As I mentioned below, updates will be limited for the rest of the day. For full coverage of Ike’s aftermath — which, I hasten to say, is plenty destructive, notwithstanding all the “could have been worse” talk below — I recommend the various blogs and local media outlets listed in my sidebar at right. Local sites like the Houston Chronicle staff blog and the CBS 11 and ABC 13 blogs have more and better coverage of the storm’s impact than I would in any case, from my distant perch in East Tennessee.
Anyway… Dr. Jeff Masters says that, notwithstanding the miscalculations of the storm-surge computer models, Ike was almost far worse for Galveston:
Although Ike caused heavy damage by flooding Galveston with a 12-foot storm surge, the city escaped destruction thanks to its 15.6-foot sea wall (the wall was built 17 feet high, but has since subsided about 2 feet). The surge was able to flow into Galveston Bay and flood the city from behind, but the wall prevented a head-on battering by the surge from the ocean side. Galveston was fortunate that Ike hit the city head-on, rather than just to the south. Ike’s highest storm surge occurred about 50 miles to the northeast of Galveston, over a lightly-populated stretch of coast. Galveston was also lucky that Ike did not have another 12-24 hours over water. In the 12 hours prior to landfall, Ike’s central pressure dropped 6 mb, and the storm began to rapidly organize and form a new eyewall. If Ike had had another 12-24 hours to complete this process, it would have been a Category 4 hurricane with 135-145 mph winds that likely would have destroyed Galveston. The GFDL model was consistently advertising this possibility, and it wasn’t far off the mark. It was not clear to me until late last night that Ike would not destroy Galveston and kill thousands of people. Other hurricane scientists I conversed with yesterday were of the same opinion.
These are the sorts of last-minute variables that cannot be predicted, with any precision or certainty, more than a few hours in advance — which is further proof of why it’s so ridiculous and irresponsible to cry “hype” every single time a prediction just barely goes amiss. Hurricane forecasting can truly be a game of inches.
Those people who refused to evacuate Galveston Island, and other vulnerable low-lying areas, are still fools. They’re just fools who lucked out. Unfortunately, that probably means that some of them are now emboldened fools. But at least they’re not dead fools, and thank God for that.
PJM Home
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
12 Comments
1. Windypundit:Brendan, thanks for all the fine work explaining the hurricane. I don’t know much about weather, and less about weather modeling, so I’d like to hit you up with a question.
I understand what you’re saying about how believing in the models is not “hype,” but I’m wondering if the models could have a built-in bias. Well, not the models, but the reports produced from them.
I assume that the output from the underlying physical models for the storm surge at any location is not a single number but a probability curve. The reported estimates of the storm surge height, however, are a point value, e.g. 20ft.
Do you know how that value is chosen from the curve?
For many scientific purposes, you’d probably want the 50th percentile value, but if your purpose was disaster planning, you’d underestimate the surge half the time, which could be disasterous.
So you might want to work off of a value that is more of a worst-case estimate, such as the 95th percentile, i.e. you want to plan for a surge height that the actual storm has a 95% chance of not exceeding. This would be safer, but it would systematically over-estimate the surge.
Do you know if the surge estimates—or any of the other hurricane products—are chosen with some sort of built-in safety bias? Or am I making stuff up?
Sep 13, 2008 - 1:01 pm 2. Hucbald:I’m not sure how “lucky” Galveston actually was either. As I’ve said before, I lived there, and I can tell you that next time – and there will be a next time – virtually nobody will evacuate. Evacuations are expensive for the evacuees, and when they come home to find little or no damage – or worse, a burgled home – they are highly unlikely to repeat the process. I’m not sure there is any solution for this, though.
I too am surprised that the models misread the surge. Missing the mark by ten feet (!) is pretty poor performance, no matter how tricky prediction is.
Sep 13, 2008 - 1:06 pm 3. Ironman:I suggest the “hype” people review what happened with Hurricane Charlie, which came in much stronger than expected at a place where it wasn;t supposed to make landfall.
Thankfully, the Lee and Charlotte county coasts are still relatively lightly populated; had this been a major city things would have been exponentially worse
Sep 13, 2008 - 1:12 pm 4. Brendan Loy:Windypundit, that’s an excellent question, but I don’t actually know the answer. If anyone else does, please chime in!
Hucbald, you are certainly right that missing the mark by ten feet can’t be explained by the usual “oh, hurricane forecasting is hard” explanation. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. In talking about the inherent uncertainties of forecasting, I was referring to the crucial last-minute wobble, and the timing of the last-minute strengthening. The surge model error is a whole different issue, which cries out for an explanation. (And I hope somebody will come up with one!) But I believe what Dr. Masters is saying here is that, even with the new reality that we now understand about the size of the surge (as opposed to the incorrect model data), Galveston still would have been devastated if the storm had gone 25-50 miles to the west, and/or if the strengthening had been timed a little differently.
