I was totally surprised to hear this when I woke up this morning...I was so busy moving in my new house this weekend...I am REALLY hoping it's a fast moving storm with tropical storm winds. I DO NOT want my house to get damaged from the storm...there are a lot of windows in the house and we live about a few minutes from the White Oak bayou. Do you think we need to board the windows? When are we supposed to feel the effects? /end of my freaking out rant
Here we go, this should make for an interesting 24 hours. I'm pissed right now because supposedly at work they are asking for minimal staff to come in tomorrow, and since I live closest to the office everyone is volunteering me. I'm sorry, but if a hurricane is hitting us tomorrow I AM NOT driving into work.
Depends on where you live? If you are up around Houston and its just a TS or even a minimal hurricane I would just tape up the windows as a precaustion. My wife and on the other hand live in Surfside. Right on the beach. My rule of thumb down here is to go one step further than what you are expecting. So I will be boarding up our windows later this evening on our house here. I have already done it to our other two rental homes that we own down the road. Depends on the speed of the storm. So far I have heard reports from 1am to about 10 am to noon tomorrow. On a surreal note this is a pic from a cam that is installed on a house about 1/2 a mile from where my house is. http://66.132.136.171/surfcam/index_orig.shtml Given that image one wouldn't have a clue what so ever that anything of that magnitude was less than 24 hours away. I mean it is absolutely calm and sunny out right now.
We live in Northwest Houston by Jersey Village so it shouldn't be that bad compared living down 45 south where my parents live, right? Does anyone here live by White Oak bayou? Does it get bad during heavy storms? So far, I haven't heard anything from the management...I'm not driving to work tomorrow if it is a hurricane. Forget that.
If it's a hurricane, it will be a weak one. Show up to work, keep the economy moving, and be an American hero.
My boss told us to just use our own judgement and come in we felt we could. But that if we didn't come in we didn't even need to bother calling as to why. I'm going to use this opportunity to extend my vacation by a day (it was originally going to start on Wednesday). Plus, this allows me to not be freaking traveling west during a TS or Hurricane.
You'll be fine - people in far South Houston, Clear Lake/ Seabrook, Kemah, etc. will obviously have more concern.
I'm pretty sure taping the windows doesn't make a damn bit of difference in whether or not the window actually breaks. It might help it break into less pieces, but that's about it. Maybe someone can clarify.
The pressure from a hurrican can burst windows. Not to mention flying debris. The purpose of taping them is so that you don't get shards of glass flying into your eyeballs. It will still break with the tape, but won't explode.
A few notes to those on the panic side of things... This will very likely be a marginal category 1 hurricane, which means AT LANDFALL, it will have winds at around 70-80mph. By the time it gets to the interior of Houston, those will have fallen probably to tropical storm strength at around 60-65mph. If you live on the north or west side of town, chances are, you'll feel the effects of what will seem like an extended thunderstorm in the summer. If you are near downtown, it may get a tad hairier than that, but nothing for boarding windows. Really, you don't need to board windows unless you are in an area with a lot of debris (and, hey, pick that up! ) or the storm is a strong cat 2 or higher. No one needs to evacuate UNLESS you are in a low lying area prone to flooding, in which case you are used to this. There is a decent chance people will lose power, but this storm is picking up speed around the edge of a high pressure area and should move fairly quickly out of the area minimizing both flooding and long-term power loss. In essence, just take the day off, stay inside, bring the pets in and enjoy a nice rain storm.
That is basically why I was recommending it. If you do by chance get a broken window no sense in having glass everywhere to cut yourself on. As it is and what the current forecast is I wouldn't see the need to board up in and around Houston. But that can change in a second with these gulf storms so that is why you need to keep monitoring the storm.
The pressure from TORNADOS can burst windows. Only the most massive of hurricanes will blow out a window. Most windows are broken during a storm by debris. If you are worried about debris, do what you have to do, but I'd recommend just picking up any crap that is laying around outside first.
So pretty much what I said, but Lady_Di was worried about her new house being damaged, which I can only assume means that she wants no shards of glass in her eyes and no broken windows.
White Oak Bayou did go over its banks in 99 for Francine. This one neighborhood off of Fairbanks got hit hard by Francine. The City of Jersey Village flooded all over the place. Allison did some damage too, but it did it to all over the place.
