Ike Storm Damage with photos 9-16-8

Friday, 12 September 2008 16:38 |

Hurricane Ike Storm Damage Reports

For

Galveston-Houston Area

And Other Gulf Coast Area

map-of-galveston-0

Above: map of Galveston Island. Behind & at top entry to Galveston Bay.

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Above: This is how Galveston Island looked before Hurricane Ike. This shows Galveston Island's Gulf-side seawall and multi-lane boulevard. The boulevard rests atop the 17 foot tall, concrete seawall. At the very top are piers with businesses and hotels sitting out over the Gulf.

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Above: Murdock Pier before Hurricane Ike

Above: Remnants of Murdock Pier after Ike

Above: Another view of Murdock Pier after Ike

Above: Another pier with the Flagship Hotel before Ike. The hotel juts out 1,000 feet away from the beach and Galveston Island into the Gulf of Mexico.

Above: The Flagship Hotel in the background. Sustained major structural damage. In the forefront, debris piled up along Seawall Blvd from other piers destroyed by Hurricane Ike.

Above: Galveston's Seawall Blvd immediately after Ike. Debris covered the multiple lane highway along the Seawall. Bulldozers quickly began pushing the debris off the highway. In the background behind the Wendy's sign is a Ramada Inn hotel that sustained heavy damage. Most hotels along the beach sustained significant to major structural damage.

Above: More debris along seawall. Gulf sea is on your right. Left side is what's left of a Joe's Crab Shack Restaurant and sign.

Latest Update of 9-16-8 Posted Below

Galveston Stunned By Storm

Galveston residents remain stunned in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. More than 150 buildings at last count were obliterated by the Category 2 hurricane. Thousands are homeless. Debris litters the roads and streets. Interstate access to the island remains blocked by debris including yachts and remains of buildings that are lying across the interstate leading to the causeway bridge that connects Galveston island with the mainland.

Emergency resources are attempting to keep up with local demands for food, water and ice. There are no gasoline supplies on the island and there is no utility services for electricity, gas, water or sewers. There is a growing concern that a health crisis is imminent.

Not only were buildings destroyed but even cemetaries were uprooted. Media reports indicate that concrete burial vaults and caskets were uprooted from cemetaries and washed into piles of debris. The storm debris includes the stench of exposed sewage, rotting fish and seaweed. If that were not bad enough, oil slicks coat the sea surrounding the island.

CNN reports that thousands of homes in Galveston and nearby communities like those in the Bolivar Peninsula were either swept away into the Gulf or damaged beyond repair. Read more details, LINK HERE.

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Louisiana & Midwest Soaked by Ike Too

Louisiana suffered extensive flooding damage from Hurricane Ike as the outer bands of Ike brushed the Louisiana coastline.

Once Ike made landfall, the hurricane degraded to a tropical storm, then into a tropical depression before merging with an independent coldfront and the remnants of a Pacific cyclone Lowell. That merger produced additional flooding problems across parts of Arkansas, Missouir, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio before crossing over into Canada by late Sunday night.

Remnants of Ike and Lowell did a double whammy on Chicago, which experienced significant flash flooding. For more on Hurricane Ike's aftermath, LINK HERE.

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Texas Search/Rescue Continues

Galveston Health Crisis Looms

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Information Below Posted on 9-15-8

View Video Clips of Storm Damage

You can view short video clips of hurricane damage to Galveston, Houston and surrounding areas - including a dramatic US Coast Guard Aerial video shot shortly after the storm cleared out. The aerial footage shows dramatic flooding on Galveston and shows that all of the commerical piers on Galveston's Gulf shore were destroyed except for the pier for the Flagship Hotel which sustained major damage. There are also clips showing fires, damage along the Seawall Boulevard businesses and people kayaking and boating in the streets of downtown Galveston's business district. This link below is to a page at the Houston Chronicle which has multiple video clips to choose from near the bottom of the page. LINK HERE.

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This page features storm damage reports for Hurricane Ike.

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This Report Below Posted at 8:30 am CDT on 9-14-8

Galveston Devastated

Above: Interstate 45 littered with debris and boats just before the bridge entrance to Galveston Island.

Above: Aerial shot from Coast Guard chopper of flooded Galveston homes on the southwestern end of the island. This area experienced heavy flooding because there was no 17 foot tall concrete seawall for protection. Two-thirds of the island was unprotected by the seawall and was very vulnerable to storm surge even before the hurricane actually struck.

Above: Aerial shot from Coast Guard chopper showing flooded homes on fire in the southwestern part of Galveston Island. The fire department was helpless to fight fires because of street flooding and the lack of city water to fight fires.

