Hurricane Ike hits Texas

[truthseeker john]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aNAFgupFa1Qk

Hurricane Ike, Approaching Galveston Island, Slams Texas Coast

By Brian K. Sullivan and Tom Korosec

Sept. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Hurricane Ike battered the coast of Texas before landfall early today near Galveston, as officials warned of flooding and damage to the region's oil production.

Parts of Galveston were already flooded, and tropical-storm force winds were buffeting the area. A storm surge as high as 25 feet (7.6 meters) could occur in some places, the National Hurricane Center said. About 1.2 million people have evacuated the area around Houston, the fourth-biggest U.S. city, Texas Governor Rick Perry told CNN.

A dawn-to-dusk curfew will be enforced in areas under mandatory evacuation orders to deter looting, Houston Mayor Bill White said at a press conference.

Ike ``has the potential to produce a catastrophic effect,'' said Michael Chertoff, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, on a conference call. It's not time ``to play chicken with the storm.''

The storm, a Category 2 hurricane, carried sustained winds of 110 miles per hour (175 kph), the hurricane center said in a 12 a.m. Houston time advisory. Ike is following a track similar to the 1900 Galveston hurricane that killed 8,000 people, the deadliest storm in U.S. history.

Food for Weeks

In Houston, winds and driving rains lashed pine trees in the Buffalo Bayou, a waterway flowing through the city. Palm trees were pelted sideways by wind-driven horizontal rains while electrical transformers could be seen sparking and flaring out across the city.

Yesterday, Ernest Baddeaux, a 66-year-old welder living a half-block from Galveston Bay in La Porte, said he was staying put. He hammered plywood over his windows and said he was reasonably confident his house, one of the few in the neighborhood raised on piers, would protect him.

``I think one other family on the street is staying, too,'' he said, adding that he has an electric generator, a supply of gasoline and enough food and water to last for weeks.

Hurricane Alicia, which hit the Houston area in 1983, brought a 12-foot storm surge that didn't reach his property.

About 40 percent of Galveston's 57,400 people have decided to stay and ride out the storm, Steve LeBlanc, the city manager, said in a televised press conference. The storm surge may be 3 feet higher than the city's 17-foot seawall, he said.

Neighborhoods and coastal communities in the path of the storm surge ``will be inundated during the period of peak storm tide,'' the hurricane center said yesterday. ``Persons not heeding evacuation orders in single-family, one- or two-story homes face the possibility of death.''

Downtown Houston

Ike's projected path would make it the first storm to hit a major U.S. metropolitan area since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005. Ike has the potential to cost insurers $25 billion, ranking it behind Katrina as the second-most expensive storm in U.S. history, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu estimated.

Houston's population is 2.2 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and its metropolitan area, with a population of 5.6 million, is the sixth-largest in the U.S.

``We expect the center of Ike to travel right over downtown Houston after landfall,'' said Dan Kottlowski, expert senior meteorologist at AccuWeather.com in State College, Pennsylvania.

Skyscrapers in downtown Houston may be battered as gusts over 100 mph slam the buildings with debris, he said.

``Our advice is for people to get out of those high-rise buildings,'' he said. ``That's not a good place to be.''

Governor Perry also warned that a 20-foot ``tsunami'' of water may surge up the 54-mile Houston Ship Channel, which serves area refineries.

Refineries Down

The area is home to 23 percent of U.S. refining capacity. The region was devastated by Alicia, said Jim Rouiller, a senior energy meteorologist with Planalytics Inc. in Wayne, Pennsylvania.

``The refineries were down for months,'' said Rouiller, who accurately predicted the path of Hurricane Gustav, which struck Louisiana Sept. 1. ``The whole infrastructure around the Houston metropolitan area was devastated.''

Ike's eye was approaching Galveston Island with landfall expected in the next few hours, the hurricane center said in its 12 a.m. local time advisory. The system was moving toward the northwest at nearly 12 mph. Ike is expected to follow a northwest to north-northwestward path into the early morning before turning toward the north by this afternoon, the hurricane center's advisory said.

