Guest post by Scott Hopkins
Hurricane Ike made landfall around 2:00am CST and appears to be an incredibly disastrous storm.
“Our nation is facing what is by any means a potentially catastrophic hurricane,” said U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, warning that Ike’s storm surge could present the gravest danger. “This certainly falls in the category of pretty much a worst case scenario.”
The National Weather Service warned that people in coastal areas could “face the possibility of death” from the storm surge. Officials said Ike could flood as many as 100,000 homes and send a storm wave across 100 miles of U.S. coastline.
Galveston is already mostly underwater. Houston Chronicle:
After New Orleans, Galveston is probably the second-most vulnerable Gulf Coast city to hurricanes. Like New Orleans, Galveston relies on long-sturdy walls to protect its structures. And like New Orleans, Galveston may soon find out that there’s no substitute for elevation.
About 40 percent of the city’s 58,000 residents ignored calls to evacuate. And now they’re phoning for help and getting this response, “We can’t help you.” I fear it’s going to get quite grim.
There likely won’t be much on the media radar today besides this devastating storm, and it may be a while before we know the full extent of the damage. Check here for constant updates.
UPDATE @ 1:40pm CST:
The road to Galveston this morning:
It appears that, as bad as it was, it could have been much worse.
At first light, it was unclear how many may have perished, and authorities mobilized for a huge search-and-rescue operation to reach the more than 100,000 people who ignored warnings that any attempt to ride the storm out could bring “certain death.” “The unfortunate truth is we’re going to have to go in … and put our people in the tough situation to save people who did not choose wisely. We’ll probably do the largest search-and-rescue operation that’s ever been conducted in the state of Texas,” said Andrew Barlow, spokesman for Gov. Rick Perry.
With the winds still blowing and many roads impassable, authorities in some places could not venture outside to get a full look at the damage, but they were encouraged that the storm surge topped out at only 13.5 feet — far lower than the catastrophic 20-to-25-foot wall of water forecasters had feared.
Open thread.
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