The Houston region is home to about one-fifth of U.S. refining capacity, and the site of a major fuel and grain distribution channel.

Wholesale gasoline prices on the Gulf Coast moved further into uncharted territory Friday, as refineries anticipated that Ike would lead to at least a significant pause in their operations, and at worst damage to their facilities. On Thursday, the Gulf Coast wholesale price of gasoline last traded at around $4.75 a gallon, according to OPIS, up substantially from about $3.25 Wednesday and less than $3 Tuesday.

Wholesale prices were much lower in other regions such as Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, but even those areas saw prices rise.

"Hopefully it's a temporary phenomenon, but we won't know until next week," Brockwell said.

Wholesale prices are determined by major players in the supply chain including refining and trading companies, which constantly buy and sell barrels. These prices end up deciding what refineries charge distributors, before they get marked up further at the retail level for the consumer.

The average U.S. retail price for gasoline edged up less than a penny to $3.675 Friday from Thursday, according to auto club AAA, OPIS and Wright Express.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude for October delivery rose 31 cents to settle at $101.18 a barrel, after briefly sinking to $99.99.

October gasoline futures climbed 2.08 cents to settle at $2.7696 a gallon on Nymex.

"All week long, it's been a gasoline story more than anything. If you just looked at the crude market independently, you wouldn't know that we had a couple of hurricanes," said Jim Ritterbusch, president of energy consultancy Ritterbusch and Associates, referring to Ike and last week's Gustav.

"This dichotomy could persist for a few more days next week," he said. But "once the storm factor subsides, we'll see a much higher correlation between gasoline and crude oil."

Also, the demand for crude tends to fall off when refineries shut-in, as the have done this week, because they are not taking new crude shipments.

Exxon Mobil Corp., Valero Energy Corp., ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil Co. have begun halting operations as the Category 2 hurricane headed straight for the nation's biggest complex of refineries and petrochemical plants. U.S. wholesale gasoline prices spiked 30 percent Thursday.

As of Friday, nearly 98 percent of crude production and more than 94 percent of natural gas production in the Gulf were shuttered, according to the Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service.

By Friday afternoon, Ike was a Category 2 storm centered about 165 miles southeast of Galveston, moving to the west-northwest at nearly 12 mph. Forecasters warned it could become a Category 3 storm with winds of at least 111 mph before the eye strikes land.

Ike is huge, taking up nearly 40 percent of the Gulf of Mexico. The National Hurricane Center said tropical storm-force winds of at least 39 mph extended across more than 510 miles.

Ike and last week's Hurricane Gustav have helped to stanch a sharp downturn in oil prices. Concerns over slowing economic growth on a global scale and a strengthening U.S. dollar have led funds to liquidate their commodities holdings, pushing crude prices down about 30 percent from their record $147.27 set on July 11.

U.S. fuel demand in June was down 5.6 percent from the same period a year ago, according to a recent report from the Energy Department, so many market watchers are expecting oil prices to resume their tumble.

"With demand being down as much as it is, the market, some argue, is a bit oversupplied," said Stephen Maloney, a senior consultant in energy risk management at Towers Perrin. "When you ask, how does Ike affect things? Its impacts are going to be in the context of lower demand for products than a year ago."

In other Nymex trading, October heating oil futures rose 2.36 cents to settle at $2.9391 a gallon. Natural gas for October delivery rose 11.8 cents to settle at $7.366 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In London, October Brent crude fell 6 cents to settle at $97.58 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange, after closing at a six-month low in the previous trading session.

___

Associated Press writers Alex Kennedy in Singapore and Louise Watt in London contributed to this report.

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                               Ike Underscores Foolishness of Building on Barrier Islands






Clara Moskowitz
LiveScience Staff Writer
LiveScience.com
Fri Sep 12, 5:51 PM ET
 
As Hurricane Ike pummels the Texas coast, the only thing standing in the way is a thin stretch of land called Galveston.
 