Ike's center will near Galveston Island and the upper Texas coast by early this morning, the center said.

Officials expect 7.8 million people to lose power, Kevin Kolevar, assistant secretary for electricity delivery and energy reliability for the Department of Energy, said on a conference call yesterday.

In the early hours of the morning, Galveston Island had already fallen dark because of power outages.

Air Rescue

Kyle Shaw, 25, a shopper at Randalls supermarket in western Houston who works in real estate development, said he picked up extra water yesterday in preparation for the Ike's arrival. He had been to a bookstore earlier in the day.

``I figure we're going to be without electricity for days and I was thinking about how to occupy my mind,'' Shaw said. ``I can see myself reading books by candlelight.''

Galveston County Judge Jim Yarbrough told reporters that about 200 people had taken shelter in a high school on Galveston Island and that rescuers in high-water vehicles were taking others there. On the Bolivar Peninsula, just east of Galveston Island, an unspecified number of people were rescued by air Friday afternoon as the sliver of land was inundated, he said.

Ike left more than 70 people dead in Haiti and killed four in Cuba as it swept through the Caribbean earlier this week.

Category 3 Possible

The U.S. weather center said Ike may strengthen to Category 3, meaning sustained winds of at least 111 mph, before crossing the coast, placing it in the middle rank of the Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity.

Ike's winds cover an area larger than that of Katrina, said Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at private forecaster Weather Underground Inc. Hurricane-force winds stretch across 240 miles, equivalent to the distance between New York to Washington.

The storm is so big that some New Orleans area levees, which were tested by Gustav, again are having water wash over them, Chertoff said.

President George W. Bush declared an emergency for Texas, his home state. As many as 7,500 Texas National Guard members are on standby.

Crude oil for October delivery rose 31 cents, or 0.3 percent, to settle at $101.18 a barrel at 2:48 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday. Futures touched $99.99, the lowest since April 2. Prices are up 27 percent from a year ago.

The storm has shut 97 percent of Gulf oil production and 93 percent of natural gas output, the Minerals Management Service has said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net; Tom Korosec in Houston, via the New York newsroom at mschoifet@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: September 13, 2008 02:01 EDT
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Yesterday:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=anVT89UU.LNs
Hurricane Ike Batters Texas Coastline Before Landfall (Update3)

By Brian K. Sullivan and Tom Korosec

Sept. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Hurricane Ike started to batter the coast of Texas as it headed for landfall tonight near Galveston, where forecasters warned that residents face possible death if they ignore evacuation orders.

Parts of Galveston were already flooded, and tropical-storm force winds were starting to buffet the area. A storm surge as high as 22 feet (6.7 meters) will hit Galveston Bay, the National Hurricane Center said.

Ike ``has the potential to produce a catastrophic effect,'' said Michael Chertoff, secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, on a conference call. It's not time ``to play chicken with the storm.''

Ike, which tripled in size in the Gulf of Mexico in the past two days, was a Category 2 hurricane with sustained winds of 105 miles per hour (169 kph), the center said just before 1 p.m. Houston time. Ike is following a track similar to the 1900 Galveston hurricane that killed 8,000 people, the deadliest storm in U.S. history.

Ernest Baddeaux, a 66-year-old welder living a half-block from Galveston Bay in La Porte, said he was staying put. He hammered plywood over his windows and said he was reasonably confident his house, one of the few in the neighborhood raised on piers, would protect him.

Food for Weeks

Hurricane Alicia, which hit the Houston area in 1983, brought a 12-foot storm surge that didn't reach his property.

``I think one other family on the street is staying, too,'' he said, adding that he has an electric generator, a supply of gasoline and enough food and water to last for weeks.

Neighborhoods and coastal communities in the path of the surge ``will be inundated during the period of peak storm tide,'' the hurricane center said. ``Persons not heeding evacuation orders in single-family, one- or two-story homes face the possibility of death.''

