Extremely heavy winds, I've never seen green lightning before

I would definitely say the first part of the storm is here. I have all of the windows boarded up and I can still hear the 'train' outside. I was out a few minutes ago and the trees are really bending to the winds. I would estimate somewhere in the 40+ mph range. There was also some light rain. The air smells like the gulf of Mexico.

The kids and my mom are sleeping soundly. Jules and I are getting power naps throughout the night. The rough stuff is supposed to happen around 2:00ish. I'll do my best with pics.

I'm planning on watching the sunrise.

More updates soon!

Dark now, Winds are getting heavy

Here are some pics from the first storm bands:






Avery and Aidan playing in the wind:






Things are starting to heat up. The winds are gusting to 40 MPH and it sounds like a freight train! We still have power but I spoke to Jeff (a good friend of mine down the street) and his power was flickering earlier. They eye is not even supposed to be here until 2:00 am!

No real rain yet but the conditions to the south of us are bad. All of the coastal towns have some significant flooding.

No damage yet but the roof to our storage shed tried to fly away. Aidan and I drove in some deck screws and all is well :)

I'll keep the blog updated throughout the night. Call us if you need us :)

Winds Picking Up

Weather report: Its really windy. I would say sustained winds of 15 with gusts of 20-25 MPH. We got a little light rain earlier. Its been so dry here that Jules thought she heard the yard give a sigh of relief. Oh and its freakin hot!!! Other than that, nothing remarkable to report.

I finished putting up our plywood shutters about an hour ago. All I can say is, this better be one hell of a storm or I wasted a lot of effort! I'm definitely investing in some better hardware for the plywood shutters. It should only take about an hour to put up shutters. Took me four!

Aidan and I just did a quick bike ride around the neighborhood. I would estimate that 1/4 of the people in Jersey Village have evacuated.

My mom decided to ride out the storm with us and she arrived a little while ago. She is a reservationist at Continental and she said the phones were insane this morning. Consequently, she is asleep upstairs :)

First Signs of Ike

I was working just now to secure everything in the backyard. I think I have everything tucked away in the garage.



Its starting to cloud up a little bit. The sustained winds are still pretty low but the gusts are pretty impressive.

We went for a bike ride this morning to see what people were doing around the neighborhood:



The kids look terrified.

A lot of people have put up plywood.

This is a house on the small lake in our neighborhood.

The Coast Guard has already had to perform some high water rescues for people that stayed. The storm surge is over the seawall in Galveston. I would imagine that the whole city will be underwater. Makes me really sad. I love that town.


Julie said that the wind forecast for our neighborhood is 85 MPH. That will be the highest the winds have been here in 70 years.

I'll keep posting as long as the cable (our internet connection) holds out. I can run the modem and router off of a car battery if the power goes out. I predict that our power will be out by 8:00 this evening.

Its actually gotten a bit darker since I started writing this post. I guess the cloud cover is thickening.

I'm going out now to put up our plywood shutters. Our cell phones are on and charged if you need to get a hold of us. Also feel free to leave comments or questions (click on comments below).

Should be an interesting evening.

Quick Update

Good morning all,





Looks like they're forecasting 76 MPH winds for us this evening. We'll clear out the backyard and Julie will probably make me put up some plywood (Aidan and I built some storm shutters last year). I can hear our neighbors putting up wood now.





Its actually kind of nice out right now. We're going for a bike ride. I'll grab some pics of the preparations that people are making around the neighborhood.

For all those that might be worried, this neighborhood did really well against a direct hit by Hurricane Alicia back in '83. Ike looks a lot like Alicia. With wood over the windows, I'm not worried about safety at all. Its the power outages that I'm dreading. More throughout the day and night :)

Hide from the wind

From Jules: Go to http://www.houstonhidefromthewind.org/This web site shows the projected wind speed by zip codes; it is updated with every NHC update. It gives a little perspective on the expected damage they keep talking about on the news, especially since Houston is so large. We are in Zip Code 77040.

Getting Ready for Ike

Looks like this one may be the first storm to hit us since Ailicia in 1983. I knew we were in trouble when I saw Jim Cantore (from the Weather Channel) standing on the seawall in Galveston. Jimmy doesn't show up unless they are pretty sure your town is going to get it :)

First of all, here are our plans. We're definitely staying here at the house. If it looks like more than a cat 2, I'll put our plywood shutters up over the windows. We put the travel trailer in the driveway (blocked from the wind by the house). If we lose power after the storm, we'll just run the generator and move into the trailer for a couple of days. We've got plenty of food, water and supplies to get us through a week or so.

