Hurricane Ike

[23]

Re: Hurricane Ike

i know im late to the party but i just have to comment on Geraldo

i was watchin him that entire night and he stayed out through the EYE WALL (the strongest part of the storm) clutching onto his trusty palm tree

now, when they tell people to leave the area and if you stay you are facing certain death, then people turn there TV's on and see this dunce standing out there in the middle of the EYE WALL it kind of makes that point a little less meaningful

in fact, Geraldo may have proven that being outside next to a palm tree may be the SAFEST place during a hurricane as there are no windows or collapsing roofs and it didnt seem like he was dodging that much debris

Depends on where he was because just being on the coastline, the nut could've been drowned by surging water

[mkharsh33]

Re: Hurricane Ike

just to throw in my $.02...

i live in florida, just north of tampa...moved down here with my wife and kids from columbus, oh 5 years ago this fall. let me just say this: the media entirely hypes this stuff up beyond belief. it is NOT nearly as bad as they make it out to be, using superlatives that go beyond the truth.

we have only had 1 day here where the wind was a bit above normal, and it was the storm that wrapped around florida, but it wasn't bad at all. just wanted you guys to hear from someone in the middle of all of this that it's not as bad as they say it is.

this is not to say that it's nothing to worry about, but i don't like what the national news people say because it's a distortion of reality.

[Pokes]

Re: Hurricane Ike

Well the only bad thing about the storm is in my hometown and where I go to school at power might not be restored for another 3-4 weeks... and they started shutting off water as well so a lot of people have fled up north.

[McLite]

Re: Hurricane Ike

I don't either.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'll take the 5 tornadoes we had Friday night, plus all the other tornadoes we've had, over going through a hurricane once.

I have never seen a tornado but I went through Hurricane Alicia in 1983 living in Houston. The eye actually went right over our house (how many people can say that). I remember going outside and everything was just scary dead calm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Alicia

[SlimKibbles]

Re: Hurricane Ike

Yesterday was a pretty boring day, no power from 4-11:30 in cincinnati where I live. I really never knew huge winds like this could split a tree in half until it happened yesterday, it split right down the middle, but is still standing because it only split about 3/5th's of the way. I'm just glad to have the power back but now we'll have to start cleaning up the mess it left.

Well that was fun. I had been without power since about 2 PM Sunday afternoon. Just got back from class a little bit ago and thankfully the power was on. What blew through yesterday...I've never seen anything like that in my life. The wind gusts were incredible. The sun was shining but we had tropical depression type of winds blowing through. 90% of Duke Energy customers in the Greater Cincinnati area were without power this morning. It was something like 700,000 people. Not Houston numbers but this area has never had anything like that happen to that level. No trees hit my house but a big one crashed into my aunt and uncle's, who live not too far away from me. Apparently there is a lot of damage to their roof and big trees are lying in their front yard. I watched the upper-half of a tree just snap off when I was at my parents' house yesterday afternoon. I'm glad nobody I know got hurt or anything. Sunday afternoon was just nuts.

[duke776]

Re: Hurricane Ike

Well that was fun. I had been without power since about 2 PM Sunday afternoon. Just got back from class a little bit ago and thankfully the power was on. What blew through yesterday...I've never seen anything like that in my life. The wind gusts were incredible. The sun was shining but we had tropical depression type of winds blowing through. 90% of Duke Energy customers in the Greater Cincinnati area were without power this morning. It was something like 700,000 people. Not Houston numbers but this area has never had anything like that happen to that level. No trees hit my house but a big one crashed into my aunt and uncle's, who live not too far away from me. Apparently there is a lot of damage to their roof and big trees are lying in their front yard. I watched the upper-half of a tree just snap off when I was at my parents' house yesterday afternoon. I'm glad nobody I know got hurt or anything. Sunday afternoon was just nuts.

I heard about the number of people without power, and it's just crazy! I didn't think that many people wouldn't have power, I did hear they got it down to somewhere around 500,000 on the radio earlier but I'm very lucky that my neighorhood has power now.

[Scott]

Re: Hurricane Ike

Haven't been on in a while because of no power for 3 days, but I finally got power back around 2 pm today...Incase any of you were wondering

[coogrfan]

Re: Hurricane Ike

Day 4 and still no power. Happily the weather is cooperating. The first cold front of the year rolled thru late sunday afternoon, dropping nighttime temps into the 60's.

Workers tackling largest power disruption in state's history

By LYNN COOK and MARK BABINECK Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle



Millions of residents endured a fourth night in darkness Monday as transmission companies continued to search for key equipment problems and crews focused on repairs that would provide electricity to the most customers at once.


The electricity outage that continues to darken most of the upper Texas Gulf Coast is the largest power disruption in the state's history, said Terry Hadley, spokesman for the Public Utility Commission of Texas.


CenterPoint Energy reported 1.6 million customers, or 69 percent of its customers, still were without power as of 8 p.m. Monday.

Hadley said Entergy, which serves much of the northern and eastern sections of the areas hit, still is assessing damage. Before dawn today, Entergy said 370,752 of 395,000 Texas customers, or 94 percent, still are without power.

CenterPoint officials say crews focus on the repairs that restore power to the greatest number of customers in the shortest amount of time. That means repairing big feeder lines — the backbone of the distribution system — that can affect 1,000 customers or more.


