Early Reports
CNN is report on the aftermath:
Floyd LeBlanc of CenterPoint Energy Inc. said 1.8 million of the power company’s customers — or more than 4 million people — in metro Houston are without electricity as high winds and heavy rains downed power lines. LeBlanc said 2 million customers represent about 4.5 million people.
“It’s going to take several weeks to get all this power restored,” he said. “We’ve been saying two to three weeks.”
…“Much of the Galveston Island is currently flooded, and there are several fires in that area,” the Galveston County Office of Emergency Management said on its Web site. “Many roads in the county are impassable [because of] to rising water and debris.”
To the east, at least 1,800 homes and businesses were flooded by storm surge in Cameron Parish, Louisiana. And 6 feet of floodwater rushed into the town of Lafitte in Jefferson Parish, said Chris Macaluso of Louisiana’s Office of Coastal Restoration and Management.
…
The Coast Guard said early Saturday that 22 people aboard a 584-foot Cyprus-flagged freighter that was adrift without power were safe. The Antalina was 170 miles southeast of Galveston waiting for a motor tugboat to bring it back to port, Coast Guard spokesman Mike O’Berry said.
In hurricanes the wind forces water into the electrical systems and they short out. This starts fires which can’t be controlled, because the fire department can’t get there. The circuit breakers can’t help because the shorts generally occur on the main incoming lines which don’t have breakers in place. The arcing and molten metal from the wires will ignite anything that burns.
There is up to 7 feet of water inside the seawall at Galveston, so houses and cars are under water and destroyed. Good luck on getting an insurance payout. Oh, anything that was planted is probably dead or dying as most plants don’t like seawater and the ground is now salted.
Up to 20% of US refinery capacity is in the affected area. It will be off-line for an extended period pumping out the water and waiting for power.
The area just switched to a cash economy, as you can’t get to your credit line, or even your deposits until there is power.
5 comments
and on that cheery note…
Was on the news here too. We’ve had more US news here than local the past few days! Amazing… They showed some moronic redneck (with the obligatory can of cheap beer of course) staring out at the rising waves and saying how God will protect them and they are staying.
Ike will be a tragedy for many, and I wouldn’t wish anything like that on anyone. But it may have some unintended benefits too. 😉
As you said… “Thinning the herd”. *sigh* People’s levels of stupidity never cease to amaze me.
I don’t know what good all the warning does, because some people just seem to ignore it. At least they got the CHLORINE GAS LEAK from the chemical plant under control quickly,
thanks for the update Bryan. Looks like it will be weeks before things start to return to normal. The mention of the cash economy made me realize that one thing I am probably underestimating in my emergency preparedness is enough hard currency to get the necessities for a period. That oversight will be solved on Monday.
No one seems to mention that, Fallenmonk, and comes as a real shock to people who are accustomed to using “plastic”, including debit cards, for everything. Until the power and communications lines are repaired, no one can accept them.