54 Comments

1. SteveSadlov:

In some cases, it is the SE TX version of “dem ole ‘cains! dey allllllllways turn, yes dey dooo! (Spoken like Prudhome …). In other cases, the afflicted are people who don’t watch the news, and watch only “entertainment” shows. Some people have a time horizon of hours or even minutes … often these same folks are in continual financial trouble and do not save. Human foibles, in our age of modernity, where the masses are generations removed from real survival and life skills, become deadly.

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:17 pm 2. Wes Dorman:

People aren’t leaving for one reason: Rita. After spending 12 hours driving from Galveston to Huntsville, most people decided it wasn’t worth the trouble to evacuate. That’s not smart, of course, but more people died in Rita in the evacuation than in the storm.

That said, we left our Clear Lake area house on Thursday and it took less than one hour to get to downtown Houston. Traffic was much better, primarily because most of the people in Houston who evacuated in Rita have heeded the warnings to hide from the wind and only run from the water.

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:21 pm 3. penny:

The worst part of this foolishness by the people that won’t budge, Governor Nick Perry and the Feds will be blamed by the MSM. Count on it.

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:21 pm 4. Brendan Loy:

Is that really the “worst part”? I’d say the worst part will be, y’know, the massive death toll.

Galveston did wait a bit too long to make the evacuation mandatory for the whole island, but people still had plenty of time to get out.

If any external source deserves a ton of blame here, really, it’s the media. They have truly underhyped Ike’s surge damage potential. Even at this late hour, CNN’s headline is still, “IKE EDGING TOWARD A CATEGORY 3 HURRICANE” — as if that matters at all!! Meanwhile, Anderson Cooper is interviewing a political strategist about Sarah Palin. O’Reilly’s top story was also Palin. WTF?? They gave Gustav wall-to-wall coverage, even once it was clear it would be less than a calamity for N.O. — and now they are virtually ignoring the imminent destruction of Galveston Island. These people are a joke, except it’s a very unfunny joke. And their failure to adequately inform the public has consequences. ARGH.

But hey, at least the victims of the Great Galveston Hurricane of 2008 will die well-informed about the various meanings of the phrase “lipstick on a pig.”

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:29 pm 5. Robert:

Part of it might be seeing Geraldo on the sea wall. Heck, if the media is going to stay, along with the firemen, why not?
I’m all for folks making up their own minds. I’d like a big concrete structure to get in though, if I decided to ride it out. And plenty of water, batteries, food…et.
But nobody likes to be shown up by some chick in a windbreaker with a microphone.

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:30 pm 6. Ubu Roi:

The information on exactly what evac was called is completely confused. I cannot tell you if all of A and B were supposed to evac or if it’s just the few zip codes. Public officials have *blown* this one. And it’s going to kill people.

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:32 pm 7. David:

Many Galvestonians are similar to many New Orleanians in a unwillingless to leave the city. Many never cross the causeway. It’s hard to escape Galvatraz.

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:32 pm 8. Nekulturny:

My Great-Aunt and Uncle lived in Galveston’s historic district for 60 years. I can almost guarantee, were they still with us, that the only way they’d have left would be kicking and screaming as they were dragged out by their kids. There is no explanation for the mindset other than stubbornness, although willful denial of reality may play a part.

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:32 pm 9. Ironman:

12 hours to evacuate from a life threathening storm is too much?

Hell, it once took me well over three hours to go from Stamford CT to Madison CT (about 50 miles) on a summer Friday to go to a damm party.

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:36 pm 10. Hucbald:

This is going to be bad. Nobody will come out looking good, but recriminations won’t help the dead. Ultimately, it is the fault of the foolish that they were foolish. Sad though.

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:37 pm 11. Brendan Loy:

Who said 12 hours is too much?

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:38 pm 12. Andrew:

Agree with people about the recency effect of Rita. I lived in Houston in 2005, and people were very scared – they’d learned the lesson from Katrina that the mistake was not evacuating in time. So people far inland got in their cars, got stuck in traffic, had a miserable time, and decided it wasn’t worth it.

