Ike

[muldoon]

This looks like a pretty serious storm, coming in Saturday morning.  My employer has shutdown the office for Thursday & Friday so I have a few days to get things battened down.  They say its coming in around Victoria, some models show it a little more east but all of them show the dirty side of the storm hitting Houston.  I'll get some pictures of the befores and afters if I can.  Looks like a doozy coming. 

[desdawg]

I will just throw in my best wishes that you weather the storm OK Muldoon.

[glenn kangiser]

G/L muldoon

[StinkerBell]

Do you have time to build an Ark?
If not, good luck!

[muldoon]

Thanks for the well wishes.

No time for an ark, but I do know how to swim.   

The stores are madhouses tonight, lines at the gas stations.  The media has everyone whipped up into a frenzy.  I know it will only get worse in the coming days.  I'm going to try to keep a real low profile for the next few days.  Might have some projects to work on over the long weekend.  We'll be fine. 

[StinkerBell]

Knit me a sweater muldoon.

[John_C]

Wishing you the best.  I witnessed the Andrew experience "up close & personal".

My advice is if it looks like you are going to get tagged by a cat 3 or higher evacuate if at all possible.  My then sister-in-law and three of her kids spent several hours huddled in bath tubs with mattresses pulled over themselves while the house basically came apart around them.  Had Andrew been moving just a bit slower it's unlikely they would have made it. They were 2 miles from where Andrew came ashore. We had offered to take them with us or caravan with them, but she thought she needed to stay at home in case the house "needed anything" during the storm.  Once the poop really hits the fan there isn't anything you can do.

Again... good luck.

[muldoon]

stinker,  my 7 year old daughter just started learning crochet.  I'll put her right on it.  I cant do any needlework, but I can do the rug hook tapestry thing.  However, I'm afraid you would not like the 70's style shag carpet sweater I could make you. 

john c, I appreciate the concern.  I really do.  Were about 100 miles inland, well out of the way of storm surge and hopefully out of the way of the worst of the structurally dangerous winds.  Everyone around here is a little on edge myself included.  The last hurricane I saw was Alicia - (category 3) in 1983, I was young then but I still remember it as being bad.   Me and my sister spent the evening in a tub with a mattress over us, funny you said that it brought back some memories.  The "mainstream news" media are making this storm out to be a repeat of Carla from 1961.  Same size, strength and landing location.   

I agree these storms aren't jokes and I'm not going reckless cowboy yeehaw into it.  But I dont want to outright panic either. 

I am about as prepared as I can be in terms of stuff and mentality (I think).  I have food water medicine ability to cook and purify water and such.  I can get by for 2 or 3 days without electricity without too much trouble.  After that I have family and good friends I could lean on if needed.  I'm just going to keep a low profile and take care of my family and self and help any anyone that comes into my path that I can.  I think we'll be ok but I'll certainly be praying on this end, Thanks again. 

[John Raabe]

Best wishes with this nasty ex-president.

He seems so nice in the history books. (Bet you don't see many "I Like Ike" buttons these days  )

Here's an excellent storm tracer you've probably already got bookmarked: http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/hurricanetracker07/trackerindex.html?SITE=AP

I see there is also a serious typhoon "Sinlaku" headed towards taipei w/ 150 mph winds. Interesting season!!

[deedonke2]

good luck to you and family Muldoon,looks like a real one.I had to run from gaustave living in south louisana,the lafayette aerea.is like an alley way it feels,but our thought and prayers are with you and yours.

[glenn kangiser]

Weather modification.

Everyone please remember if in the country and you need this sort of thing, a storm shelter like my underground complex but small could be built for about $50 and up. .

It would of course have to be done before the threat appears.

You wouldn't have to evacuate if not below water level.

[Sassy]

I'll say some prayers for you & be thinking of you - what Glenn said...   

[muldoon]

I ran errands today to get the last things in place, people are noticeably panicked.  Driving is insane, people honking everywhere, swerving across lanes, speeding through parking lots.  There was a loud argument at the liquor store tonight, someone yelling at someone for "cutting" in line, then when he apologized and said he didn't realize where the line was starting she yelled at him not to talk to her.  Tense is everywhere.  No gas at the chevron near the house, lines 6 or 7 deep at the other gas stations.  Every grocery store parking lot is packed and has been since 8am.   Thank god I didn't need to go into either one of those.  The freeways are nice and jammed up as expected.  Trapped animals behave badly when scared. 

