The calm before the storm
I really hate when hurricanes come over at night. You can hear the trees tipping and crashing and all sorts of noise, but you can’t see anything. Hurricane Ike will be upon us at night. Looks like The Woodlands is in the direct path, front and center. In our favor we’re about 100 miles from the coast, and the pine trees far out number the hardwoods here.
I had an email this morning from a local relative ‘WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE’, but it’s been great knowing you’.
Just heard on Twitter that gun and alcohol sales are being banned in coastal towns. I think that’s a bad sign.
City of Houston Wind Data tells by zip code what to expect for wind speeds. We’re looking at about 80mph sustained winds here.
Harris County Office of Emergency Management has some information
National Hurricane Center: Ike
Storm Pulse, It’s like NHC but with better graphics.
Transtar has traffic webcams
Houston Chronicle, local newspaper.
Houston Community Newspapers cover many of the smaller towns around Houston.
The Woodlands is only about 25 years old, and we haven’t had a major hurricane in that time. No idea how well the homes are built. We’ll know by this time tomorrow. There have been no storms to thin the trees since construction began so I’m expecting we’re going to lose a good percentage of our trees.
Latest projections have the eye still going overhead, winds averaging about 70mph with gusts up to 90mph. The hurricane force winds should be with us till after noontime Saturday. That’s a big difference from storms up north. This one will still be moving very slowly when it goes by. Instead of 6 hours of intense winds we are looking at 12 to 18 hours.
It’s so quiet in the nieghborhood. I’m not sure if most of the neighbors fled or if they are hunkering down watching the storm news?