In 2008, we had Gustav is coming, Gustav is coming – so people did evacuate, and whaddaya know – no disaster! Well, the President showed he was interested, and they cancelled most of day 1 of the RNC – but still, no disaster. So, of course, people learned that hurricanes weren’t as big a deal as we feared. So here we are.

What CNN shows now doesn’t matter. And, to be fair, the cone of the track has moved around for a while. But the media has been as slow to get a sense of urgency across as it was back in the day in 2005, and to be honest, the political heads of both parties haven’t helped either. It matters a lot more than lipstick, wolves and disco balls.

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:39 pm 13. Doug:

TWC’s Cantore, somewhere in Galveston, who just proclaimed that “we’re all out here on our own!” is a complete clown. In fact, he’s no more than a foolish party clown! Someone should give him some balloons to hold up into the wind! Now, THAT would be perfect! I can’t stand watching TWC at nighttime, but there’s nothing else on right now, as far as hurricane coverage is concerned. Steer a tropical system toward NY, and there would be plenty of “knowledgeable” coverage! Ugh!

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:44 pm 14. Uncle Fester:

I’m sitting 12 miles due East of Katy – the wind is steady at about 25mph and gusting to 35mph or so. No rain yet. The power has been steady so far. I pity the folks in Galveston and the A/B zones who didn’t get out while they could. Stupid should hurt but I fear it’s going to be terminal for a lot of people tonight.

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:46 pm 15. Daily Pundit » It Can’t Happen Here? Wanna Bet?:

[...] Weather Nerd » 24,000 people still on Galveston Island?!? [...]

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:47 pm 16. Tcobb:

Unfortunately, I think a lot of the reluctance of people to evacuate can best be explained by “the little boy who cried wolf” syndrome. I’ve lived on the Texas Gulf Coast for most of my life, and I’ve gone through several hurricanes. But when the media starts screaming that a hurricane is coming–run for your lives, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES–and then it turns out not to have been that big a thing at all–it tends to make one cynical when it happens in the future.

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:48 pm 17. J Reece:

Actually, something doesn’t quite jibe about the storm intensity category (only 2) and the predicted storm surge (20+ feet?). Hysterical exaggeration? I guess we’ll see.

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:52 pm 18. Ironman:

The Mrs. was wondering about Andy Pettitte’s family (she is a huge Yankee fan) I know he grew up in Deer Lake which is pretty low lying, but don’t know if his family still lives there

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:52 pm 19. Brendan Loy:

Except, Tcobb, you can’t demand perfection from forecasters. In this case, you can’t even demand they usually be right. Most alarms are going to be false. That’s the nature of the beast. The trigger MUST be pulled on evacuations 24-72 hours in advance (depending on the location), yet it’s impossible to pinpoint a landfall spot at even 12 hours out, let alone 24, 48 or 72. So evacuations must occur when it’s still more likely than not that the storm won’t hit any given spot.

Now, obviously, the media overhypes storms. But people need to apply a little more critical thinking than to simply assume that, anytime “it turns out not to have been that big a thing at all,” the alarms were therefore unjustified. Hindsight is 20/20.

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:54 pm 20. Brendan Loy:

J Reece, see here and here. Ike is a freak storm. It is not a “normal” Category 2 in any way. The storm surge projections are based on solid data.

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:55 pm 21. Jeffus:

Seems like the local media may have downplayed the panic (generally a good thing) in order to avoid the 1.5 million people stranded on I-45 scenario.

This time the freeways were pretty much clear in 5-6 hours. Miserable if you’re commuting, but tolerable if you’re staying alive.

Coming back from Austin to Woodlands on the 11th, traffic was backed up at Brenham and Giddings, but still tolerable.

I don’t know what to think of those that stayed on the island. Crazy. Nobody wants them there and eventually the poor public safety guys have to get them at great risk, or tag them and bag them later.

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:56 pm 22. Wes Dorman:

Ironman–I didn’t say 12 hours was too much, but you also either didn’t read my whole post or don’t realize that Huntsville just North of Houston. The entire trip to Dallas took 24 hours. Too much time? Not for me, but it was for some.