Galveston Damage:

Galveston sustained major damage from Hurricane Ike. The eye of the hurricane roared over Galveston Island, sparing the city from the very worst-case scenario by only a few miles. Not only was the island spared from the worst but the adjacent Galveston Bay was also spared from the worst of Ike's "dirty quadrant" of the storm.

The massive storm surge that the "dirty quadrant" would have inflicted on Galveston was shifted by a slight jog in the storm's path in it's last three hours before landfall. The storm direction shifted from a direct hit on Freeport, Texas. A hit on Freeport would have put Galveston in the "dirty quadrant" with a storm surge of more than 20 feet, perhaps even 25 feet or more.

As it was, nearly all of Galveston Island was submerged in at least two feet or more of water. The lower two-thirds of the island nearly dissappeared in storm surge. The full extent of the damage to the lower portion of the island remains unknown to the public, although brief video footage from helicopter flyovers suggest many homes were destroyed, some no doubt swept away into the Gulf itself. Some homes were picked up and slammed into neighboring homes. 17 buildings were destroyed by fires that were triggered in the wake of downed power lines.

Galveston lost electrical power at dusk on Friday evening as the outer bands of the storm first came ashore with tropical storm force winds. Galveston's massive, 17 foot concrete sea wall managed to protect most of the key hotels and tourist spots along the beach front, although several hotels sustained major wind damage. One historic restaurant was swept away in the storm surge, but the Flagship hotel which is built on a pier stretching out into the Gulf survived, but with significant damage.

Access to Galveston Island from the main interstate causeway and bridge has been closed, due to extensive damage to the roadway and bridge. Authorities say that the damage is so extensive that the bridge is impassable. For that reason, it will be quite some time before evacuated residents will be allowed back onto the island. Equally so, residents who remained on the island are now trapped and unable to leave the island. They will remain trapped without food, water or electricity for an extended period of time.

Houston Sustains Significant Damage

Above: Downtown Houston. High winds ripped into skyscrapers

Above: Downtown Houston. Many skyscraper windows were blown out. Especially hard hit was the 75 story, JP Morgan building.

Above: Debris litters a road in southeast Houston near Galveston Bay.

Downtown Houston sustained significant wind damage. The 75 story, J.P. Morgan building, the tallest skyscraper in Texas, took a major hit losing much of its glass windows to the high winds. Glass littered much of downtown Houston. The city also sustained isolated areas of flooding but perhaps the worst damage was the extensive destruction of electrical power lines across the city. Most of Houston is without electrical power and authorities warn that it might be two weeks or more before power is restored to much of the city. Some areas may not see a restoration of power for several weeks.

Galveston Bay

Above: Coast Guard Helicopter photo of oil refineries in Texas City, Texas along Galveston Bay.

The Galveston Bay area experienced storm surge flooding nearly as bad as Galveston Island. From the video footage broadcast by the TV news channels, it appears that every boat marina in the Bay area was extensively damaged or destroyed. News media outlets were not allowed into the Houston Ship Channel to view the damage to commercial port facilities.

At last report, Oil company officials were unable to assess damage to some refineries due to inaccessability as a result of flooding that prevented access. However, helicopter fly-over video suggested the refineries themselves were spared significant flooding with little or not storm surge from Galveston Bay.

One refinery expert, interviewed on MSNBC on Sunday cautioned that just because a refinery didn't have signfiicant flooding, doesn't mean it didn't sustain significant or even major damage. Refineries cannot be fully assessed for damage until power is restored. Lightning strikes could have triggered unforeseen problems. Also sometimes in hasty shutdowns, things go wrong, which can thwart start up efforts for as much as one or even two weeks, before production efforts can begin.

Beaumont and Port Arthur

The oil refineries in Beaumont and Port Arthur were thought to have been spared from the terrific storm surge inflicted by the "dirty quadrant" of Ike, although the flooding and damage is so severe that there was no visual media confirmation of the refineries' status.

Search & Rescue

So far, the recovery phase across the region on Saturday was limited to Search & Rescue operations only. Damage assessment was minimal. President Bush pro-actively declared a state of emergency and a federal disaster even before the storm made landfall allowing Federal resources the opportunity to move swiftly for rescue purposes. The Federal government agencies swung into high-gear by early afternoon on Saturday with thousands of National Guard troops, Coast Guard, FEMA and the Dep't of Homeland Security launching operations. Evacuees were prevented from returning to the hard-hit areas and their return will likely be restrained for at least one or two more days, perhaps even longer.

For more on the damage - read CNN's coverage - LINK HERE.

