Ike

[Camping Cat]

I have question....those houses on the pilings/stilts...how far are they sunk into ground/sand? I was wondering just how much ground would have to be eroded away before it would collapse.

If you want to know what those houses could look like after a really bad hurricane, check out my pictures that I took in Waveland, MS about a month after Katrina. We were delivering supplies to our very good friends who had 5 feet of water in their home. They lived a little away from the beach, so at least they had a home to rebuild. They lived in a tent in their back yard until they got a trailer from FEMA, but that took about another month. I also have some pictures from late January 2006 and you can see how extensive the damage was and how slow the recovery. This is why I have no patience with people who stay when advised to leave. You asked about the pilings. You can see from my photos that the pilings are all that are left from what once were beautiful beach houses.

http://s165.photobucket.com/albums/u41/ikoiko124/Katrina - Waveland/

I hope you can view them. Let me know if they don't come through.

 

[TigerKat]

Jan - Those photos are chilling.

 

[Shutterbug]

One account of someone who decided to stay:

http://m.siliconvalley.com/articles/162488368

"I'm drained. I'm beat up," said Steven Rushing, a commercial fisherman who tried to ride out the storm with his wife and several family members, including his pregnant 17-year-old daughter, in their one-story brick home on Galveston Island. Early Saturday, he loaded his family into a 17-foot ski boat and headed for safety. The boat ran aground and the Rushings sprinted for safety, guided by lights from police responding to a 911 call made from the boat.

"My family is traumatized. I kept them here, promising them everything would be alright, but this is the real deal and I won't stay no more."

 

[MUFFYCAT]

That is a smart 3 year old. I am in Sugar Land close to New Territory and our neighborhood has power while the others don't. We have friends that left Clear Lake and were staying at another friends in NT but they don't have power and now are here. My aunt lives in NT and they don't have power either. If anyone in florida reads this be glad you didn't get this storm. Actually I don't think it would have been this bad.

My brother lost power in the Greatwood section. Except for a fence that fell down they were fine. His 2 neighbors lost so many shingles it left alot of damage in the house.

He said the town had a curfew until 2 p.m. so the neighborhood can be checked out.

 

[Camping Cat]

Jan - Those photos are chilling.

It really did look like a bomb had gone off all along the beach. There was nothing at all left there.

When we brought supplies to our friends, I hadn't wanted to see the beach area. I had too many good memories of the beaches in MS. I didn't want to see what was left. But as were leaving their house, all our exits were blocked by big trucks removing debris, so we had to take the road toward the beach and get on Beach Blvd. for a block or so. I felt like I was attending a funeral. Everything was dead and gone.

I apologize for the quality of some of the photos. I was taking pictures from inside of our van and the lovebugs were horrible. I've never seen lovebugs like that in the months after Katrina! They swarmed over everything. We would stop at a gas station and clean our windshield, but the minute we took off, it was just as bad as when we stopped.

 

[Kirby]

I heard from my nephew in Sugar Land this morning. He and his family are doing good, lost power but it's back on. He said that his house is okay but a number of them in his neighborhood has quite a bit of damage.

 

[Planogirl]

Galveston has apparently had some severe problems and continues to do so. I'm checking blogs and forums and many landmarks and homes are gone and some places are still flooded. Galveston did not flood as badly as they thought it would but it appears to still be very, very bad.

I've been digging around trying to find out about some of the little towns around the bay and it doesn't look quite as bad yet but info is sketchy. The only exception I've seen is Surfside, it looks pretty badly damaged. I also see lots of flooding. If anyone hears anything please post! We are from that area and it's hard to get much information just yet.

 

[bumcat]

Here are some pics I found

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/09/hurricane-ik-16.html?csp=34

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7615028.stm

I believe I heard Seabrook, Bacliff and Clear Lake has a lot of damage. Kemah looks awful especially the Kemah boardwalk area.

So far 3 bodies have been found in Galveston, I'm afraid there will be much more.
Looters have been thrown in jail which has no power. Serves them right.

 

[bumcat]

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/09/13/us/0913-IKE_index.html

 

[bumcat]

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Hurri...oViewer=/080914/ids_photos_ts/r2311381508.jpg

 

[Shutterbug]

Just read they have rescued nearly 2000 people so far.