Many people ran out of gas after 20 hours sitting on I-45 or I-10 (to San Antonio), and there was NO gas to purchase. So the choice was to stay put or be swept away on a highway.

The evacuation time is not the only reason, but it definitely influenced a lot of people I spoke with.

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:57 pm 23. SteveSadlov:

Well, as Brendan well knows, I am the ultimate crumudgeon when it comes to chastising the NHC for hype (I even have an on again off again bloc called the “National Hysteria Center.” However, the moment I realized that this storm shared many characteristics with the deadly North Sea Storm of Jan 1953, I became very concerned. I have been doing what I can to try and inform those who were willing to listen about the danger here. I have personal experience with broad fetch generated wide range storm surge from dealing with Gulf of Alaska brutes. Viewing the coastal profile of Texas, I knew this would be bad. Some said the NHC’s “certain death” message was OTT, but I disagree. It is certain death to mess with this in any low lying immediate coastal area anywhere within a certain distance of the center of circulation. It is going to be a long terror filled night for many. I wish them well.

Sep 12, 2008 - 7:58 pm 24. Doug:

The report may have confused Galveston Island with Galveston County.

Sep 12, 2008 - 8:08 pm 25. Austin:

Remember that much of Galveston is much above sea level and most structures are not on the beach. Galveston has a seawall. In addition, most structures today are built much more strongly that in the past. Finally, the storm is moving very fast.

IMHO, most of the problems will occur in the low-lying sections of Harris county.

Sep 12, 2008 - 8:09 pm 26. The Monster:

Ike isn’t important to the legacy media, because it’s hitting where Rita failed to produce adequate carnage, while Gustav, heading back where Katrina became the opportunity to bash Bush, was the chance to push “McSame”.

The only other thing the authorities should have done was to tell people:

We can’t force you to leave, but if you’re going to stay, please take a Sharpie and write your name and address, and the phone number of your next of kin (excluding any others staying behind), on your belly. That will make identifying your corpse easier.

I know I probably sound like a broken record, but the way to conceptualize these evacuations is this analogy:

If there is “only” a 1/6 chance the storm will kill you, and a 5/6 chance of a “false alarm”, it’s exactly the odds for Russian Roulette. And we all think playing that game is stupid.

Sep 12, 2008 - 8:12 pm 27. Brendan Loy:

Incorrect, Doug. Galveston County has a population of 110,000, or something like that. I’ve read another report that 60,000 people in Galveston County are staying. That’s different from this report, which clearly related to the Island, not the County.

Sep 12, 2008 - 8:13 pm 28. Chris:

To be fair, I believe it was 40% of Galveston COUNTY residents who decided to stay behind. From what I heard, only 10k (of about 60k) residents of the island decided to ride it out. Nonetheless, having experienced hurricanes myself and lived in Galveston (separately of course), I wouldn’t trust many of the structures on the island (lots of foundations on sand).

Sep 12, 2008 - 8:14 pm 29. Brendan Loy:

Chris, again, the article clearly refers to the island, and 40% of its 60,000 residents — not the county and its 110,000 residents.

The article may be wrong, but that’s what it says.

Sep 12, 2008 - 8:19 pm 30. Dr. Pion:

I can’t believe there is a reporter down at the Galveston sea wall. At least Cantore is hoping that his 35′ elevation will be enough and setting a bad enough example of ignoring the “facing death” warning; does the MSNBC reporter know he could end up famous by being washed out to sea on a live video feed?

Sep 12, 2008 - 8:25 pm 31. WX-MAN’s Perspective - » Huricane Ike: 40% of Galveston Island Residents Remain Despite Warning:

[...] tip: Weather Nerd & Houblog) Ike IS a dangerous storm, it WILL be deadly. Now, if these reports are true that [...]

Sep 12, 2008 - 8:30 pm 32. Ken Talton:

Galveston’s 1900 hurricane was the worst natural disaster in US history, killing over 6,000. That island, seawall or no, is going to be submerged for hours under hurricane force winds.

I feel ill….

