Tag Archives: Ike

Feds won’t let reporters survey Galveston by car/van. That’s understandable because of flooding. They won’t allow helicopter flyovers either by news stations. Katrina, Andrew, helos were allowed.

This is a total news blackout. First the media blamed locals but FEMA, shooting itself in the foot once again, affirmed that this is a federal blackout. There are no winds that would keep helos from flying.

I believe this is a First Amendment issue as people want to know how their neighborhoods have fared. I know that’s not why they want to be up there but still respect their right to be there unless there are adverse weather conditions that prevent helicopter viewing.

Let the ACLU know that hurricane survivors, free speech advocates and others know that the federal government has kept the media out of these areas, unconstitutionally.

It is my opinion that the Administration doesn’t want the US public to see dead bodies, like in Katrina. The less you let us see from 1,000 feet overhead, the more we think you’re hiding something. Perhaps it’s a secret hurricane-making machine and the mad scientist running it hit the button and set it off when you threatened to cut his budget and you have to bomb the hurricane factory before we all find out.

Yes, this is supposed to be a cooking blog. I just got water. Dirty water, but water, and can cook and wash dishes and bathe and do laundry beginning tomorrow. Thank you Water People. You’re tops in my book. Oh, I flushed the toilet once and it refilled on its own. What joy!!! Nothing like enjoying the simpler things in life. Dee

As of 10:21 p.m. a few “POD’s” are open throughout the county, dispersing water, ice and MRE’s (meals ready to eat, like they serve in the military). They are finally making these locations public.

This happened 90 minutes AFTER mandatory curfew so no-one is allowed to go and get these items.

Now they’re waffling and saying it may be OK to get on the roads just to get to a POD. Yeah, most people will be arrested.

And the ice will be melted by morning. Good work, FEMA. They said they only had GET the trucks to the Stadium, and locals were supposed to get them to the POD’s. I’ll call this Chertoff-Gate.

The undisclosed POD’s do not open again until 10:00 tomorrow morning. Sorry for laughing but I just heard that the forest service is in charge! Hi! Welcome to the Big City! All our trees blew over yesterday.

This is now the “New FEMA.” Congratulations, idiots.

Target audience: Top brass of FEMA/Homeland Security

Sunday 8:30 a.m.
Two hour briefing by police, EMT’s, emergency line personnel, including Q&A

10:30 a.m.
1.5 hour briefing by survivors of Katrina, Rita, Ike, including Q&A

12:00 p.m.
FEMA instruction manuals are handed out for dealing with hurricane/flood “procedures”

* * * * * * *

After lunch, at 12:45 p.m. 25 of the 50 participants draw a name from a hat to find their partner.

The teams are brought to off-site locations where they have only the food and water in a hotel room (min. 10 gallons per person) in the pantry and frig and freezer. Some hurricane kit items like a flashlight but no specialty equipment or food. They are taking care of (pretend) one infirm grandmother who needs medication, two young children and a dog.

There is no electricity or running water and roads are flooded and there is no gasoline available, stores are closed and the few that are open have no bread, peanut butter, water or ice. Forget about opening a window because it’s 95 degrees outside with 100% humidity.

You have to provide for yourselves and your ersatz “family” until Wednesday afternoon, 3:00 p.m. During your time there, you’re welcome to make amendments to the multiple FEMA rules that govern who gets aid, how, when, where and why procedures are re-written for every disaster as to eligibility and means for application.

You can think about telling people not to go to the local store to buy gasoline, infant formula, water or ice. You might even peruse the thought of having power restored (only 3% have power here) to all easily “turned on” areas around the county so that gas stations and stores can open to serve their neighborhoods.

At 3:00 p.m. there will be a debriefing by panel members from Sunday’s session plus others. At 5:00, if the streets are clear, you may return to your own families.

Practice makes perfect, that’s why our armed services have boot camp and countless exercises. It doesn’t seem as though the people who make the decisions at FEMA have practiced or learned anything since Hurricane Katrina three years ago. That is devastating for the four million people without electricity and who knows how many more without running water, flooded roadways et al.

It appears that President Bush has opened the tap for a second or two to the Strategic Oil Reserves to give SE TX residents some illusory comfort that gasoline is available for our cars and generators.

We were told to stay. Now most people who stayed have no food or water, ice or power, no tap water, and highways and roads are flooded and the streets are strewn with downed trees and power lines. So those of us who stayed have no services and all the help is going to Galveston and Louisiana.

Why Galveston? No-one is supposed to be there and the Red Cross beat FEMA there by over a day. Why Louisiana? Because they had a thunderstorm?

Please don’t go where the media tells you to. All they want is human interest stories, tragedies. And paternalistic statements telling us not to do exactly what they’re now doing. Don’t stand in this water (as I am). Don’t drive on these roads (as I do).

It’s time to put the top brass to the task. They’ve been ensconced in their political jobs with nice houses and have forgotten what it was like when they were first at … ok, Yale. Bad adage. Be there. Do it, don’t just fly in and take accolades and fly out. From the Mandatory Survivors

everywhere, and not a drop to drink.

Do Not Flush

Parts of SE Texas received an extra overnight gift: up to nine inches of rain from a cold front. So highways, streets and bayous are flooded yet again. I just checked my email and the existing flash flood watch was just cancelled.

