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

Ike staring down Texas' barrel

The National Hurricane center says Hurricane Ike, a Category 2 storm with 100 mph winds, now officially has the Texas Coast line in its 3-day cone of uncertainty, though Ike is continuing to drag along at 8 mph in a northwest direction. I know this has a lot of people in Texas scrambling, not the least of which is Galveston and Houston which take a lot of time to evacuate.

(photo on the left is a FEMA photo of evacuation buses at a staging area in Beeville, ready to roll)

The NOAA Satellite and Information Service has out a new high resolution picture showing Ike setting up its spidery swirl across the entire Gulf of Mexico.

News notes:

Evacuation buses moving south of Houston

President declares emergency in Texas

School closings in Houston area

City of Corpus Christi Hurricane Site

Corpus Christi closures due to Ike

--steve buser

Hurricane Ike -- new memes in living with storms

After lashing the Turks and Caicos Islands, Hurricane Ike bears down on Great Inagua Island. Early reports estimated 80 percent of the homes on Grand Turk Island were damaged or destroyed.

In New Orleans, the hint in hurricane models that a turn to the west may come in the middle of the hurricane's Gulf entry this week, gave a hope to residents.

Meanwhile new memes popped up in the talk of the storm --

• Faced with the possibility of a second evacuation in two weeks,some floated the idea that internal evacuations maybe should be considered -- it's been talked about before, but it has so many tenacles it just never seems to get anywhere. The idea is to move some people from the low lying areas like New Orleans East to higher areas in the city and shelter them there. Fifty one percent of the city is actually above sea level, according to a recent report.
• Turnaround evacuations. How do you bring your family back to a home without power and rough it out., then just after the power is restored, pack up and evacuate again?
• The two 'cane evacuation. If you haven't returned yet, why not consider staying away until Ike is out of the way?
• Living with 'canes -- the idea introduced by Governor Bobby Jindal, frustrated with the slow progress of getting power back on. If we live in an area where hurricanes will reoccur we have to learn how to build infrastructure that can survive better and/or be restored quicker. What improvements do we need to make? Where has that idea been hiding for 70 years.

I am sure that the language of hurricanes will advance very quickly this hurricane season.

Stay tuned.

--steve buser