Ike's projected path would make it the first storm to hit a major U.S. metropolitan area since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005. Ike has the potential to cost insurers $25 billion, ranking it behind Katrina as the second-most expensive storm in U.S. history, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu estimated.

Houston's population is 2.2 million, making it the fourth- biggest U.S. city, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and its metropolitan area, with a population of 5.6 million, is the sixth-largest in the U.S.

The area is also home to 23 percent of U.S. refining capacity. The region was devastated by Alicia, said Jim Rouiller, a senior energy meteorologist with Planalytics Inc. in Wayne, Pennsylvania.

Refineries Down

``The refineries were down for months,'' said Rouiller, who accurately predicted the path of Hurricane Gustav, which struck Louisiana Sept. 1. ``The whole infrastructure around the Houston metropolitan area was devastated.''

Ike's eye was about 165 miles southeast of Galveston, the hurricane center said at 1 p.m. local time. The system was moving west-northwest at 12 mph. Hurricane conditions are expected to reach the coast later today and Ike's center will be near the coast by late today or early tomorrow, the center said.

With winds of at least 100 mph, the storm may collapse towers supporting high-voltage transmission lines carrying power to population centers, as Gustav did in Louisiana, Leticia Lowe, a spokeswoman for Houston electricity distributor CenterPoint Energy Inc., said today in an interview from her home as she prepared to leave for an emergency command post north of the city.

Power Lines

At least four major high-voltage power lines run from the Houston area northwest toward Dallas, roughly parallel to Ike's forecast track.

``We've been telling people to prepare for an extended outage,'' said Chris Schein, a spokesman for Dallas-based Oncor Electric Delivery Co., a unit of Energy Future Holdings Corp.

At Bubba's Sports Bar on the western side of Houston, a sign advertised a ``hurricane party'' for tonight.

``It's probably not going to happen,'' said bartender Liz Powers. ``It's got a lot worse than we expected; we expect to lose power. No power, no party.''

Kyle Shaw, 25, a shopper at Randalls supermarket in western Houston who works in real estate development, said he picked up extra water. Yesterday he visited a bookstore that was crammed with people.

``I figure we're going to be without electricity for days and I was thinking about how to occupy my mind,'' Shaw said. ``I can see myself reading books by candlelight.''

Ike left more than 70 people dead in Haiti and killed four in Cuba as it swept through the Caribbean earlier this week.

Category 3 Possible

The U.S. weather center said Ike may strengthen to Category 3, meaning sustained winds of at least 111 mph, before crossing the coast, placing it in the middle rank of the Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity.

Ike's winds cover an area larger than that of Katrina, said Jeff Masters, director of meteorology at private forecaster Weather Underground Inc. Hurricane-force winds stretch across 240 miles, equivalent to the distance between New York to Washington.

The storm's outer bands buffeted areas of Louisiana that were hit by Gustav.

President George W. Bush declared an emergency for Texas, his home state. As many as 7,500 Texas National Guard members are on standby.

Ike forced the Houston Texans to push back their National Football League home-opener against the Baltimore Ravens by a day to Sept. 15. The Houston Astros postponed two baseball games against the Chicago Cubs that were scheduled for today and tomorrow.

Crude oil for October delivery was little changed at $101.13 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after touching the lowest since April yesterday.

The storm has shut 97 percent of Gulf oil production and 93 percent of natural gas output, the Minerals Management Service said yesterday.

To contact the reporters on this story: Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net; Tom Korosec in Houston, via the New York newsroom at mschoifet@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: September 12, 2008 15:50 EDT

[truthseeker john]

One picture shows hurricane Ike's projected path. The pink thing on the other picture shows where the Bush ranch is.

Hurricanes often people kill people but Bush won't be bothered about that, though he will be bothered if his own ranch gets seriously damaged or destroyed. Besides, because of hurricane Ike, almost all of the oil production in that region has been shut down and that might be the straw that breaks the US camel's back.

[Lee]

If Hurricaine Ike doesn't destroy Bush's ranch then surely he can't be the messiah.

Maybe it really is Shayler afterall.

[truthseeker john]