Ike keeps the whole Gulf Coast in the game

Image -- how Hurricanes are "won." FEMA Photo by Barry Bahler

The National Weather Service says

"AT 700 PM CDT...0000Z...
THE CENTER OF HURRICANE IKE
WAS LOCATED NEAR
LATITUDE 24.7 NORTH...LONGITUDE 86.3 WEST
OR ABOUT 700 MILES...1125 KM...
EAST OF BROWNSVILLE TEXAS
AND ABOUT 345 MILES...555 KM...
SOUTH-SOUTHEAST OF
THE MOUTH OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.

IKE IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTHWEST
NEAR 8 MPH...13 KM/HR.... "

"DATA FROM A NOAA HURRICANE HUNTER
AIRCRAFT INDICATE THAT
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS
REMAIN NEAR 100 MPH...160 KM/HR"

(Photo Left from NOAA Satellite and Information Service showing how Ike is swallowing the Gulf.)


Commentary
Is Hurricane Ike teasing Louisiana?

I know it sounds preposterous but what else can it be? The National Weather Service has laid out a track for Ike to hit Texas, first at the Mexico line and then later near Corpus, and now a little farther up that coast than that. But Ike just seems determined to make a close pass, like some long ago Moon shot, just south of Louisiana.

And it seems to be taking its time doing it. I mean, 7 miles per hour. That's a turtle race. Big strong storms are suppose to power across the ocean. And northwest? What's that all about. The storm is suppose to go west north west ( the two west do make a left turn) and that will keep it away from Louisiana.

All the science, the years of pondering and filing through rows of numbers and equations and matching them to past storms. Our best scientists and best mathematicians and technicians and physicist and theorist -- all the kings horse and all the kings men can't make Ike do what science says he should do.

Makes us seem kind of small in the scheme of things. Powerless against vast powers of self-inspired nature We are fle as on ancharging elephant-- pulling back to stop him.

But Ike will turn. It will turn because all across the Gulf Coast people are staying up for the 10 0'clock news -- one last hope against hope that our team got it right, called the right play, had the right players in the game, sco uted the opponents the best.

Of course in Texas, they are pulling against the legions of number crunchers and weather watchers. I am sure they have more prayers on their side. The mathaticos and nature wizards have left them to the wind. They have to call on the eternal. It is their only stand. Surely they got the weatherati got it wrong. Surely the trough (whatever that really is) will sweep down, deus ex machina, and whisk this beast back to the east and spare them.

So here we are like two stands of cheering supporters. Louisiana pulling for the scientists behind the grand shimmering curtain ... Texans pulling for a thundering trough that will rumble in like Helios on his golden chariot pulled by teams of mighty galloping steeds.

We cheer. We cajole. We yell encouragement. We even pray. But in the end, all along the Gulf Coast, we are just spectators in the stands, watching a game of strength among the gods: a game that will spill out of the watery playing field and into our bleachers -- this side or that, us or them. Then we will become engulfed in the game, scurrying to keep from getting hurt.

We pray for each other, promise help if our neighbors get trampled. But, our biggest hope is that we get left out of the real blood sport. The mixing of billions of gigawatts of twisting mists and groaning winds with solid but vulnerable structures and plants and pets and human lives. Like some universal scrum --forces pushing against forces so strong that mists become deadly weapons.

The only way the spectators can win is to guess right about whether it will be their bleachers which will become the battlefield and then get out of the way before they do.

That is our game.

Not knowing where the game will spill out of the Gulf and onto land, and having only a few precious hours, we have to get millions of souls out of the way. We have to fortify our homes and latch down movable things. We scurry pets to safety. Gently move our sick and elderly. We overload highways, runways, railways and anthing else that moves. And leave behind ghost towns. The Poseidon may spring up as a watery warrior to usurp Zeus's kingdom. But we leave hims a Pyrrhic victory. Whatever he claims, can be rebuilt.

The hurricane is an event that shows us what we are made of. Each one of us. And all of us. We find that we can work together better than ever before pressed by impossible deadlines. Or we find out that old wounds cannot be bandaged that quickly and we fail in our cause. It is ours to lose.

In the end lives are at stake. Property damage will be counted in billions of dollars. Lives will be counted as tears.

We're in this together.

--steve buser

Brave Helios, wake up your steeds...

Fema Photo by Michael Rieger