We spoke to Michael and Becky (They live in Orange -East Texas). Orange County issued a mandatory evacuation. Becky has to work at the hospital until tomorrow afternoon, so they are planning to stay until then. If the storm turns north and threatens the TX/LA border, they may come east to our place. The west side of these storms is always the safest.

Jules and I have both of our cell phones charged if you need to get a hold of us.

For those that don't live on the gulf coast, Its kind of hard to explain the way we look at these things. Its unique because, unlike other types of natural disasters, you can see these things coming from a long way away. The problem is, you really can't. We get these kind of threats about 3 times per year. Yet, we haven't had a significant storm since 1983. It creates a sense of exhausted complacency. Who wants to put in two days of prep work for a storm that hits to the east? There is also the threat of lost wages and money wasted on unneccesary supplies.

Thus, the freeways are starting to back up now, only 36 hours before landfall. If we tried to evacuate every time there was a storm in the gulf, we would be broke!

The best thing to do is to set up certain activities based on the level of threat. Jules and I have a list of things to do at each point in storm's development. We also try to do a bunch of prep work at the beginning of the season. That way, we don't even have to pay attention unitl the storm is almost here. Problem is that there is always something you forget. Jules and I both had to make last minute trips to the store this morning :). The stores were packed, but you can bet that they will be much worse tonight and tomorrow morning.

As the storm comes in, I'll be taking pictures and posting them here. I'll also be updating as long as our internet connection holds out.

The real question is, who wants to go surfing with me and Aidan when the storm passes :)

Ike still forecasted to hit well to our south...

As of this morning, most forecasters have Ike coming in somewhere between Corpus Christi and Houston.














The reality is that we are 3 days out and no one really knows anything. Whenever there is a storm in the Gulf, I just kind of assume that it might head our way. Usually just means keeping the gas tanks full, checking the generator and stocking up on groceries (before every one else does).



It seems that at 24 hours out, they can usually pick a spot within 50 miles of where the storm will hit. Of course this really doesn't give you much time to evacuate. I would imagine that the coastal cities around here will post evacuations orders (if necessary) this evening or early tomorrow. I would hope the City of Houston would only issue orders 24 hours after the coastal evacuations had been issued. The safest direction for the coastal folks is north....right through Houston. This is another reason to stock up before the storm as a lot of those people wouldn't get much warning and may not have had time to pack accordingly. During Rita, gas and bottled water were really scarce around here!





I just heard from a friend of mine at work that Brazoria county (to our southwest) has issued evac orders for people with special needs. Since my friend has a newborn (1 week), they are headed to see family in Northern Louisiana. Probably a good move.



In the graphic above, forecasters refer to the yellow shading as the "cone of uncertainty". Some of the guys I trust the most are saying that the storm could come farther north as a category 3. This probably means that we would get winds somewhere between 70-100 MPH. The worst winds recorded in Houston were during the Great Storm of 1900. The main killer from that storm was the tides though.

70 MPH winds are bad but I think our house would hold up pretty well. Anything above the 120 MPH mark and I might be a bit concerned. Still I would have a hard time believeing that we would get anything above 100 this far inland.

I'll post more as the storm gets closer.

Hurricane Ike may threaten upper Gulf Coast

Good Monday morning,

I thought I'd start up the severe weather blog again considering Hurricane Ike's possible path towards the Gulf Coast. Here is one of the 5-day outlooks (Weather Underground).




Many of the folks that live on the coast are talking about evacuating sometime Thursday if the storm continues as expected. Our part of town sits pretty high, so we aren't worried about storm surge.

Our standing plan doesn't have us evacuating unless the storm is predicted to directly hit us as a significant Cat 4. Even then, I doubt that we would leave. The golden rule of the Gulf Coast storms is run from the water, hide from the wind. We're too high to worry about water and our house is pretty sturdy. Makes a good hiding place :) Plus we have a generator and supplies to deal with loss of utilities after the storm. I'd be more afraid of the trying to evacuate into gridlocked traffic with our two kids than spending a loud, windy night in the house.

If things look bad, we'll throw some plywood on the windows and pull everything into the garage.

I'll post updates here if it continues to head our way.

--aaron