 

[jrpopfan]

"I survived Ike" is what it should say on my shirt. We sat, we waited... power went out before ike even hit land strange to say. Woke up to lots and lots of wind, then some water. We got up and waited for day light. When it finally came Ike was still over us but in the outer bands. We watched the trees blow, etc... After it was over, we sat... we waited. No power still.
The next night all you could do was go to bed early. We were woken up with more rain. So much rain that is flooded the street, work, etc... We sat... we waited... We just got back our power and I came to the DisBoards. (I guess I am Disney Addicted).
We live in an older apartment in the Galleria area. So, I would assume we would have issues. I thought it would be flooding through front door. Oh was I wrong. Apparently we had a crack in foundation that had water seep through the carpet and crack in wall that water came through in for the master bedroom. In the kitchen, there is some leak under the cabnets that flooded out and ruined the carpet in dining room and closet in master bedroom. Guest bedroom either had actually hurricane damage and cracked the window seal and we had a waterfall of water coming in soaking the carpet in the whole room.
So, dealing with all the water... no power to circulate air, the heat and a dog... the smell is almost unbearable in here. Hopefully tomorrow the apartment office will open and I will be trying to relocate to a different apt until they can fix all this.
Being without power was extremely boring and the only thing that I found to make this experience manageable was to continue to think that in 10 day, I will be leaving for my birthday wdw vacation. Me and my GF spent most of our time just talking about things we want to do, want we wanna buy, etc... It was that light at the end of this dark and windy tunnel.
So, I am now officially at day 10 countdown. Can't sleep. Don't feel good. But now with power I think I can finally cool down and relax.

 

[Shutterbug]

Wow, glad you came out okay.

Here in Ohio the remnants of Ike killed 3 people from falling trees when it came through yesterday afternoon and evening.

 

[TigerKat]

"I survived Ike" is what it should say on my shirt. We sat, we waited... power went out before ike even hit land strange to say. Woke up to lots and lots of wind, then some water. We got up and waited for day light. When it finally came Ike was still over us but in the outer bands. We watched the trees blow, etc... After it was over, we sat... we waited. No power still.
The next night all you could do was go to bed early. We were woken up with more rain. So much rain that is flooded the street, work, etc... We sat... we waited... We just got back our power and I came to the DisBoards. (I guess I am Disney Addicted).
We live in an older apartment in the Galleria area. So, I would assume we would have issues. I thought it would be flooding through front door. Oh was I wrong. Apparently we had a crack in foundation that had water seep through the carpet and crack in wall that water came through in for the master bedroom. In the kitchen, there is some leak under the cabnets that flooded out and ruined the carpet in dining room and closet in master bedroom. Guest bedroom either had actually hurricane damage and cracked the window seal and we had a waterfall of water coming in soaking the carpet in the whole room.
So, dealing with all the water... no power to circulate air, the heat and a dog... the smell is almost unbearable in here. Hopefully tomorrow the apartment office will open and I will be trying to relocate to a different apt until they can fix all this.
Being without power was extremely boring and the only thing that I found to make this experience manageable was to continue to think that in 10 day, I will be leaving for my birthday wdw vacation. Me and my GF spent most of our time just talking about things we want to do, want we wanna buy, etc... It was that light at the end of this dark and windy tunnel.
So, I am now officially at day 10 countdown. Can't sleep. Don't feel good. But now with power I think I can finally cool down and relax.

Glad to hear you mad it and are safe. You got your power back quick! We were without power for a week after Gustav, it's miserable.

 

[4greatboys]

Our house is fine for the most part. We had part of wood around Matthews room is gone so we had leaking into Matthews room and down the wall into the dining room below. Today it stinks and I see some mold on the ceiling already. Damn that stuff moves in quick. We also had leaking around our living room roof.

Lost some shingles. many tree limbs and our garage door is all dented in. Our fence is gone.

We got power back late last night. Only about 500,00 are with power still over a million without.

