Waiting on daylight to assess the impact of Hurricane Ike

Hurricane Ike made landfall at 2:10AM in Galveston, TX as a very strong category 2 story with winds in a large wind swath of 110mph The part that gets me is that 40% of Galveston Island decided to "ride it out". How awful... How stupid... what struck me is the worst case... staying behind to ride it out and losing a member of your family to the hurricane. How do you deal with that guilt? They were all warned. I can't imagine being warned of certain death and deciding to keep my family in harm's way. It's just not worth it. I'd better jump quickly off this soapbox.

Last night, before I went to sleep, I grabbed a snapshot of Ike just off the coast.This impressively large hurricane did not weaken at all before landfall. He, in fact, tightened up his core and barrelled through. Damage reports should be extensive, especially as Hurricane Ike, now slowing down as it passes Houston, which means dangerous flooding rain. Here is a snapshot now.Currently, millions are without power. Water rise is at almost 11ft in some places. Wind damage seems to be extensive with roofs lifted, windows blown out... Why did so many people choose to stay behind? Are they invincible? Do they think that very untrue thought that it couldn't possibly happen to them? How insane! I actually got angry with those folks as I pondered the situation of those people staying and then needing help or rescue. Because they chose to IGNORE the warnings, they put other people's lives in danger by needing rescue. Infuriating. It would serve them right for 911 to have an answering machine message that says something along the lines of "Hey stupid, we told you to leave. Since you ignored us, we've decided to ignore you. Best wishes as you ride out the storm." I know they, of course, won't do that, but I hope they will wait until conditions are very safe before deploying help. I encountered this story on Yahoo :

Battering the coast with driving rain and ferocious wind gusts as residents who decided too late they should have heeded calls to evacuate made futile calls for rescue. Though it would be daybreak before the storm's toll was clear, already, the damage was extensive. Thousands of homes and government buildings had flooded, roads were washed out and several fires burned unabated as crews could not reach them. But the biggest fear was that tens of thousands of people had defied orders to flee and would need to be rescued from submerged homes and neighborhoods.

"The unfortunate truth is we're going to have to go in ... and put our people in the tough situation to save people who did not choose wisely. We'll probably do the largest search and rescue operation that's ever been conducted in the state of Texas," said Andrew Barlow, spokesman for Gov. Rick Perry.

CNN Article indicated:

"Much of the Galveston Island is currently flooded, and there are several fires in that area," the Galveston County Office of Emergency Management said on its Web site. "Many roads in the county are impassable [due] to rising water and debris."

Oops, I got back on the soapbox. It will be interesting to see what the extent of the damage has been. Interesting, last year, on this date, we had Hurricane Humberto...God bless those affected.
~Dewdrop