The line fuses, which connect 100 or more customers, are next in line for attention. Transformers, which affect about 10 customers, are next, followed by line drops to individual homes.

[realtalktruth]

Re: Hurricane Ike

me, i could stand no power easily, until i actually tried to go to sleep. i might have gotten 8 hours of sleep combined of the 4 days i was without power.

[madscientist]

Re: Hurricane Ike

just to throw in my $.02...

i live in florida, just north of tampa...moved down here with my wife and kids from columbus, oh 5 years ago this fall. let me just say this: the media entirely hypes this stuff up beyond belief. it is NOT nearly as bad as they make it out to be, using superlatives that go beyond the truth.

we have only had 1 day here where the wind was a bit above normal, and it was the storm that wrapped around florida, but it wasn't bad at all. just wanted you guys to hear from someone in the middle of all of this that it's not as bad as they say it is.

this is not to say that it's nothing to worry about, but i don't like what the national news people say because it's a distortion of reality.

I respect your opinion, but I must say that until you've lived in southeastern LA you cannot truly understand how devastating a hurricane can be. I lived in Myrtle Beach when Hugo hit, and I thought it was bad. We have been living here in Terrebonne Parish since 1999, and we have seen a good bit of these strong storms blow through (Katrina, Rita, Gustave, Ike, Isadore, Kyle etc.), and nothing can compare to the devastation to the swamplands when these storms come into the Gulf. Islands disappear and homes flood when major storms get within a few hundred miles of the coast. I agree that the media hypes it up, but a lot is downplayed by them as well. When Gustave hit people were more concerned about New Orleans than Houma, even though Houma is more prone to damage than New Orleans in direct strike scenarios. Houma is a major city with a population greater than 100,000 and it deserved better than the two second mentions it got from the national media.

My family evacuated to Myrtle Beach the Friday before Gustave made landfall, and we returned last Thursday only to lose power as Ike brushed by the coast. We evacuated to Hattiesburg until the power came back on Saturday afternoon. When we were crossing Lake Ponchatrain it looked more like a stormy sea than a lake as it had 5-6 foot waves with white caps. We were lucky that our house only sustained roof damage, but we lost all of our food in our freezers.

[23]

Re: Hurricane Ike

My heart goes out to all of you guys.. especially Houstonians and all of those who helped Katrina victims in their time of need. Hopefully you guys are repaid with the kindness that you shelled out

[jmood88]

Re: Hurricane Ike

I finally got my power back but because one of the connections to the meter was burned I only have partial power so I have no internet, tv, air conditioning, or pretty much anything useful.

[sportsdude]

Re: Hurricane Ike

I live in Columbus and the remnants of Ike were pretty bad here, I can only imagine how bad the actual storm was. My power went out at halftime of the 49ers-Seahawks game on Sunday and still hasn't come back on. It might come on Thursday morning at the earliest, according to American Electric Power. I have coworkers that were told they won't get power back until Monday morning.

Of all the things I miss with no electricity I would say air is the biggest. It's near impossible for me to fall asleep in dead silence, sweating my balls off.

To make things worse, our family dog that we've had since I was 8 is going to be put down today. He would've been 18 in March.

[BrianFifaFan]

Re: Hurricane Ike

I respect your opinion, but I must say that until you've lived in southeastern LA you cannot truly understand how devastating a hurricane can be. I lived in Myrtle Beach when Hugo hit, and I thought it was bad. We have been living here in Terrebonne Parish since 1999, and we have seen a good bit of these strong storms blow through (Katrina, Rita, Gustave, Ike, Isadore, Kyle etc.), and nothing can compare to the devastation to the swamplands when these storms come into the Gulf. Islands disappear and homes flood when major storms get within a few hundred miles of the coast. I agree that the media hypes it up, but a lot is downplayed by them as well. When Gustave hit people were more concerned about New Orleans than Houma, even though Houma is more prone to damage than New Orleans in direct strike scenarios. Houma is a major city with a population greater than 100,000 and it deserved better than the two second mentions it got from the national media.

My family evacuated to Myrtle Beach the Friday before Gustave made landfall, and we returned last Thursday only to lose power as Ike brushed by the coast. We evacuated to Hattiesburg until the power came back on Saturday afternoon. When we were crossing Lake Ponchatrain it looked more like a stormy sea than a lake as it had 5-6 foot waves with white caps. We were lucky that our house only sustained roof damage, but we lost all of our food in our freezers.

I think it's an awakening for a lot of people in the midwest how even the remnants of Ike left such destruction. I was at a picnic on Sunday as the winds started to climb and I was trying to tell them what it would be like. They were kind of nonchalant until the winds were 45mph sustained and then just wouldn't stop, not even mentioning the 75 mph gusts. I'm very familiar as I lived in the Phillippines as a kid. We had at least one typhoon roll through every year during our four years there. It was weird to see my friends here go from rapt fascination to getting under shelter to getting downright fearful. A hurricane/typhoon is something that you can't even begin to fathom until you are in it. Still, I find myself amazed that Ike retained so much force in Ohio, so far from water. I think there will be a new understanding and sympathy for those who experience such a devastating force of nature. That's why I always pray for those in the path and hope nobody is foolish enough to try and ride it out.....

[coogrfan]

Re: Hurricane Ike

Day five, and power is ...restored! Thank you, Centerpoint Energy!!!