So long, Ike!

Hurricane Ike has been and gone. He's headed for Arkansas by now, and I don't envy those in his path. His wind speeds may have died down, but he's carrying an awful lot of rain! Those in Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana may want to batten down the hatches until he's passed through.

He left quite a bit of damage in our neck of the woods. The wind wasn't as bad as during Gustav two weeks ago, but the rain was heavy, and unfortunately most of the natural runoff channels in the area are still clogged with debris dumped there by Gustav. As a result, early this morning our local police were barricading certain roads to stop motorists running headlong into flood water. One policeman told me that a couple of roads were being undermined by the renewed rush of water. They'd been weakened by Gustav, and couldn't be repaired or strengthened before Ike arrived. I'm guessing it'll be months before they're all repaired.

To give you an idea of the sheer size of Ike, here's a radar image of his remnants taken from the Fort Polk radar station, just outside Leesville, LA, at 6.05 p.m. today (Central time). Clickit to biggit.




As you can see, the rain bands stretch from the Texas coast all the way up past Louisiana into southern Arkansas and south-eastern Oklahoma. That's a big swath of territory! I'm near Alexandria, LA, and you can see that we still had isolated wind and rain bands moving over us at that time.

It looks as if the catastrophic damage feared for Galveston and the barrier islands in Texas may not have been as bad as forecast, but it's still pretty severe. I hope those who stayed put have learned a lesson, and will get out next time! I've been shaking my head in disbelief at the reports of thousands of 911 calls for rescue by those who disregarded the evacuation orders and stayed put. How dumb can you get - and how selfish? You put yourself and your family at risk through your own stupidity, and then you expect others to put their lives at risk to get you out of the hole you've dug for yourself! I'm very glad that emergency services refused to respond to such calls until it was safe for the rescuers to venture out. That's only right and just.

I guess we can relax and mop up for a while . . . until another Atlantic depression strengthens into a storm, at least!




Peter