Sep 13, 2008 - 1:20 pm 5. Brendan Loy:Ironman, with Charley, I’m sure the “hype” people were wondering what the hell was wrong with the forecasters, why didn’t they emphasize the danger more, and why didn’t officials order evacuations?
Some folks just demand perfection, allowing zero margin of error. My dad calls these people Gnostics. I just call them idiots.
Sep 13, 2008 - 1:22 pm 6. Robert:http://blackforkblog.blogspot.com/
Don’t just stand there. Do something!
Sep 13, 2008 - 3:34 pm 7. David:The problem is the word “certain” was used far too much. In the worst case, NHC’s “…CERTAIN DEATH…” is going to lead to lead to more people discounting warnings.
Sep 13, 2008 - 3:43 pm 8. ubu roi:Frankly, I was rather glad to be wrong. Still, the prospect of weeks without electricity is its own disaster… all my plans for remaining online have failed except for a very limited connection. Can’t even access my own blog!
Sep 13, 2008 - 7:04 pm 9. notutopia:I am a past resident of Galveston Island who still has a bayhouse on Follett’s Island which is west of Galveston on the Brazoria county side of the San Luis Pass Bridge. Up until the last few hours of Ike’s entry into the coastline, I thought the storm surge was not going to be as bad on the west side of the cyclone. They were only partly correct. The structural damage was significant from the water surge and wind. I viewed a flyover coverage clip filmed during the search and rescue ops which aired via live stream this late afternoon by Fox.com. Other than a blurb here and there, the media coverage has all been focused on debris on the Seawall blvd. and Office windows being blown out in the highest buildings in Houston and major power outages. The flyover coverage was most helpful as its footage covered the heavier clustered areas of houses mostly on the beachfront starting from the Freeport/Quintana jetties, Surfside, up The Intracoastal waterway eastward, Drum bay, then over to the Chocolate Bayou refinery, Pereqin Condos, Treasure Island, and the San Luis Pass. This visual footage provided a virtual passenger ride for 10 minutes told me more than all the hours I have waited and watched Weather watches, Mainstream media reporters,surfed the web and listened to KTRH for the last 3 days! I still have NO idea if my bayfront house survived, but the water in Christmas Bay was up and over Bluewater Hwy.
Sep 13, 2008 - 8:58 pm 10. Ed:Bravo Fox Live Streaming!
So, models failed utterly for an event 12 hours away, but we are to accept hockey stick AGW theory, and then ignore tons of evidence of cooling to come.
I was actually hoping the NHS would be correct about “certain death” due to catastrophic storm surge. The hundreds that would have died would have been a great example/warning for future thousands who will now ignore the cryers of wolf.
Me? I think the NHS did their best and made a difficult decision under immense pressure. They really thought there was a wolf. But, now we have two duds in a row, despite immense hype.
Brendan, your posts were terrific in the lead up. Thank you.
Sep 13, 2008 - 11:43 pm 11. Keith:I think someone at the NWS should be fired for that “certain death” warning. Even within that warning, it also used the term “may” as in “may face certain death” which undercuts the whole notion of certain death. The models can’t be trusted; the press coverage can’t be trusted; the warnings can’t be trusted. No wonder no one evacuates.
Especially given all the hype in the media and from the weather crews themselves, it seems to me that the probability of the actual event being not as bad as the hype is at least 90% and maybe even 99%. Time after time I heard reporters in the rain breathlessly quoting the figures for the surge height, the wind speeds, the rain inches, etc. using almost exclusively the max end of the range. IIRC the forecasts were for the surge to be “15-20 feet” at Galveston, and with 12 feet they missed it by 20% on the low end, which isn’t terrible.
One of these days, the dire warnings will come again, shrill warnings of “certain death” will be raised, no one will evacuate and lots of people will die because of all the crying wolf. But at least those people doing the warnings will be able to sleep at night because they did warn people–just no one listened and that isn’t their fault, right?
Brendan, I’m addicted to your coverage! Keep up the great work.
Sep 14, 2008 - 3:28 pm 12. Retread:I agree the ‘certain death’ phrase was unfortunate if not unprofessional, but having been on Galveston island as a visitor a number of times I can’t understand the choice to stay. And it isn’t just the question of making it through the storm but how long one has to exist after without services. Until the power is restored the grocery stores can’t restock, the gas stations can’t pump gas, the restaurants can’t open, etc., nevermind the additional burden placed on police, firemen, National Guard, etc.
Sep 15, 2008 - 12:13 pm