Topic: Hurricane Ike

[ocala]

Pre and post storm pictures.
Get ready to say, WOW!
Bolivar Peninsula is wiped out.
http://coastal.er.usgs.gov/hurricanes/ike/photo-comparisons/bolivar.html

[Mark / Ohio]

From the photos I made a mental note that if I ever moved to a coastline to build my house like a water tower.   

[GregJ]

Looking at those photos makes me glad we have high bank waterfront.  Not that we have hurricanes, but we have had significant storms with low barometers during winter high tides that have done some serious damage to no bank waterfront homes in our area.  I also worry about the "Big One" that could generate a tsunami.  Puget Sound could really suffer some horrific damage.  It is really the perfect design for the perfect storm from a tsunami.  We tend to pacify ourselves into thinking it will never happen.  There is geological evidence of incredible damage done to the southern end of Whidbey Island by a tsunami not that long ago.

Greg

[WeatherHost]

Post Ike images from NOAA:

http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/ike/IKE0000.HTM


Drill down through the grid boxes (2 levels), then click on the displayed thumbnail to see the high res images.  Note that some are very large files of between 2 and 3 Mb.  You can see many places where there is nothing left at all.  There are also a number of shots where you can see that the road pavement is scoured away.

This is just one example (image is 2.8Mb 6,558 x 6,735 so you'll need to pan to see it all):

http://ngs.woc.noaa.gov/storms/ike/geo-C25881518.jpg

Cropped from the above:



The yellow line is where the road used to be.  Also note the footings from where a fairly large building was.

[NiceBill]

Islanders who insisted on staying died in Ike

View entire article here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081004/ap_on_re_us/ike_lives_lost

Bill.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

[W Thomas]

Islanders who insisted on staying died in Ike

View entire article here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081004/ap_on_re_us/ike_lives_lost

Bill.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Judging from the picture it's hard to believe any people could have survived the destruction like that!

Wayne
www.smythweather.net

[mackbig]

And that was a from "only" a strong cat 2.  I know the surge was that of a 4 and the wind field was huge, but can you image a strong 3, or a 4 or 5 wind on top of all that....

Andrew

Judging from the picture it's hard to believe any people could have survived the destruction like that!

Wayne
www.smythweather.net

[W Thomas]

And that was a from "only" a strong cat 2.  I know the surge was that of a 4 and the wind field was huge, but can you image a strong 3, or a 4 or 5 wind on top of all that....

Andrew

Judging from the picture it's hard to believe any people could have survived the destruction like that!

Wayne
www.smythweather.net

Thats right!!!
I'm inclined to believe there would be total devastation..a leveling of the area if the storm was that strong.
I know there is research ongoing to learn how to make structures withstand this type of wind but I have to wonder
just how effective it could be! Seems that would be hard to plan for!

Sure glad we don't have anything near that magnitude around here! I'm sure it would look worse on the big picture.

Wayne
www.smythweather.net
CW8217

[ocala]

Check out this interactive viewer of the Bolivar Peninsula.
Once you get a handle on the controls it's pretty awesome.
Hard to believe a Cat 2 did this much damage.
http://www.hawkeyemedia.com/bolivar/

[Mark / Ohio]

I wonder if anyone stayed there in one of the houses that survived?

If so imagine going through a night of hell and seeing that at first light of morning out the windows.

[wxman11]

Yeah it was pretty crazy here during the hurricane, I live on the west side of Houston and we had 90+ mph winds for about 4 hours that morning.  Things are pretty much back to normal now, they just fixed my roof last week.

[ocala]

After Florida's bout with Charley, Francis, and Jeanne there were tarps on the roofs for several years after those storms. Believe it or not there are some who never replaced roofs and still have those tarps today. Don't be surprised if you see those blue tarps for a long time down there.

[wxman11]

Oh there are still numerous tarps and gutted office buildings around me, some of which are waiting for help from FEMA.  So I could totally see it taking years to get back to where we were before Ike