Storm is expected to come in between Freeport and Galveston, pretty much worst possible case with the storm surge from the north east quadrant of the storm going directly into the Houston ship channel - which is where our flood controlling bayous empty out.  The story on the news is to expect some serious flooding along with the 90 mph winds.  The news is notoriously bad at being over dramatic tho, so who knows. 

I did meet some nice people today at the Walgreens (wifes prescriptions) and Radio Shack (transistor battery weather radio), very calm and friendly people.  So I cant give up on humanity yet .. but there is a percentage that are absolutely freaking out.  Something else I noticed, oddly enough there seems to be alot more litter and trash on the sides of the roads. 

[peternap]

Prayers with you muldoon. I expect you'll get rain...but you never know. When Isabel hit it was interesting.
My wife and I are storm spotters for NOAA. We live about 100 miles inland but drove to the beach to see the storm. It's nice to be able to park with the weather channel and Fox News

We followed it inland and it was still packing 80 mph winds when it got to OUR HOUSE. It was a long night. We had a generator and propane as did our neighbor, so we lived like nothing happened for the week it took to get power back on.

The day after the storm, we retraced the route. It looked like a sci fi movie after the atomic war.

Talk about tense. There was no power, no food, no drinking water but in Yorktown, one place was open. They had pre cooked scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage and made coffee on the gas grill. That was the only place open for 50 miles. A jewish couple came in and looked bad. The husband had a fit and nearly started a fight when he found there was NO KOSHER FOOD. They didn't eat either.

[considerations]

Its hard to get good accurate information about much else besides Houston and Galveston.  My son and his family are near Willis and Conroe. Do you have any web sources that are that specific?

[sparks]

Looks like Ike could be nasty

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCPAT4+shtml/120241.shtml

Considerations, try typing in a town name or zip code at this site

[muldoon]

Its hard to get good accurate information about much else besides Houston and Galveston.  My son and his family are near Willis and Conroe. Do you have any web sources that are that specific?

My grandmother lives in Conroe as well, Willis is another 10 miles north of Conroe.  Its well north of Houston, about 120 miles from the coast.  The only news source that would be specific is the courier, which is conroes newspaper.
http://www.hcnonline.com/conroe_courier/front/

If I get any specific news and have the ability to post I'll keep you updated. 

[glenn kangiser]

Got weather on your Blackberry, muldoon?

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[apaknad]

good luck muldoon, my prayers are with you. the situational panick is exactly why we should be over prepared for emergencies except for the little incidentals that always seem to come up at the last minute.
now imagine what it would be like if the whole country experienced some sort of super emergency- it would not be hard to believe that roving bands of thugs in dire need of supplies would come to take anything they could get their hands on, and you better not get in their way. prepare now, relax later. 
i only hope the thugs would go to glen's place first. that would weed out alot of them. not to mention the ability to bury the evidence with all those toys.

[glenn kangiser]

There are plenty of pre-dug holes around here if you know where they are, but -- yeah --- I'm into fertilizer also.

[John_C]

After Hurricane Andrew there was widespread looting on Miami Beach.  The National Guard was first on scene but the looters quickly found out that while the Guardsmen had weapons, they had not been issued ammo    . A few shots in their direction and they retreated.

Next up the 10th Mountain Division (I think that's the unit) who promptly returned fire thus ending the looting. 

QED

[ScottA]

I was in Dallas when Rita hit a few years back. The evacuation was worse than the huricane. G/L muldoon.

[StinkerBell]

After Hurricane Andrew there was widespread looting on Miami Beach.  The National Guard was first on scene but the looters quickly found out that while the Guardsmen had weapons, they had not been issued ammo    . A few shots in their direction and they retreated.

Next up the 10th Mountain Division (I think that's the unit) who promptly returned fire thus ending the looting. 

QED

Not wanting to derail the topic, but I believe our "Border Patrol Agents" are issued guns, but are not allowed to use them.

[muldoon]

all boarded up.  what a chore.  At least they are all cut so if I never need to do this again it wont be so bad.  Also got the garden put up too, nice thing about containers is they can be dolly'd into the garage easy. 

Were all pretty much done now, storms sposed to be here soon but the eye wont make landfall for some 11 more hours.  This thing is huge.  For that we printed up the weather forecast for the weekend and posted it outside. 

[desdawg]

Good for you Muldoon, Glad to hear you finished your preparations. I have been watching the force of the wind and water on TV and I can honestly say I am happy to not be in it's path. I hope you and yours come out the otherside unscathed.