Hurricane Ike

[One Country Boy]

Ike has a good head of steam. This may be one to watch. He's still a bit far out. The shallow waters are very warm. Sure don't like to see these storms get up into the Gulf. Once in the Gulf they seem to become more unpredictable.

[One Country Boy]

The following illustration from: Intellicast.Com

[Radio]

Ike Sure don't like to see these storms get up into the Gulf. Once in the Gulf they seem to become more unpredictable.

Once they get into the gulf, there's no way out. Somebody is going to get clobbered! That part is predictable. :crutch:

[One Country Boy]

I'm sure there are others on ORR that are in the northeast, but Andy is the ONLY one I know of. I wonder how much wind and rain he and others have received from Hanna ? :rain: She's moving through there rapidly but appears to be dumping a lot of rain.

[Andy N1ORK]

They're estimating 5 to 10" ending about 02:00 local. The 'EYE' is just to RI right now and the rain is really coming down. The winds are only about 30mph. Flood warnings and watches are up for coastal CT and low lying river and stream areas. Not too bad here, good luck with IKE.
73

[TXiceman]

We are watching Ike with a lot of interest. We are about 25 miles NW of Houston. We should be far enough inland to avoid major problems unless Houston takes a direct hit from a III or greater storm. Our problem is that we had 28 varying size pines and a few oaks close enough to fall on the house. We are elevated enough that water should not be a problem...but I do worry about the trees. In any case we will probably hitch up the trailer, close up the place and move father inland. By getting the trailer out of the area, we might be saving us a place to live in.

Of course, I'll have to drop the dipole and lay the vertical down as well. Load up the generator and the fuel cans and take them with us.

Have you found http://www.stormpulse.com/hurricane-ike-2008

ken

[One Country Boy]

They're estimating 5 to 10" ending about 02:00 local. The 'EYE' is just to RI right now and the rain is really coming down. The winds are only about 30mph. Flood warnings and watches are up for coastal CT and low lying river and stream areas. Not too bad here, good luck with IKE.
73

Thanks Andy,

Looks like they are forcasting Ike to move more in Ken's (TXIceman) direction now. But, it's still a long way out to call.

You received more rain and higher winds than we did from Hanna Andy. Glad you survived it without incident. It's that time of year for us in the south.

We (the XYL and I) are talking about next summers trip to escape the heat and humidity of Florida. Plans are to leave in July and return in mid to late October. Our biggest concern is leaving during hurricane season and not being able to look after things here. I guess when we leave we will have everything hurricane preped as much as possible.

Ken, I had seen that link you put up. That's a nice site, especially for this active season. Keep an eye on Ike, looks like they keep moving him in your direction. I've got relative near you in Pasadena so we keep an eye on the Houston area as well.

[TXiceman]

Not that we'd wish Ike on anyone else, but we sure don't need him on the upper Texas coast. Any takers on Ike...no charge, and absolutely free with no strings attached.

Ken

[w5olm]

Ken
Sure don't wish Ike on you, but we are concerned about a slight turn north. Don't need to deal with another one right now. Gustav sent us to north La, which actually put us more into the path than if we had stayed home. We live about 45 miles straight north of Lake Charles, La. Not a lot of damage at our house, and no loss of electricity, so we lucked out on that one.
leeman W5OLM

[One Country Boy]

Hi Leeman,

I don't think we've met. Nice to meet you. I don't wish Ike on anyone either, be we don't want him. This has been an active season so far. One of the computer models shows him coming in over the St. Joseph Peninsula in the Florida panhandle, that's the one close to me. That is only one model out of a lot of others. Maybe it won't happen.

I just this morning received an e-mail from an old high school friend in Montgomery, AL. Their church put up about 100 evacuees from Gustav. He said the last ones had just left. Hate to see those folks get back home and have to evacuate again. The biggest fear is, since Gustav was not as bad as thought, many of the people will not evacuate again. Especially the New Orleans area.

The call, W5OLM seems familiar. Do I hear you checking into any nets on 75 meters Leeman ?

BTW, anyone heard from Ken, W7WV ? He was very active on here from AZ. Their house was about to close and they were going "full timing". Have not seen him on ORR or another forum I glance at occassionally. Yep, I'm a two-timing sun-of-a-gun. Hi Hi... Anyway, wondered what happened to him, nice guy.

I better get busy and put up the latest on Ike. Wade will dock my pay. Hi..

Everyone have a great day.

[One Country Boy]

NHC keeps moving the center of the probablilty cone further south, but all along the Gulf Coast are not out of the woods yet. I would like to for get, this is not an exact science.

[One Country Boy]

It's amazing how one of these storms can be so far away and some effect still be noticed. We're 400+ miles, almost due north, of Hurricane Ike at the moment. Sunny outside, a few clouds in the sky and 77 degrees here. Humidity low for this time of year, much lower than yesterday. We have a constant light breeze out of the northeast. I'm no meteorologist but I suspect the breeze is caused by Ike and the dryer cooler temperature is being drawn down from the north. Wish he would hang around there a day or two and keep this old country boy a little cooler a few days. But if he stops, he will most likely only get stronger, so we sure don't need that.