Matthew, Michael and I stayed up all night the night Ike came through. It was unbelieveable how hard those winds blow. It was only 1 mph under a Cat 3. I think the eye shifted a little because we expected it over us but I think we were on the rim of it because we never had the calm during the eye just the really bad winds for hours. Probably around 11 pm til 5am we had the worst winds (the hurricane force ones), Then once it past we had the tropical storm force winds left to pass through. I don't think the wind left dowm much til maybe around 1pm.

The flood waters came up into our yard past the sidewalk but not much farther than that. Then it was just freaking hot. So hot and humid. We had a film of water on our tile due to the humidity.

Michael had a friend with power so he went there Sat night. Matthew, Evan, Connor and I slept in the car that night because it was just so hot and sticky.

It was bad but we consider ourselves very lucky.

 

[txSleepingBeauty]

another Ike survivor checking in. no damage to the house, we barely escaped the falling trees. everyone of our trees lost huge branches, but amazingly none of them landed on the roof or the cars.

that whole night was extremely frightening. due to unexpected guests I ended up sleeping in my family room which has 2 big skylights so I could see the trees whipping around and green flashes as transformer after transformer blew up all night. yikes!!

it was nice to come out Sat. morning alive though. all of the neighbors on my street pitched in to get driveways clear and trees cut down.

still no power, I'm actually at work charging things. my bookstore let us in to enjoy the ac and electricity for a few hours!

 

[AlexDurrani]

My brother lost power in the Greatwood section. Except for a fence that fell down they were fine. His 2 neighbors lost so many shingles it left alot of damage in the house.

He said the town had a curfew until 2 p.m. so the neighborhood can be checked out.

We were lucky regarding the damage. we had 2 outdoor fans actually come loose and start hitting the glass doors. My brother and father went out into the storm to shut the power off to actually cut the fans down. They were hanging by the power line that ran to it. The neighbors across the lake from us had a tree literally uproot from the ground and fall on their fence. I was in Miami on vacation (go figure) during Hurricane Andrew and the sight of the tree reminded me so much of that storm. I have seen a lot of footage from helicopters on the news that show so much devistation in Galveston. The images remind me of the destruction in Mississippi after Katrina and in parts of Miami and the Keys after Andrew. There are almost no houses left standing. All you see is the wooden pylons that they were sitting on. This is the hurricane of 1900 and Carla all over again.

 

[TigerKat]

So glad to hear from all of you survivors that you and your families are safe. I can only imagine how frightening it was for y'all. I must say I'm very impressed at how quickly they are restoring your power. We had no damage from Gustav but were without power for a week.

Praying that we are all spared the remainder of hurricane season.

 

[4greatboys]

I think I'm just lucky and am on a grid with the PD or something. Last I heard 76% of those who lost power are still without.

 

[brerrabbit]

Our house is fine for the most part. We had part of wood around Matthews room is gone so we had leaking into Matthews room and down the wall into the dining room below. Today it stinks and I see some mold on the ceiling already. Damn that stuff moves in quick. We also had leaking around our living room roof.

Lost some shingles. many tree limbs and our garage door is all dented in. Our fence is gone.

We got power back late last night. Only about 500,00 are with power still over a million without.

Matthew, Michael and I stayed up all night the night Ike came through. It was unbelieveable how hard those winds blow. It was only 1 mph under a Cat 3. I think the eye shifted a little because we expected it over us but I think we were on the rim of it because we never had the calm during the eye just the really bad winds for hours. Probably around 11 pm til 5am we had the worst winds (the hurricane force ones), Then once it past we had the tropical storm force winds left to pass through. I don't think the wind left dowm much til maybe around 1pm.

The flood waters came up into our yard past the sidewalk but not much farther than that. Then it was just freaking hot. So hot and humid. We had a film of water on our tile due to the humidity.

Michael had a friend with power so he went there Sat night. Matthew, Evan, Connor and I slept in the car that night because it was just so hot and sticky.

It was bad but we consider ourselves very lucky.

Glad to hear you are all okay. We still don't have power and I had to come to work at an alternate site. We lost our fence and a few shingles but also had wind driven water into the front of our house. The living room, the dinning room and my DD's bedroom all got water. Other wise we are all okay. We have a generator so the fridge, a tv and a fan are working and water and sewer is working so overall things could be much worse.

Deena, where do you live that you have power back? PM me if you don't want the world to know specifics.