Sep 12, 2008 - 8:33 pm 33. Casey:

That blooming band on the SW band of Ike is unfortunate. It seems like, given the timing of the rotation around the center, that bit will be winding up around the NE side of the center of rotation right around the time that Ike makes landfall. Probably just a little bit of trouble on top of a whole heap already, though.

That doesn’t seem to be the story here. As Brendan noted, the story is the MSM’s mouse squeak alarms about the massive storm surge. How many people will die because jackass MSM reporters didn’t at least read Jeff Masters and copy/paste?

Granted, there is a certain nobility about sitting on your porch with a nice beer, scoffing at an approaching hurricane. It seems to me like that nobility would begin to fade when you’re about 20 feet underwater, though.

Sep 12, 2008 - 8:37 pm 34. jeff:

Galveston County has over 280,000 residents, not 110,000. The city of Galveston has about 60,000 residents.

Sep 12, 2008 - 8:42 pm 35. Houblog » Blog Archive » 10:40 Update:

[...] confusion (in comments here) on the Galveston info. US Census 2006 estimate for Galveston County is 283,000. However, Galveston [...]

Sep 12, 2008 - 8:42 pm 36. Art Deco:

For the record,

The Census Bureau estimated the population of Galveston County to be 283,551 in 2006. The population of the City of Galveston was estimated to be 57,000 or so. I do not believe there are any other municipalities on that island

Sep 12, 2008 - 8:43 pm 37. David:

Network coverage is entertainment for people not in the area. Locals have the local news, where the coverage is far more valuable.

Sep 12, 2008 - 8:45 pm 38. Brendan Loy:

I apologize for misstating the number of people in the county… I don’t know where I got the 110,000 from. I’ve been hearing a lot of numbers bandied about this evening!

The fact remains, the article clearly refers to the city/island, not the county. The headline itself makes that explicit. Again, the article may be wrong, but I am not misreading the article.

Sep 12, 2008 - 8:53 pm 39. rabidfox:

I think that part of the problem might be that too few people really live through life-threatening situations. As a result, this all seem to be an adrenline thrill for many.

Sep 12, 2008 - 9:01 pm 40. holly:

I’ve been really impressed by local news coverage. Considerably less so by national coverage. We’re ignoring the national media, flipping between local news and DVR’d stuff. Power has flickered a few times but we haven’t lost it yet. Husband and I agree that if we didn’t have a little one to console, this would be kind of fun. The little one is enjoying her first hurricane so far. We’ll see how it feels at midnight. I’m 44, a lifelong resident of either Houston or the north shore of Lake Ponchertrain, and this is my first direct hit hurricane.

Sep 12, 2008 - 9:01 pm 41. Lea:

The media’s reporting of hurricanes is almost always terrible, but this has been a bad year for the media all around and I hope somebody remembers this chapter of it later.

Because all that Gustav reporting? Was all about trying to make republicans look bad in order to hurt an election, with a little hope for destruction so they would have something to report and make themselves feel good.

Now, we have the real deal. It’s been obvious to anyone that was paying attention, that this storm looks bad. I can not believe people on Galveston Island, site of the 1900 hurricane that killed thousands of people, would not leave. This is irresponsible and stupid. I pray that their safe house is pretty damn safe.

Sep 12, 2008 - 9:08 pm 42. Nonny:

One of the reason that some people didn’t evacuate is that there was some odd evacuation orders. The portion of the island that isn’t protected by the seawall was evacuated. Then the rest was evacuated. Then the zip codes in Harris county were released for evacuation. I know people in Galveston county who never heard their zip code being called for evacuation. Some didn’t leave (but when you work in a hospital….), some did.

Sep 12, 2008 - 9:13 pm 43. peter jackson:

Why the hell didn’t these people leave?

Because they never do. If there really are 24,000 people left on Galveston Island then you can bet they’ll have 24,000 reasons for not leaving. They may all be dumb reasons, even grossly illogical, but even if Ike were a category 19 storm with a 100′ storm surge, there would still be people who would stay. Because of their cat or something.

yours/
peter.

Sep 12, 2008 - 9:17 pm 44. SteveR:

Brendan-

Are you really going to be blogging all night? Seriously?
I totally knew I had to go on ur blog (btw: wow…gettin’ fancy) when I saw this storm.