Galveston is a barrier island, a narrow landmass made mostly of sand that extends along a coastline parallel to the land. These islands, common along the Gulf Coast and East Coast of the United States, are some of the most fragile and changing landforms on Earth. And they are particularly vulnerable to storms.


"Barrier islands are exposed to the open ocean, and the waves and storm surges generated by hurricanes," said Bob Morton, a geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey's Center for Coastal and Watershed Studies in St. Petersburg, Fla. "As a storm makes landfall they're the ones that are going to receive the strongest winds and the highest wave actions."


National Hurricane Center officials have warned residents of Galveston to evacuate or else face "certain death," though several thousand are thought to be staying put.





Wisdom questioned


Barrier islands like Galveston are particularly vulnerable to storm damage because they are made of sand, as opposed to the hard bedrock that underlies larger islands and the mainland. They also tend to have very low elevations, making it easy for water to wash over and submerge the island.


Many have questioned the wisdom of choosing to build on and develop barrier islands, given their risks.


"Every year there's reporting on the foolishness of building on barrier islands, but people are going to do it anyway," Morton told LiveScience. "We don't learn from the past. If you look at the barrier islands on the Mississippi coast in particular, after both Hurricane Camille in 1969, and Katrina, what did they do? They rebuilt. It's a perfect example of a coastal area that did get hit as bad as it can get, and they just go back and rebuild."


Barrier islands tend to be even riskier places to live than coastal areas, because they bear the brunt of any approaching storm impact.


"If you think about their location, they're basically lonely sentinels that serve as barriers for the mainland," said Clark Alexander, a marine geologist at Georgia's Skidaway Institute of Oceanography. "Basically you're in a vulnerable spot, because you're located where you get the first effects of anything coming in off the ocean."


Setting up residence in these vulnerable spots is particularly perilous.


"From a safety standpoint, it's silly," Alexander said. "Because the lifespan of a typical house is something like 60 years. But if you live on a barrier island, you can't guarantee you'll have land under your house in 60 years. It's trying to put something permanent in a place that's very dynamic."


As a result of Hurricane Katrina, a number of barrier islands off the Mississippi coast were completely wiped off the map. Even when storms aren't enough to raze islands completely, barriers often suffer severe damage from storms.


The 1989 Hurricane Hugo wreaked massive havoc on Pawleys Island in South Carolina. Isles Dernieres off the coast of Louisiana was devastated by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Often, after these storms, people move back and set themselves up for disaster again.


St. George Island on Apalachicola Bay off the Florida coast "has been washed away five or six or eight times and people just keep building back their houses," Alexander said.


For many people living on barrier islands, there is no amount of structural support that can ward off the worst.


"It's important to note that in the big storms, the category 4 or 5 hurricanes, it really doesn't matter how well-constructed your building is," said Orrin Pilkey, a professor emeritus of geology at Duke University, of homes on barrier islands. "And it doesn't matter whether you have a seawall or not. The chances are pretty good that if you have beachfront property, it's history."

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Constantly changing



Other well-known U.S. barrier islands include the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the islands along the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and even New York's Long Island (though Long Island's northern position makes it less vulnerable to storms than barriers in the Gulf of Mexico and southern Atlantic coast).

The ultimate fate of barrier islands varies, with many gradually retreating landward as eroded sand is pushed back to deposit in the lagoon behind it, and ultimately joining the coast. But some barrier islands with high dunes can avoid this fate.

Galveston is not yet migrating toward the coast, but is in what Morton calls a "narrowing stage," with sand on both sides of the island gradually eroding away. Many barrier islands wax and wane, with sand shifting around and sometimes reducing the land area, but most inhabited barriers are not at risk of being completely destroyed.

"Barrier islands are constantly changing," Morton said. "The barrier islands as a whole are some of the most dynamic landforms on the surface of the Earth."

