So... Galveston

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 10:56 am

It... doesn't exist anymore. As of right now, the entire damned island is underwater.

Ike just totally raped the Texas coastline.

Post by **Agozer** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 11:17 am

Number of casualties?

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 11:38 am

Dunno yet.
Remember, Ike's still over the island. No one's gonna be counting bodies for a while.

According to the news, roughly 40% of Galveston's "57,523" residents refused to evacuate.

Lot of them changed their minds later, but it's not clear how many of them were left when the emergency crews were forced to leave and the bridge washed out, trapping them.

You can guess what happens when 20,000 people are on an island and the ocean swallows it whole.

There's a good chance Galveston just break it's own record*.

*The 1900 Galveston hurricane holds the record for deadliest natural disaster to hit the US, at an estimated 8000 deaths. Katrina, for comparison, has roughly 1800 to it's name.

I.S.T. · Post by **I.S.T.** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 12:36 pm

Holy fuck.

Post by **Agozer** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 4:26 pm

Gil_Hamilton wrote:There's a good chance Galveston just break it's own record*.

*The 1900 Galveston hurricane holds the record for deadliest natural disaster to hit the US, at an estimated 8000 deaths. Katrina, for comparison, has roughly 1800 to it's name.

I remember reading about this on Wikipedia some time ago. The residents refused to evacuate despite the island having a history like that? What the fuck is wrong with people?

Deathlike2 · Post by **Deathlike2** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 4:31 pm

Did everyone think that Hurricane Katrina was just a fairy tale and everyone was so damn lucky all the time? Seriously, it's not good to wait until the last moment to see if reality was going to set in. We have the technology to project storms now, unlike the past where it was more of "the animals are the first to know" kind of deal.

I'm not saying we should freak out at the end of the world scenario, but there are realistic scenarios that one faces with hurricanes. Noone's going to really expect a huge tidal wave that's generated from an earthquake, but this was all mentioned in advance. It's hard to feel sorry for something you are told about prior. I don't like the idea that "you've dug your own grave".. not the way stuff should ever happen, but it does. People should consider doing whatever it takes to minimalize damage and casualities... you can't take life-threatening events that lightly.

Rashidi · Post by **Rashidi** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 4:49 pm

yeah, they should put a really big banner:

Remember people, Storms do eats islands!

Post by **badinsults** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 4:56 pm

The pictures remind me of Grand Forks after the 1997 Red River flood. Grand Forks was basically abandoned, though. After the flood, the population of the city decreased by something like 30%. That was a crazy flood, from space it look like a lake. I guess the people of Galveston aren't as smart as the people of Grand Forks.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 8:30 pm

Good news is that the storm surge wasn't as high as they expected(12-15 feet instead of 20+). The surge failed to top the seawall(though waves breaking against the seawall DID top the seawall), and part of Galveston escaped submersion. There's a good chance of survivors now.

And when they chose not to evacuate, the storm was supposed to miss Galveston.
They've weathered a lot of near-misses. Had Ike not changed direction, they would've been okay.

Of course, once Ike changed direction it was getting late to evacuate. Flooding was already starting(Ike was fucking HUGE), and the bridge washed out not long afterwards.

And Texas is mobilizing the emergency crews now. According to the governor, it's the largest search-and-rescue operation in the state's history.

Johan_H · Post by **Johan_H** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 11:26 pm

Horrible

Guess I should be glad I live on a spot of the globe free from major natural disasters.

Post by **grinvader** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 11:31 am

Agozer wrote:What the fuck is wrong with people?

How the hell would they score a new record if they flee ?

It's all about making bigger grow numbers. ^^

P.S.: also sounds way too close to Galvatron

Post by **Agozer** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 12:18 pm

grinvader wrote:
Agozer wrote:What the fuck is wrong with people?
How the hell would they score a new record if they flee ?

It's all about making bigger grow numbers. ^^

P.S.: also sounds way too close to Galvatron

Oh yeah. Silly me.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 8:35 pm

grinvader wrote: P.S.: also sounds way too close to Galvatron

We here in Texas welcome all large guns with open arms. Even insane ones with orange dildos for barrels.

Post by **badinsults** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 1:10 am

Ike hit Sudbury a few hours ago. It is raining pretty good here.

Rashidi · Post by **Rashidi** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 4:53 am

a bit off topic, i wish to know:

how come this storm named Ike, while previous storm named Katrina, and so on …
what convention did U.S people use to name a storm?

I.S.T. · Post by **I.S.T.** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 5:09 am

Rashidi wrote:a bit off topic, i wish to know:

how come this storm named Ike, while previous storm named Katrina, and so on …
what convention did U.S people use to name a storm?

???!

No way in hell the last tropical storm here was 3 years ago!

The storms are named alphabetically. They name them when they are either Tropical Depressions or Tropical Storms.

There are quite a bit of Tropical Depressions/Storm a year, as well.

casualsax3 · Post by **casualsax3** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 6:13 am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_t ... lone_names

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 7:02 am

Rashidi wrote:a bit off topic, i wish to know:

how come this storm named Ike, while previous storm named Katrina, and so on …
what convention did U.S people use to name a storm?

There've been a lot of storms between Katrina and Ike, too.
We don't just name the complete disasters.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/srh/jetstream/t ... _names.htm has the naming scheme, history, lists, and the retired names, sorted alphabetically.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/retirednames.shtml?text
Current list of retired names sorted by year, and a more detailed explanation of how they retire them.

I'm betting Ike will be retired next.

Post by **badinsults** » Tue Sep 16, 2008 3:24 am

Rashidi wrote:a bit off topic, i wish to know:

how come this storm named Ike, while previous storm named Katrina, and so on …
what convention did U.S people use to name a storm?

Storm names are decided before the season starts. They go in alphabetical order, and if they run out of names, they just use Greek letters.

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 7:20 pm

badinsults wrote:They go in alphabetical order, and if they run out of names, they just use Greek letters.

Which is what ended up happening in 2005 IIRC.

that being said, reminants of Ike knocked out my power the last few days.

Gil_Hamilton · Post by **Gil_Hamilton** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 9:27 pm

adventure_of_link wrote:
badinsults wrote:They go in alphabetical order, and if they run out of names, they just use Greek letters.
Which is what ended up happening in 2005 IIRC.

Yah. Only time to date that it's happened.

Post by **grinvader** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 8:18 pm

I WANNA BE LIKE IKE WOO

FitzRoy · Post by **FitzRoy** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 9:53 am

Welp, there goes the one county in the U.S. that could opt out of Social Security.