Now my point…I went on CNN’s website and on one page they show a projection of a 22 foot storm surge completely inundanting Galveston in water, and on another page there’s a video of Anderson Cooper standing like a pretty boy in downtown Houston talkin to a guy (who desperately wants his job) standing in a parking garage… in Galveston?!
Did the dude not check his own website? …no power? I would be flipping out… but not as much as I would be if I was on a 600 foot freighter that lost power 22 hours ago and is stuck 140 miles off the Texas coast on a direct trajectory with the eye of the storm.

Sep 12, 2008 - 9:41 pm 45. Change in the Weather « Politics and Profits: Business and the 2008 Election:

[...] thanks to Hurricane Ike. Reacting to a report that 40 percent of Galveston Island residents — some 24,000 souls [...]

Sep 12, 2008 - 9:45 pm 46. B. Minich:

I covered this before, but let’s go over this again.

YOU ARE ON A FRICKIN’ ISLAND! IN A HURRICANE! WITH ONE BRIDGE OFF THAT IS COVERED WITH WATER!! WITH A STORM SURGE ENOUGH TO COMPLETELY COVER YOUR ISLAND! WHY DIDN’T YOU LEAVE?!?

Sep 12, 2008 - 9:47 pm 47. SteveR:

Who’s BMinich talking to? I seriously doubt that poor guy who just got punked by Anderson Coops is readin’ this blog, but he should be

Sep 12, 2008 - 9:58 pm 48. JKB:

They stay to ride out the storm because they have no experience of what the danger is. They put to much emphasis on the fact that it hasn’t happened to them in past storms. They don’t have any sense of how fast things can turn against them. And we, in the US, live in a world where help is minutes away most of the time. This causes people to take greater risks since survival appears to be easily corrected. But in these conditions, these people, the ones not killed quickly when it turns against them, will be isolated and alone for 8-12 hours.

No amount of warning will work for some as they have a false sense of security and little true appreciation of the dangers.

Sep 12, 2008 - 10:05 pm 49. SteveR:

some guy on the weather channel is saying the surge is already in Houston (I know Houston is big…I lived there and don’t need a geography lesson), but is that really early to be gettin surge of 1-2 feet?

Sep 12, 2008 - 10:06 pm 50. geomatic1:

Keep in mind that demographically, Galveston resembles New Orleans. 40% of the city of Galveston is poor and Black. I’m sure there are financial reasons for not leaving.

Sep 12, 2008 - 10:18 pm 51. SteveR:

Correction: that dude in ‘Houston’ is in Clear Lake Shores about 15 miles SW of Houston proper (ignorant intern or aggressive producer?)

JKB: Good insights. I think 8-12 hours would be the best case scenario if our assumed numbers are accurate (run the math…they have 42 heli’s available that would be capable of handling rescues in a window that soon after given the tail-weather conditions of Ike and the capacity limitations of UH-60s).

Apparently Ike didn’t get the memo ‘Don’t Mess With Texas’

It’s been fun. I’m going to bed.

‘night kids

Sep 12, 2008 - 10:36 pm 52. Nahanni:

Skip the MSM coverage and go over to abc13.com and watch the live streaming video of their coverage.

Sep 13, 2008 - 1:37 am 53. samizdat:

Hey, Brenda?

You think they might be staying because people like *you* have ridiculously over-hyped every single damn storm that appeared and started screeching “EVACUATE!” at the drop of a hat?

You think they might staying because you guys howl about evacuations even when the storm turns out to be a total fizzle?

Ya think maybe you killed somebody this morning with your alarmism?

Sep 13, 2008 - 2:07 am 54. Cybrludite:

Samizdat,

Evacuation orders are based on worst case scenarios because once it’s clear whether or not it’ll be a fizzle, it’s too late to get people out of harms way. You’ll notice that we didn’t know that the storm surge was going to be less than expected until after the storm had passed. Real easy to make predictions at that point, but rather harder to save the folks who drowned like rats in their attics.

Sep 13, 2008 - 5:32 am

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