I believe our local mayor and emergency management leadership and staff (including police and fire) are doing a yeoman’s job out there. The Red Cross made it to Galveston in short order, but Galveston was under mandatory evacuation so no-one is supposed to be there! And no-one will be let back in for days, perhaps weeks.

We are still in elite company as part of 3% of households with power, so we can watch the regular briefings (the only way we can get ANY reliable information as to what is going on) but have no running water.

FEMA is supposed to be setting up “POD’s” for water, ice and MRE’s but are lagging, as usual. It took a couple of hours for me to learn that a POD is a Point of Distribution – they seem to think we all understand GovSpeak. It doesn’t seem as if they’ve learned anything in the three years since Katrina. Fearless Leader Chertoff flew in here to pat himself on the back, then left a flunky to tell the world that they can’t do anything because of “high winds.” The winds left us yesterday morning and they’ve had 28 hours to get basic supplies to the people.

Few stores are open. A few more, today, like our local Target, the only one we could get to without negotiating flood waters. None has water or ice. Only two local gas stations are open and have lines taking several hours. Folks from the suburbs are coming into town to fill up gas cans for their generators, which they need because they don’t have electricity. 97% of the area doesn’t have power, so gas stations, even if they have fuel, cannot pump gas up from their storage tanks.

Prize photograph is of our toilet, trying to get my better half to stop flushing every half hour! Every four flushes he has to go get water out of the pool and lug it to the 4th floor. He just went to help a friend of a friend remove a tree, then take a shower as they have water and power as of 24 hours ago.

The police have cordoned off downtown because of significant amounts of broken glass from the high-rise buildings and downed trees and branches. Everyone is under curfew 9pm to 6am for the remainder of the week. I don’t know who will be going to work tomorrow or the next few days.

This is going to be a lengthy clean-up and normalization process, with some residents having lost their homes and many who will be without power for several weeks.

On a closing note, FEMA spokesperson said they were “working on a process” to get hotel reimbursement for those whose homes are uninhabitable. One would think a process should have been in place for years and just be amended as technology changes (internet). Just give out the url and phone number and run with it! In addition, yesterday the City told people with no water to call 911. Then this morning, they told us to call 311, but 311 is not operational!

I’ve been instructed to add to the hurricane kit: painter’s tape for windows; an axe; and enough hard-sided water containers for 60 gallons of potable water. A generator would be nice, but we can’t use one here.

Hope all is well wherever you may be. Dee
ps frozen pizza for dinner. I can’t really wash dishes because don’t want to use precious water.

Jim and I went out with the dog in the tail end of Ike this morning and got separated. I toured the building with other residents to check on flooding and neighbors.

Todd & Jim's Vortex

Jim and dog Zoe went out briefly. With others trying to clear flooding on the first floor (from the flooded garage) Jim and fellow resident Todd took on other tasks. Jim hooked up a hose and suctioned water from the first floor of the garage to the street.

The street was blocked because of storm drains so anyone leaving the building would get stuck. So they cleaned out storm drains on both sides of our street so that the flood levels would go down. Photo is of Todd’s vortex at the foot of our garage.

Thanks, volunteers! All day today in between real news were newscasters – talking heads – claiming how we’re all going to get through this “together.” Yesterday it was all death and destruction and standing in compromised positions on the Galveston shore while lecturing residents to evacuate now!

Today it’s lectures about their local network’s stance on togetherness and neighborliness, while the police are enforcing curfews to stop looting. Stay indoors, off the roads, even if you have no power or water or means to flush the toilet and you have family members camping out at your home.

When neighbors get out there on their own, while staff is home protecting their own families, that’s neighborliness and doing things together (not taking credit or getting a raise or move to a better market share) just to do the right thing.

Science question: If the hurricane was counter-clockwise, how come the vortex is clockwise? Jim the physicist says it’s not possible and all I have to do is flush the toilet to check. Because below the equator water/storms drain one way, and above is the opposite direction. And I’m not going to flush because Jim will have to go back to the pool and get more water!

Test this theory: Todd is a lawyer and maybe he twisted the mind of the water to drain in the wrong direction…. Love you guys, Todd and Terri!!!

We made it. There is water damage here and we took a brief car trip and walk around the neighborhood to assess damage and look for open stores where we could get more water.

We are tremendously lucky to have power, so we have air conditioning and I can make dinner. We have not had running water since last night. We had no water damage but it was a devastating storm and there is flooding, downed trees and many windows blown out downtown so people won’t be going back to work for a while. There is a curfew in place. We should have water tonight or tomorrow, which needs to be boiled to consume it.

Hopefully this is my only hurricane. We still have power for now and I may be able to get wireless tomorrow to let family and friends know we’re still OK. Have to get away from the windows now. Dee

Ike is still 90 minutes from official landfall on the TX coast. Over 450,000 people are without power. There is an anticipated $9 Billion in property loss.

We are trying to keep our home and its contents. I slept for an hour this evening, 9-10, anticipating being up all night. Jim and Zoe (the dog) are peacefully snoring in bed for the last couple of hours. I’ll awaken Jim before it really hits so we can move the electronics away from the window (where I am now sitting).

The sound of the wind is unlike anything I’ve ever heard. We’re hoping the windows hold.

More on the other side, Dee