[QUOTE=S1997,Sep 12 2008, 03:30 AM]In Houston we will probably lose all power very early on, so you won't see us on line for a while. Trying to button everything down and hold on tight. How the hell do you "hunker down"?

 

Wow...CNN is streaming live video of the waves coming in at Galveston. Even with it still about 200 miles away, they are kicking up in a big way!

 

Yep, one bad storm like this is supposed to be could knock those suckers flat.

The deadliest hurricane in American history hit Galveston in 1900. It flattened almost the entire island.

 

^ 6,000 people died in that one.

 

^^ what he said.

 

WOW, Martha. That's a great graphic. I enjoyed clicking through the storm's anticipated progress (for want of a better word).

 

That place had to have been a hellhole. Once cleanup began people ran out of places to put the bodies, so they attempted some mass burials at sea. The currents brought many of the bodies back to shore.

 

The NOAA map predicts storm surge of 20-30 feet.

http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/track...ge.html#a_topad

 

Yo Tex, I dreamed you upped your departure for the mountains and left a week early just to get out of harm's way in case (not that I'm dreaming about you or anything ).

I heard they were asking you not to leave though, to let the others get out first. If they call a mandatory for Houston, I say "head 'em up, move 'em out rawhide."

 

One of the local Houston stations also have a good graphic, though not as fancy. ktrk.com and below the picture that comes up first is a link for interactive storm tracking.

For those that asked about Tiki Island, it was originally a little tiny peninsula and developers cut the channel to separate it from the mainland as a sales ploy I'm sure. Tiki Island sounded better than Tiki Spit of Land. Obviously the Corps of Engineers would not allow this practice today -- others have tried it along the coast. Then they dredged all of those canals so that virtually every house was "on the water," using some of the dredged material to make more land to build on. My bulkhead was about 2' above high tide and the house sat on stilts about 15' high as I recall. The worst when I lived there was a couple of tropical storms that had water about 6' above normal high tide or waist deep under the house. A 20' storm surge definitely will wipe a lot of it out. About 40%-50% of the island was decimated in 1983 by Hurricane Alicia.