Categorical Aperitif

Good news from WunderBlog:

Galveston is not destroyed
Although Ike caused heavy damage by flooding Galveston with a 12-foot storm surge, the city escaped destruction thanks to its 15.6-foot sea wall (the wall was built 17 feet high, but has since subsided about 2 feet). The surge was able to flow into Galveston Bay and flood the city from behind, but the wall prevented a head-on battering by the surge from the ocean side. Galveston was fortunate that Ike hit the city head-on, rather than just to the south. Ike's highest storm surge occurred about 50 miles to the northeast of Galveston, over a lightly-populated stretch of coast. Galveston was also lucky that Ike did not have another 12-24 hours over water. In the 12 hours prior to landfall, Ike's central pressure dropped 6 mb, and the storm began to rapidly organize and form a new eyewall. If Ike had had another 12-24 hours to complete this process, it would have been a Category 4 hurricane with 135-145 mph winds that likely would have destroyed Galveston. The GFDL model was consistently advertising this possibility, and it wasn't far off the mark. It was not clear to me until late last night that Ike would not destroy Galveston and kill thousands of people. Other hurricane scientists I conversed with yesterday were of the same opinion.

I've been checking out the news at the Houston Chronicle, and, while I guess it'll be a while before we get a full picture of what Ike hath wrought, so far, what catches my eye is that he seems to have knocked out over 99 percent of electricity service in southeast Texas. Wow. That means millions of people without power. For weeks. In September. In southeast Texas. Where it doesn't really start cooling off until, oh, around Halloween. We went through about a week without power after Frances in September of 2004, so I can definitely empathize with the folks who have come through Ike only to have a long period of unpleasantness ahead of them. I guess ya gotta remember: It could be worse.

Best wishes to all again, and I hope that the post-Ike reports include more pleasant surprises like those in Dr. Jeff Masters' missive above.