Ike
Hurricane Ike
I Dislike Ike
Hurricane Ike hit our area on September 12th and 13th, 2008. The 50 mile-wide eye came ashore at Galveston, but this huge category 2 hurricane had a category 4 storm surge. The water started coming into my area early on the 12th and continued to rise until the eye made landfall at about 2am on the 13th. A 20-22 foot storm surge was predicted for my area so I left town. The seawall behind my house is 17 feet high. The storm surge was not as high as predicted and did not breach the wall. My city is very fortunate: the seawall here in Port Arthur saved our asses. Other cities nearby (Orange, Bridge City, Fannett, Winnie, and more) had at least eight feet of water from the storm surge. Galveston was devastated, and the Bolivar Peninsula area was totally destroyed. This area included Crystal Beach, High Island, and Gilchrist. The picture below was taken behind my house on 9/13/08 at about 1pm, winds were still 30mph with higher gusts, the water is three feet below the top of the seawall. I came back into town to check on my clinic and house (I have a first responder pass):
The Corps of Engineers says that the water did not run over the wall, only the large wind-driven waves broke over the top of the wall and caused the flooding of the streets and houses near the seawall. However, one of my neighbors stayed. He said that the water poured over constantly for about 30 minutes. I had 13 inches of water in my back yard. This water shorted out my standby generator and ruined some tools in my garage. I also had an inch of water enter my kitchen. The water carried a lot of debris from the swamps along the coast. The next pic is what washed over the wall:
This debris pile was 5-6 feet high, 25 feet in depth, and ran along the entire length of the seawall in my neighborhood. Some areas got much more than what is shown in my yard. The debris is covering my "vineyard" and the retaining wall area that I leveled for my deck - which I haven't built (thank God). It knocked out three lower windows on the green house in the background. The pile is mostly marsh grass, cane, lumber, and trash but also quite a few of these:
Agkistrodon piscivorus ssp. leucostoma, also known as the Cottonmouth or Water Moccasin. A poisonous pit viper commonly found in the swamps around here.
My house had one inch of water enter the kitchen and thirteen inches of water in the garage (I lost some tools and a mig welder). The wind blew salt spray all over the interior of the garage so I lost some stuff that was above the water line: an old stereo, B&W TV, and CD changer that I would use when I worked on my cars. I was able to move my cars 50 miles north before the storm hit. The back of the roof suffered damage and my standby generator was flooded. Overall I'm lucky. Many people lost everything to the storm surge. I stayed in Lumberton, about 50 miles north. The winds were pretty strong but not as strong as Hurricane Rita, which hit us almost exactly three years ago. I was going to stay at my house, but when the hurricane center announced a twenty foot storm surge, I left. Power was restored faster than after Rita: eight days for my house. The electric company called in help from out of state and flooded the area with work crews to restore power to about 2 million people in 12 days. Below are two pictures of the mud and water that came into the kitchen:
Updated November 2, 2008