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                                      Looters, cost keep some from fleeing Ike






By The Associated Press
Sept. 12, 2008
 
FREEPORT, Texas - The streets in this coastal city were mostly deserted Friday. Someone used red paint to scrawl "We don't like Ike" and "Take a Hike Ike 2008" on a boarded-up building.
 
A few stragglers remained, including a pair of teenagers riding their go-kart at full speed through the empty streets. Their older brother, Joseph Simmons, 22, said the family planned to leave around midday.

"It looks like it's going to get hairy," he said. "I'd stay if it was just me, but my family wants to go."

His neighbor, Jim Sharp, 53, a retired mechanic and former boat captain, planned to ride out the storm in his sky-blue bungalow. He has been through eight other hurricanes, five at sea and three on land.

"I know what to expect, what's coming. My biggest fear is looters. I saw what happened in Katrina and Rita. It ain't going to happen here," Sharp said as he leaned on his chain-link fence, elbow resting over a sign warning, "Private Property. No Trespassing."

Sharp was confident the city's levees would hold up under the expected storm surge. The winds were another matter.

"It ain't the wind, it's what flying in the air that hurts you," said Sharp, who said he would try to leave if the wind reaches speeds above 115 mph. "It's just common sense. If you've been through one, then you know what to do next time."

___

MATAGORDA, Texas (AP) — Near midday Friday, a strengthening breeze off the water carried the first whiffs of barbecue under a carport beside a 110-year-old lavender and white Victorian house.

Karen Mecklenburg, her fiance Wayne Petrosky and friend "Big Al" Wachel reclined amid coolers, the grill and a generator, waiting for the smell to draw out a handful of other holdouts in this town of about 900. Officials had issued a mandatory evacuation order for the entire county.

Matagorda is about 100 miles south of Houston, 8 miles from the Gulf of Mexico at the confluence of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the Colorado River.

The house, built by Mecklenburg's great-grandfather, has seen its share of storms, but that was before a levee was built to protect the town.

"I've rode out quite a few," Mecklenburg said. "It can get pretty hairy."

Mecklenburg's experience evacuating for Hurricane Rita — when she spent about $600 and Matagorda ended up fine — led her to stay this time.

"I have a three-story house, I'll just start going up," she said.

Wachel remembered Claudette, a 2003 hurricane that made landfall to the south, being a "humdinger" that took off his roof. Still, he was ready to play dominos until Ike arrived.

___

DALLAS — For Texas residents forced to flee their homes ahead of Hurricane Gustav earlier this month, the second evacuation in less than two weeks took its toll.

Lisa Pratt, still broke after spending $500 to leave her Nederland home before Gustav, reluctantly corralled her three teenagers into her car Friday and drove aimlessly north in search of shelter.

A mandatory evacuation order for her city had been issued Thursday. But not until the storm surge began creeping nearby early Friday did she break down and stuff her trunk with suitcases and pillows again.

"It's not that we ignored it," said Pratt, 38, as she drove through Lufkin, Texas, about 120 miles north of her home. "We just have no money left from the last time we evacuated. We have nowhere to go."

In Dallas, Clara Dolloff, 48, of Baytown, near the Houston ship channel, briefly left the city's convention center with her young grandchildren for fresh air, then fumed as she discovered they would have to again pass through long security lines to get back in.

"I'd rather swim in a hurricane than evacuate again," said Dolloff's daughter, Christina Lilley.

___

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — In southeast Louisiana, officials said about 130 people remained on the barrier island of Grand Isle, which was cut off Friday by as much as 5 feet of water on the only connecting road.

The island's 1,500 or so residents were told to leave, but some did not. Most who remained were hunkering down together at the island's community center, officials said.

Gov. Bobby Jindal said search and rescue teams were positioned to head toward the island as soon as the winds and water died down, but he told residents who may feel threatened that they could break into a state wildlife and fisheries lab that was deemed a safe structure.

He called it "the most unusual piece of advice I might give."

"I'd ask you to do as little damage as possible while you're in that lab, but people's safety, people's lives, are obviously more important than property," he said.

