The Game is Afoot

Per the Chronicle’s Tropical Weather blog (a good source of information about Hurricane closings and openings, though I wish they would list ZIP codes when they publish a list of businesses that are open — since ZIP codes are generally geographically near their numerical neighbors, sorting by ZIP is a good way to provide such information in a way that our brains can easily use), the Harris County Criminal District (felony) courts will be open tomorrow, Wednesday, September 17, 2008, after a brief hiatus.

This agrees with the announcement on the Harris County District Courts’ webpage, but contrary to the announcement on the Harris County District Clerk’s web page that “The Criminal Justice Center at 1201 Franklin is closed until further notice.”

Also according to Tropical Weather, all bond cases scheduled to appear this week in the County Criminal (misdemeanor) Courts at Law are reset two weeks to the same day. But the Harris County Courts’ Office of Court Management webpage says that “The Harris County Criminal Courts at Law will reopen on Wednesday, September 17th and resume normal operations.”

I’ll be there bright and early tomorrow morning, but I thrive on chaos.

Hurricane Update 0840

The wind and water are still blowing, but the worst appears to be past. The neighborhood is a mess. Trees are shattered or downed. The only areas in Houston with power are downtown and the medical center (per USA Today). Lower-lying areas might still see flooding from the rains.

We’re extraordinarily lucky.

Hurricane Update 0315

1.6 million people are without power.

Brennan’s Restaurant in Houston reportedly burned down.

There have been major fires in Galveston too. No emergency services there for the people who stuck around despite the mandatory evacuation ordered two days ago.

We are very lucky.

Hurricane Ike Update - 2130h

I went to fetch Oma back here; there was hardly anyone on the road — I passed maybe three other cars on I-10. There are lots of small branches in the streets; lots of people don’t have power, probably as a result of transformers blowing when branches blow onto power lines. I guess it’s not cost-effective for the utilities to keep trees cut away from lines, and most people don’t think to do it themselves until it’s dark and the wind is blowing. I for one am sure not going to get up on a ladder with a chainsaw right now.

Hurricane Ike Update - 2015h

A nice breeze, with a few gusts. Few drops of rain. We heard a transformer blow in the neighborhood about 15 minutes ago, but we still have power. I relented and boarded up a few critical windows — Jennifer can be very persuasive.

Oma’s power (she lives a few miles northwest of here) is out already. She had vowed, in the event of an outage, to get in the car and head to Chicago, but I think she was expecting the storm to come before the power failure.

Why the power problems before the storm?

Hurricane News

It turns out that storm tides were largely responsible for the 6,000-12,000 deaths in the Galveston Storm of 1900 (the deadliest natural disaster in the United States, even now). Those tides were 8 to 15 feet.

Since then the elevation of the city has been raised, but with a storm surge up to 22 feet above sea level expected, it is foolhardy to remain on the island, as up to 40% of Galveston’s population has reportedly done.

Storm Update

Thank you to all who have expressed concern about how we’ll fare in Hurricane Ike.

Ike looks like it will come ashore somewhere on Galveston Island (50 miles to our southeast) with a huge (up to 22-foot) storm surge. Galveston has a seawall that is 17 feet high on the Gulf of Mexico side only. So Galveston is in a world of hurt. (Since I wrote that, I heard that there’s already seawater in the streets there.)

I think we’re going to be okay. We’re in the Houston Heights, about 3 miles from downtown and about 60 feet above sea level. The storm surge will not directly affect us. We’ll get a bunch of rain — maybe more than a foot. We’re high enough above sea level, and built high enough above the ground, that that won’t be enough to wash us away.

We’re also going to get some winds. See here for forecast maximum sustained winds — we’re in ZIP 77007. We boarded up for Hurricane Rita, and still have the lumber in the attic, but I’m not planning to do so again this time around. We’re stashing all of the yard litter in the garage with the cars, which are full of gas in case we want to head for somewhere that has electric power after the storm.

Meanwhile, I’m getting my news and prognostication from the National Hurricane Center and Eric Berger’s SciGuy blog, so I’m avoiding the mass media’s hysteria-inducing chatter.

I’ll try to keep you updated as things develop.

Seen in the Neighborhood

Yes, that’s plywood duct-taped to the windowframe.