Comments on: Tropical Storm Edouard – Day 2

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:55:33 +0000

There isn’t much reason to risk it, because the severe damage to people I know wasn’t the actually wind or water, but the debris it carried. A sheet of plywood at 50mph causes a lot of damage.

We had video locally of people roping a sailboat that had a “shipped mast”, i.e. the mast was lowered and fastened to the deck. The boat had broken loose from its moorings and the mast was battering a guy’s house that was suddenly a whole lot closer to the bay than normal.

There’s a lot of land between you and the coast to slow the winds, but it is still a hemorrhoid when the power goes out.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 00:36:56 +0000

“The sensibly built condos on our barrier island have parking on the ground floor, and break away walls on the beach side to let the water flow through without pushing the building off its foundation.” – Bryan

They do that on Galveston Island as well. It may even help. TV news showed a lot of people boarding up and getting out, and I think it’s a good idea for them. It may not be the worst storm ever, but given everything you (and Badtux) described above, how bad is bad enough? Unlike the folks on Galveston beaches, we’re at least 50 miles inland, and both my apartment and Stella’s are in well-sheltered locations within the complex, and the complex is well above flood level. (Even T.S. Allison didn’t flood it.) If we were lower, or less well sheltered, I’d be advocating getting the hell out.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 21:26:27 +0000

I just updated and they are already getting the Tropical Storm force winds in coastal Louisiana, so you know that as soon as it goes by the winds from the South are pushing that water in. They are saying 2-4 foot surge.

The sensibly built condos on our barrier island have parking on the ground floor, and break away walls on the beach side to let the water flow through without pushing the building off its foundation. You haven’t been able to insure any ground floor structures on the Island since Opal came through in the mid ’90s.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:56:28 +0000

Well, my brother’s office in Intracoastal City got a foot of water in the *second story* when Rita blew by, so yeah, they can get a lot of water pushed up there when the wind blows right. That said, they’re not expecting more than a foot or two of water in the ground floor this time. The ground floor is used as a garage and storage warehouse since nobody is stupid enough to finish the ground floor for office space in Intracoastal City, it’d just need to be ripped out and replaced once a year or so when these storms blow through. That said, I’m still much happier that he’s up at Rayne today :-).

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:10:13 +0000

This is definitely going to pushing water into the bayous as it passes to the South. We had more than a day of steady 25mph wind out of the South as it was building.

There have been a number of systems doing preemptive shut downs, and the outer bands with tornadoes will probably be worse for Louisiana than Texas.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:59:36 +0000

I’m just glad that my brother is working from home today. (He works in Intracoastal City when he goes in to the office). He lives in an 1879 schoolhouse in Rayne, so he’s well above any storm surge and his house has survived everything that 140 years has dished out and is in excellent shape so I’m not worried about his safety. Just that his electricity might get knocked out and then he has to go through computer withdrawal :-).

By: Bryan

Bryan — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:29:38 +0000

As long as it doesn’t stall, things should be alright. It has started to strengthen again, but will lose power overnight before it hits Galveston in the morning. At the moment it looks like it will pass south of Sugar Land, so DFW isn’t going to get much from it.

By: Steve Bates

Steve Bates — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 17:52:08 +0000

We’re gonna get wet…

At this point, there is no rain in southwest Houston, and the sun peeks between the clouds occasionally. According to Eric Berger of the Houston Chronicle, we’ll have tropical storm force winds pretty much all day tomorrow, from about 8:00am to sunset. That’s not what troubles us… it’s the possibly heavy rain that gives us the “qualm before the storm.” (I wish I knew who coined that phrase.)) Nobody here has forgotten T.S. Allison.