I Do NOT Like Hurricane Ike–UPDATED

September 10, 2008 / 12:26 am • By Dr. Melissa Clouthier

Here’s the thing: paying attention to the weather is one of my least favorite things to do. So, I don’t do it. Plenty of things to worry about. Rain clouds isn’t one of them. But at the grocery store today, two things got my attention. 1) Almost all the water was sold out. 2) Sarah Palin was on the cover of every tabloid and they all did their damndest to make her look ugly. The water thing got me thinking I should check out the progress of that storm that was supposed to demolish Cuba and fall apart over its mountains. Looks like the hurricane did the former but not the latter.

What’s ugly is the Ike storm track.

As an aside, the picture looks like a human embryo. Look closely. You’ll see. Weird.

Anyway, here’s the track:

Here’s the good news:

Since the last hurricane, Rita, and with the mess that was Katrina, evacuation planning has improved in Houston. So there’s that. We’re far enough inland though, that we probably wouldn’t evacuate. Food, gas, guns. The necessities. I even bought a couple bowie knives, loads of duct tape, a chain saw, water purification tablets, a hand-cranked radio and some other survival stuff last time around. Certain people I won’t mention laughed, but I think it’s just good sense to have those kind of things around just in case.

Even during Rita, which was by no means a terrible storm in this area, electricity was spotty for a week with rolling blackouts here. And we had friends who were without power for nearly a month. In this heat, I can tell you things start to stink pretty damn quickly. And I mean the mold, not the body odor.

Brendan Loy, is not optimistic. I trust Brendan on this. Not only is he a Weather Nerd, he also seems to be rather intuitive about these storms and this is what he’s saying:

This new sense of worry is fueled partly by the track. As I mentioned earlier, the trend toward a landfall in more sparsely populated south Texas or northern Mexico has halted, and now the computer model tracks are inching north — and getting uncomfortably close to the heavily populated, highly vulnerable Houston/Galveston region. In Eric Berger’s words, “if the models were to shift just 50 or so miles up the coast, a landfall at Freeport or just to the northeast would bring the strongest winds to Houston.”

So, back to the store to buy more water. Fuel the vehicles. Blah. Blah. Lots could happen in the next three days, but if I lived on the coast, this wouldn’t be making me happy. It’s not making me happy being inland. And as I recall, Rita seemed to be causing more local consternation but this storm has the potential to be more devastating.

Are Texans dealing with storm fatigue? Maybe.

More at NOAA.

UPDATED:

Beldar, also a Houstonian (who knew?), will be doing this:

I don’t. That doesn’t make me, or those like me, immune from nasty consequences like wind damage, localized flooding, and power outages. But I’m unlikely to be evacuating inland on this one. And as long as I have power and internet access, I’ll probably still be playing whack-a-mole with smears against Sarah Palin.

Me too! What an entertaining way to go through the storm.

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  • Naqamel

    Since you’re close to the coast, you might think about getting a Lifesaver water bottle. It filters out any water and instantly makes it potable.
    Those of you in the Hurricane’s path will be in our prayers.

  • Paul Gordon

    Melissa:

    Check Beldar’s blog ( http://beldar.blogs.com/beldarblog/ ).

    His latest post has links to a Houston Chronicle article with an embedded map of the surge zones.

    If you’ve never been through one of these before, I’ll add just one piece of advice to all of the obvious ones: If it hits where you are at, don’t be in too big a hurry to go exploring afterward.

    After Alicia hit (1983), with power out and warnings not to use the water just yet, I decided to head out west, past Katy, to hopefully eventually find a diner open for something better to eat than what was in my apartment.

    I barely got into the street before noticing all these boards all over the place, probably ripped from billboards by the wind, PROBABLY WITH NAILS STILL IN THEM.

    Not wishing to be in the market for a new set of tires, I decided to wait until the clean-up crews passed through.

    I was lucky; the area where I lived (near Greenway Plaza) was cleared in a couple of hours, and when I got back from the diner I found (in Columbus), the power was back on again. Other parts of town took longer to get back to normal (I think several days for people in the northwest area).

    Let’s hope this one turns out to be another non-event, and fodder for another of Ken Hoffman’s articles of local weather hype.

  • Paul Gordon

    Follow-up to earlier post about going exploring too soon after Alicia hit.

    If that caused some to wonder “What the Hell was he thinking?”, at that time I lived in an apartment right off the Southwest Freeway, with direct access to the feeder.

    No blown-over trees, tree limbs, or downed power lines there.

    But, the boards with nails were there; hence my warning.

  • Trish

    Hope you come through okay.

    This brings up a good point: EVERYBODY should have some sort of emergency kit, just in case.

    A few weeks ago, we had a bad storm, and tornadoes in the area. My son and I scrambled for shelter, but he was the one who remembered to bring a flashlight and the radio. It was a good thing, too, because we lost power shortly afterwards.

    Be careful of live wires in the aftermath. I knew a woman whose dog was killed that way–but better a dog than a child.

  • http://www.purewaterhq.com carbon water filters

    Take heed you do not find what you do not seek.