Looks as though Texas is going to get some good winds from Ike and a soaking as well. You guys out there "grab a root and hang on".

[TXiceman]

Well Ike seems to be taking aim on the freeport, texas area which will put Houston in the path and on the dirty side of the storm. We are about 70 miles or so inland, but most likely get Cat 1 winds with the eye passing close to us. We are located 25 miles NW of downtown Houston.

Guess we'll have to make the decision on staying or moving more inland. We have 28 trees around the house that could potentially fal on the house, garage, shop or RV and most are pines...80' plus tall. I don't want to have them falling on the vintage trailer, so we may well bail out anyway.

Have to take the antennas down in any case.

Ken

[One Country Boy]

It's good to see ORR up and running this morning. I started thinking the server or routings might be disturbed because of the storm.

Ike sure smacked the heck out of Texas and Louisianna again. I wonder what Ken (TXiceman) finally decided to do regarding evacuation. Seems as though there are other ORR members in that area but I'm not as familiar witrh them.

Gasoline is sold out in our area and prices are sky rocketing. Prior to the storms landfall yesterday a location in Tallahassee was selling the low grade stuff for $5.499 a gallon. I've heard reports of $6 and $7 in other areas.

The surge is always the dangerous thing in hurricanes and looks like this one had a tremendous one.

[TXiceman]

We bailed out Thursday afternoon and headed up to Bastrop ,Texas, about 30 miles SE of Austin. We came home Sunday morning to no power, limited cell service and lots of damage, but we did OK. I pulled my antennas down before we left so I have the dipole back up for now. Got home in time to get the generator running on the frig and freezer and save nearly everything. The freezer was packed full and we lost a few things in the door that we questionable.

The trailer served as a good base under it's carport and the 6500 watt generator powered it and the frig and freezer. We brought back extra gasoline and 24 gallons of bottled water as a precaution.

We had one tree with the top broken out and lots of small debris. The in-laws next door had a tree on the garage, but no damage to the roof.

We have been hauling tree limbs and debris since Sunday afternoon. We got the power back late Monday and phone service and DSL Tuesday morning. At the time, 76% of the Houston area was without power.

The damage was much worst 20 miles to the east of us. We were on the "dry side" of the storm, but got more rain than the wet side. from the TV coverage, I'm sure you have seen the devastation in Galveston area.

I am not able to go back to work yet as the down town office buildings were severely damaged due to broken windows. They had the downtown area closed off completely for several days for clean up. Maybe I can get back to work on Thursday.

Ike was 1 mph short of a cat 3 when it made landfall and had the storm surge of a cat 4 storm and it had hurricane force winds out some 150 miles. It went over Huntsville (north of Houston) with Cat 1 winds.

We are among the lucky ones to have power, but food, fuel, ice, and water are a major problem for most of the area.

Ken

[One Country Boy]

Glad to hear you were able to save most of the things in your freezer and finally got power back up again. Also glad to hear you had no serious damage. My relatives live in the Pasadena area, I don't think they have power yet.

We saw those office buildings in downtown Houston with all the windows blown out. Dangerous place to be with all the falling glass.

Good to hear from you Ken.

[TXiceman]

Rather than working here to clean up all of the tree debris, I'd rather be back in my nice cushy engineering job.

Our pantry was well stocked. I have the dipole up, but need to put the vertical back up now... maybe later today.

If you folks in Pasadena, need some help, email me.

Ken

[One Country Boy]

I think they are doing fine Ken, from all reports. I appreciate the offer. Very nice of you.

[One Country Boy]

One of the local hams went out to Texas with the Florida Baptist Disaster Relief Organization and just returned. He sent this link for fellow hams to see:

http://picasaweb.google.com/brentgay/FloridaBaptistDisasterReliefIke# (http://picasaweb.google.com/brentgay/FloridaBaptistDisasterReliefIke#)

Folks just helping other folks.

[Radio]

Thanks for posting. That was truely worth seeing.

[TXiceman]

Appreciate all of the help. Do you know what area they were operating from?

We have not needed much on this end of town and they finally have better than 50% of the homes back on the power grid.

I got one antenna back up and an hope to have my other one up tomorrow.

We have spent the past week cleaning up all of the debris at out place and the in-laws.

Ken

[One Country Boy]

I'm not sure what area he was in Ken. I can e-mail and ask if you would like. His call is KF4JZY (Brent). A very good young man. I think he can be e-mailed from the QRZ site if you pull up his call.

Glad to hear you are making progress out there. Hope all is settled and you are able to go back to work before too long.

Jim

[One Country Boy]

Ken,

The group the local ham was with was in Texas City, TX. He mentioned it last night on one of the nets. He said it was a great experience.

Hope you have everything straightened out and are back at work.

[TXiceman]

They called the IT guys and a few others back in last Wednesday and about 80% of the staff on Thursday. I work for KBR (old Kellogg) and we have 2 towers down town, a facility east of town and one west of town. I work downtown. Had a few windows blown out in the towers and the sky-walks between the the building were blown out and have plywood panels and no carpet.

About 700,000 folks still with no power and are getting a bit putout. East and SE areas are the worst hit. Galveston took it full on for the storm.

We have a long way to go and appreciate all of the help we get from all over the USA.

Ken