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More Information from Various Wire Stories

Ike Hits Heart of US Oil Sector

Hurricane Ike struck at the heart of the U.S. oil industry around Houston on Saturday, triggering the biggest disruption to nationwide energy supplies in at least three years and sending gasoline prices spiking higher at the pumps.

Oil companies scrambled to assess damage to refineries and offshore platforms in the storm's wake, while the White House said it would clamp down on gasoline price gouging, ease environmental fuel regulations, and consider releasing emergency stockpiles to ease the impact on drivers.

Offshore, oil companies shut nearly 100 percent of their Gulf of Mexico oil production and more than 98 percent of their natural gas output, according to the latest data from the Minerals Management Service.

Production from the region, home to a quarter of U.S. crude oil output, was expected to recover fairly quickly as Ike had veered just south and west enough to reduce the risk of damage to platforms, experts said.

That production, however, has been hobbled for most of the past two weeks by threats from hurricanes, cutting a cumulative 18 million barrels of oil output. Story .

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Bush: Too Early To Know Oil Impact

President Bush said on Sunday that it is too soon to know the extent of impact Hurricane Ike will have on U.S. gasoline supplies.

After meeting with FEMA leaders President Bush stated: ""It's a little early to fully assess where we stand, although I can say that one of the pipelines coming out of the Gulf Coast area is running." Full story details, LINK HERE.
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The Search is On

Rescuers in boats, helicopters and high-water trucks set out across the flood-stricken Texas coast Saturday in a monumental effort to reach tens of thousands of people who stubbornly ignored warnings of "certain death" and tried to ride out Hurricane Ike.

The storm roared ashore hours before daybreak with 110 mph winds and towering waves, smashing houses, flooding thousands of homes, blowing out windows in Houston's skyscrapers, and cutting off power to more than 3 million people, perhaps for weeks.

By evening, it appeared that Ike was not the single calamitous stroke that forecasters had feared. But the full extent of the damage — or even a rough sense of how many people may have perished — was still unclear, in part because many roads were impassable.

Some authorities feared that this could instead become a slow-motion disaster, with thousands of victims trapped in their homes, waiting for days to be rescued.

"We will be doing this probably for the next week or more. We hope it doesn't turn into a recovery," said Sheriff's Sgt. Dennis Marlow in Orange County, where more than 300 people had to be rescued from flooded homes. He said that was only "a drop in the bucket" compared with the number still stranded.

By some estimates, more than 140,000 of the 1 million or so people who had been ordered to evacuate the coast as Ike drew near may have tried to tough it out. Many of them evidently realized the mistake too late, and pleaded with authorities in vain to save them overnight. -

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Extensives Damage in Texas

Full Impact Still Unknown

LINK

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This Report Below Posted at 10:30 am CDT on 9-13-8

Hurricane Ike's eye center passed directly over Galveston sparing the island from the very worst damage possible. The 'dirty side' of the eyewall passed north of Galveston and made landfall south of Port Arthur and Beaumont. The storm surge for Galveston stretched Galveston's sea wall to its limits, but the storm surge of 20 to 25 feet was avoided by the slight shift of path for the dirty-side of the storm. Galveston Bay did suffer extensive storm surge, but again, it could have been worse.

At 10 am the last of the heavy thunderstorms cleared Galveston and the local officials are just now gearing up for damage assessments and rescue operations although most of Galveston's streets remain severely flooded or are blocked by debris. The Seawall Boulevard which runs atop the Galveston Seawall appears passable for the msot part based upon live TV broadcasts, but camera ranges are limited to only a few blocks as we post this, so the full extent of damage to the island will not likely be realized until later in the day.

In Houston, much of downtown Houston is littered with debris from building damage. Houston's tallest building, 75 stories, sustained major window damage with glass debris littering much of downtown Houston. Portions of the city are experiencing flooding and about 3 million customers are without power. Utility officials warn that some regions may remain without power for a week or more depending on the extent of damage. Damage assessment teams are expected to begin assessing the damage by early afternoon.

We've rather neglected in our reporting that the outer rings of Hurricane Ike also wrecked havoc along the entire Louisiana coastline. Lake Charles, Louisiana took a severe beating as did Lafayette, Louisiana. New Orleans was not spared by much as tornadoes and flooding plagued the city. There was one TV report of a levee failure, but I've seen no newswire confirmation to support that.

There were TV coverage reports of at least one hotel being flattened near Galveston Bay and other hotels reportedly sustained structural damage.

TV coverage indicated that at least one oil refinery sustained damage to a "coker" unit which resulted in an environmental spill into one the nearby bodies of water. It is believed to have also sustained some flooding damage. We've yet to hear of any damage reports to other refineries and may not hear of anything until Sunday or Monday. Oil company officials tend to keep such information confidential due to competitive business concerns.

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