The island was swamped with 9 feet of floodwater during Hurricane Gustav earlier this month, and many residents still hadn't returned from that evacuation.

___

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — James Howington had only enough money to put his girlfriend and son on a bus from Houston to California to be with family. But he had to get out too. So the construction worker started walking, and hitchhiking, and walking some more. He said it took him two days to make it, via Austin, to a shelter in San Antonio, where he had only an already-wet change of clothes and a cell phone ruined by rain.

"My cell phone got wet so it's no good, I have to throw it away," he said. "I would like to have a phone right now."

He was among a few thousand people who had trickled into San Antonio shelters by Friday afternoon.

Howington, 30, estimated he walked a significant chunk of his 200-mile route to San Antonio, but he said he relied mostly on rides from truckers and motorists. He arrived Thursday night.

More than exhaustion or hunger, Howington said he feels only one thing: "stressed out." He's worried about his loved ones, and his first-floor apartment on Houston's north side.

He's scared of what he might find when he returns home — a trip he still has to figure out how to make.

"There'll be nothing, probably," he said.

___



Associated Press writers Monica Rhor in Freeport, Texas;

Christopher Sherman in Matagorda, Texas;

Paul J. Weber and Linda Stewart Ball in Dallas;

Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, La.;

and Elizabeth White in San Antonio contributed to this report.

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                                        Why Ike Could Be Texas' Worst Nightmare







Andrea Thompson
Senior Writer
LiveScience.com
Fri Sep 12, 2008
 
As Hurricane Ike revs up again over the Gulf of Mexico, residents of coastal Texas, especially Houston and Galveston, are preparing for the arrival of the monstrous storm, which could be the most devastating that the Lone Star State has seen Hurricane Alicia came ashore in 1983, causing nearly $6 billion in damage and 21 fatalities.

Ike is huge. Hurricane-force winds extend out 120 miles (195 kilometers) from the storm's center, and tropical storm-force winds reach out 275 miles (445 km), both measurements exceeding what's seen with many storms. Ike could reach major hurricane status as a Category 3 before it makes landfall late Friday or early Saturday morning somewhere along the Texas coast.

And right now it looks like that somewhere will be the Houston/Galveston area.

Will the sea wall hold?

Galveston sits on a barrier island between the Gulf and Galveston Bay. The city was devastated by a major hurricane in 1900, still the deadliest in U.S. history. Galveston officials have already ordered a mandatory evacuation of the island as they keep a wary eye on Ike's progress.

Galveston sits right at sea level and so is vulnerable to the mound of water that a hurricane can push in front of it.

"Our biggest concern for this storm is the tidal surge," said Mary Jo Naschke, the public information officer for the City of Galveston.
 
As a hurricane travels over the ocean, its strong winds push against the water's surface, causing it to pile up higher than the sea's ordinary level. As the hurricane makes landfall, the water is pushed onshore and can quickly wash many miles inland, destroying homes and businesses. This so-called storm surge, or tidal surge, accounts for the majority of deaths and damage caused by a hurricane.

Naschke said yesterday they are already seeing a rise in water levels, with the tide coming further up along the beaches and water bubbling up through storm sewers.


Storm surge can build for hours as a hurricane approaches, but the bulk of it usually comes as a sudden rush of water that can quickly submerge low-lying coastal areas, washing away cars and trees and flooding buildings.

The most vulnerable part of Galveston Island is the western end, which isn't protected by the 18-foot sea wall that the city erected after the catastrophe in 1900, Naschke told LiveScience. A tidal surge of just 5 feet above normal will inundate the roads in that part of town, she said.

Ike's storm surge could reach 20 feet, which could cause water to spill over the walls. But Naschke isn't worried about a Katrina-like flooding disaster.

"We feel confident that the sea wall will hold," she said.

Naschke said mainland coastal areas, particularly those near bayous behind Galveston, are more at risk for flooding because they have no sea walls. Most of these areas have also been under evacuation orders, she said.