HURRICANE IKE - Saturday

well, that was fun.  

gabs and i arrived at work at 7pm last night, thankful to find all the individuals pretty calm and ready for bed.  one of the other psychologists decided to stay the night at work, so the three of us made rounds, joined a supervisor for a joy ride on a golf cart, watched balls of fury, and just generally sat around doing nothing.  the servers were closed down at 4pm, so we couldn't really get any work done, other than just conversing about various behavior plans and bemoaning our difficulty in trying to get our plans carried out with any consistency.  

so, the storm blew in, folks napped a bit, and i read several articles in the winter 2007 edition of the journal of applied behavior analysis.  yes, i'm a nerd.  

it rained, it blew, and we were very happy to leave at 7am this morning and come home for some much-deserved sleep.  gabs' mom has been cooking all weekend, which today included some pasta, salad, fruit, and gumbo.  we lost power around 6am (the state school has generators for all the buildings), and then our power at home went out as we turned the corner onto our street.  it came back on about 4 hours later, and our cable finally came back on around 7pm tonight.  

since then, we've been busy looking for news about the marina where gab's mom & stepdad live on their boat.  i happened upon this blog that gave info and a picture of their marina, which calmed our fears.  

now we're headed to bed.  you know you've been watching too much weather coverage when you say things like "hey, that storm looks like a kitty cat."  yikes.

HURRICANE IKE - Friday

ahoy!  still nothing really going on here in brenham - it's overcast with only brief moments of sunshine.  the wind has definitely picked up, though it's still in the 10-15 mph range.  gab and i slept in this morning and just took a 2 hour nap, as we try to load up on sleep before pulling a 12-hour shift tonight.  buddy (her mom's cat) is holed up underneath our bed.  

down at the coast, now, things are a different story.  all the houston news stations are showing hurricane coverage 24/7, so naturally all their reporters have donned brightly-colored wind breakers and ill-fitting hats for broadcasting from the various mandatory-evacuation sites.  haven't seen any of them blow over yet, though i just heard that one lady had to move because she got hit in the head with an airborne 2x4.  niiice.

seriously though, it appears that ike has an unusually large storm surge, which basically means that the water level at the coast (and espeically in the bay) has been steadily rising since last night.  in fact, it's already close to the top of the galveston sea wall, which, is around 15 to 18 feet above sea level.  and the storm's still 150 miles away.  i'm willing to bet that most - and possibly all - of galveston island will be under water by tomorrow morning.

here's a pic for you visual learners:

HURRICANE IKE - Thursday

okay, so it looks like i'm going to have to put the god talk on hold, as we have a hurricane headed our way. some info from today:

• it's still really hot and mostly sunny, and the wind has been picking up throughout the day. it's still a pretty light breeze, but getting more steady every hour.


• richmond state school evacuated here, so we're trying to cram 900 people into a 400 person facility. plus staff, who have to bunk in our gym and training buildings. we've got folks in hallways, offices, classrooms, etc.


• since we have all these extra people, all of our staff have to work 12-hour shifts. gab & i are on 'til 7pm tonight, then will be back friday and saturday nights from 7pm to 7am.


• we went to walmart at lunchtime today...that was a hoot. mind you, walmart is on the corner of hwy 36 & hwy 290, and both of those roads are primary evacuation routes. lots and lots of 5th wheel travel trailers. people at walmart were buying all kinds of stuff...mainly lots of bread, water and booze. and candy. sugar up the kids, self-medicate the parents.


• on a related note, this was overheard at the "stop-n-bye" convenience store: "if i'm going to be stuck in the house with my wife and kids all weekend, i'm gonna need 2 cases of beer."


• gab's mom & step-dad are evacuating to our place. they live on a sailboat near kemah, tx, which isn't exactly where you want to stay and ride out a hurricane with a larger-than-usual storm surge and wind pattern.

and so that i can compare myself, here's the most recent predicted path:

here is a link to the National Weather Service webpage (aka NOAA...aka my "weather nerd webpage") for the houston area. to save you the time, here's the link to the info on ike, and for bathroom reading, the actual discussion of what's going on. no promises on those exact links being updated.

stay dry!