It was "too late" to call an evacuation... in terms of their "72 hour" evacuation policy. In the end, the evacuation was ordered. People still didn't leave despite having all of yesterday and most of today. Additionally, they were able to evacuate an entire level 1 hospital and most of the inhabitants of Galveston, Clear Lake, and Seabrook without much catastrophic events.... and yet people still stayed. What else do they have to do?
check this out: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2008/graphics/al09/loop_3W.shtml looping forecast gif of ike from start to finish... kind of makes you wonder about accuracy, etc.
im not in the hood. im at my sisters hood. im riding it out over there. i have no clue what is going on at my house. i cleared any twigs and sticks, and loose things and put them in my garage. im just worried about white oak.
GOOOO GFDL!!! My point was that she did tell people to stay at one point. It's been a big clusterf*** all week with tons of flip-flopping on the part of the city leadership (and the UTMB leadership, which has a big influence on evacuating).
estimated 5.2 million will be without power after this is done. Going to be weeks before power is fully restored.
To those in harm's way, As long as you can read this thread... STAY SAFE! The local government in Galveston asked people to write their SSN on their forearm in permanent marker "just in case" they need to ID the body. Yikes! The Strand is already 4' under water... Salt water. The TS force winds are already causing damage... or at least being felt.
They're showing footage of that fire on ABC 13 which is on the East end at the yacht club. There is no flood water at all on that edge of the island... which represents the highest point.
And my point is that people have chosen to stay not because of the "clusterf***" that you've described, but because they were likely to stay anyways. And, being somebody who was there during Rita... which caused a hospital evacuation 3-4 days BEFORE the storm... things were suprisingly MUCH smoother this time around. Sure, they could have done it a bit sooner... but in the end, they evacuated the entire hospital in one day, despite also calling for an evacuation of the island the same day. The main culprit here is the Rita overhype combined with virtually no rain from Eduoard and Gustav. Made people a little Hurricaine "brave".
Jeremiah Over the past several days, I have seen her interviewed several times and it was evident that she was wishy-washy compared to leadership in other areas of Metro Houston. That being said, why would the citizens of Galveston seek - follow her advice about evacuation when every news outlet (for several days) has been predicting dire consequences if Ike landed in the vicinity of Galveston? Galveston had some difficulties when Alicia hit and people should have used that as a guide.
Anybody sees this as insensitive? First you tell people not to evacuate days before the hurricane coming then you tell people this. Identify through their teeth.
They did report on TV that they were taking IDs and SSNs of the diehards out on the island so they can ID them if/when the worst happens.
This is true but highly dependent upon where you are. Central Houston and many of the larger suburbs will probably be back up within a couple days. Some will have it back Sunday. There will be pockets that will lose power for weeks - especially those who were in the storm surge zones and got flooded. They won't want to risk electrocution or fire in some of those places before they are inspected. I'm off the main computer until power comes back - assuming it is off. I'll be on the laptop at a friend's house just a few blocks away tonight. We've got back up power supplies that will last a few hours, so I should be online right through the worst of it.
Yeah, a pair of people that refused help from the police chief. The way it was worded made it sound like they were making wide spread announcements to all the stragglers.
Does anybody have a link to that site that can tell you, based on your address, what the surge level is currently? I have some relatives in Bolivar and I want to check on their house for them. TIA
I left Thursday morning, and I had a hotel booked since Monday. I left for Gustav, too, just to be safe. But most people are sheep and need direction, which is why not sounding the alarm until the last minute was a big mistake.
I still think more people could have easily left since the 9am evacuation yesterday. There weren't huge stalls on the causeways, and once you got past Clear Lake, traffic was fine in central Houston. Just like some people overreact and leave for everything... some people have chosen to stay. The leadership has been unreliable for a good amount of time... but in this case, they still ultimately gave plenty of notice.
