Here Comes Ike!

Liddle Noodnik · Sep 11, 2008

Still praying for you. Have a friend in League City who is pretty concerned. Keep us posted!!

General E. Speaking, RN, RN · Sep 11, 2008

Waiting to see where it goes. I am about 70 miles inland from Houston. Irregardless, we will be on the dirty side of it. How far down on the coast will greatly affect our impact. So far our hospital is in a "stand by" status and need to be ready in an hour's notice. I suspect we may be called into our facility for a mandatory lockdown on Friday a.m. I hope I am wrong. I hate community sleeping quarters (as I found out during Rita). Packing my air mattress and ear plugs...

Stay safe everyone.

Bortaz, MSN, RN · Sep 11, 2008

Well, according to that site posted earlier, even this hurricane doesn't want to visit my crappy old Rio Grande Valley. I don't blame him. :)

-Bortaz, sitting 60ish miles West of Brownsville.

hypocaffeinemia, BSN, RN · Sep 11, 2008

This morning's models show a freeport landing, which is worst case scenario for Galveston/Houston.

Elvish, BSN, DNP, RN, NP · Sep 11, 2008

Thinking of all of you in Ike's way....please stay safe & check in when you can.

General E. Speaking, RN, RN · Sep 11, 2008

For a while they had the eye wall of Ike headed directly towards us. Now it is shifting bit by bit towards Galveston. We are still predicted to get 75-100 mile per hr winds.

Many of our stores are out of gas and the freeway is at a crawl heading toward San Antonio. I imagine it will clear out some and not be the parking lot that Rita was. Most of the deaths from Rita were from evacuees who were basically baking in the heat on the interstate. One guy came to the ER with a temp of 107. It was a total disaster at our facility and surrounding areas- mass chaos. That was such a learning tool for the Houston area.

I will head for the hospital tomorrow with my load of stuff. They have all of Tele staff staying in 2 classrooms. Not big classrooms either! Egad. I will be tired for my shift on Saturday because of lack of sleep from community sleeping quarters with no privacy and worrying about the house and dh (who is stubbornly staying here). Maybe the adrenaline will keep us going- that and coffee! Good thing is that we will have a/c!

hypocaffeinemia, BSN, RN · Sep 12, 2008

Thinking of all of you in Ike's way....please stay safe & check in when you can.

I'll be twittering: hypocaffeinema.

indigo girl · Sep 12, 2008

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080912/ap_on_re_us/ike

I hope that they are making the right decision.

Nearly 1 million people along the Texas coast were ordered to evacuate ahead of the storm, which was expected to strike late Friday or early Saturday. But in a calculated risk aimed at avoiding total gridlock, authorities told most people in the nation's fourth-largest city to just hunker down.
"We are still saying: Please shelter in place, or to use the Texas expression, hunker down," said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, the county's chief administrator. "For the vast majority of people who live in our area, stay where you are. The winds will blow and they'll howl and we'll get a lot of rain, but if you lose power and need to leave, you can do that later."
Ike is huge, taking up nearly 40 percent of the Gulf. The National Hurricane Center said tropical storm-force winds of at least 39 mph extended across more than 550 miles, and hurricane-force winds of at least 74 mph stretched for 230 miles. A typical storm has tropical storm-force winds stretching only 300 miles.
Because of its great size, storm surge and gigantic waves are the biggest risk, said Hugh Willoughby, former director of the federal government's hurricane research division. The larger the storm, the longer it hits and the higher waves can build.
And because the water is so shallow along the Texas coast, the waves pile up, creating a big storm surge, he said.
"We're not talking about gently rising water," Harris County's Emmett said. "We're talking about a surge that will come into your homes."

I live in another hurricane prone state, not in Texas.

If a hurricane was coming towards my hospital, I couldn't leave since

I was volunteered for the A team. This means I must pack enough

food for five days that does not require cooking. Bring my own water.

And, bring enough clothing for that length of time with my own bedding.

Our hospital is directly on the water. I guess, that someone must have

donated the land as the only reason to have built a hospital on a small island

like this We do have a beautiful view however, and would be able to watch the

storm surge coming towards us if we had any spare time on our hands which isn't likely.

CHATSDALE · Sep 12, 2008

indigo, i am glad that you are not in the path of this one but i would be taking that five-day emergency pack and head in the other direction

you are a brave one

Kyrshamarks, BSN, RN · Sep 12, 2008

I live in Houston and this is precisely one of the reasons I am agency. to hell with a hospital, my family and I are bunkering down and riding the torm out. No way in the world would you find me at work during this storm or any like it. I have plenty of food, water and ammo...

softstorms · Sep 12, 2008

Hello to all in IKE's path..my heart and blessings are with you. I know that your hearts and minds are worried, but I know you are stronger than you think you are and we are behind you here in Charleston in every way. Be as safe as you can, give up what you know you can not keep and save what is important to you. Is that not what we have been taught all along? Family and self! Nothing else matters.

BE SAFE!! You can always buy a new couch or blender LOL.

Liddle Noodnik · Sep 12, 2008

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080912/ap_on_re_us/ike
I hope that they are making the right decision.
I live in another hurricane prone state, not in Texas.
If a hurricane was coming towards my hospital, I couldn't leave since
I was volunteered for the A team. This means I must pack enough
food for five days that does not require cooking. Bring my own water.
And, bring enough clothing for that length of time with my own bedding.
Our hospital is directly on the water. I guess, that someone must have
donated the land as the only reason to have built a hospital on a small island
like this We do have a beautiful view however, and would be able to watch the
storm surge coming towards us if we had any spare time on our hands which isn't likely.

A far cry from:

The National Hurricane Center is forecasting a 20-foot surge for a large swath of Texas and the Louisiana coasts. Meteorologist Dennis Feltgen said some waves could be 50 feet tall.

"All neighborhoods ... and possible entire coastal communities ... will be inundated during the period of peak storm tide," the weather service said. "Persons not heeding evacuation orders in single-family one- or two-story homes will face certain death."

Experts said Ike's gargantuan size, not its strength, will likely push an extra large storm surge inland in a region already prone to it.

Ike's great girth means more water piling up on Texas and Louisiana coastal areas for a longer time, topped with bigger waves. Forecasters said storm surge, the prime killer in hurricanes, will be far worse than a typical storm of Ike's strength.

Experts said because coastal waters in Texas and Louisiana are so shallow, storm surge is usually larger there than in other regions.

Experts are trying to figure out when they've seen a storm this wide. Ike's tropical-storm-force winds stretch for more than 500 miles.

http://www.koco.com/news/17455256/detail.html

They ought to make up their minds.

Last night the news said that a similar "certain death" warning had gone out, and the person(s) responsible for saying it had been rebuked. But their prediction WAS TRUE.

Praying still for you all -- God bless you and be under His protection :)