by Deb Cupples | Bloomberg reports:
"Hurricane Ike plowed into Texas yesterday, driving the Gulf of Mexico's waters into Galveston Island, blowing out office-building windows and cutting power to at least 4.5 million people in the Houston area.
"The storm flooded homes, shut oil refineries and scattered 2.3 million people in two states who fled before its fury arrived. Winds blew pine trees sideways in Houston, the nation's fourth-biggest city, where electrical transformers sparked and residents waited out the hurricane in their homes under a citywide curfew....
"The storm surge in Galveston, predicted to be as high as 25 feet (7.6 meters), may have peaked at only 12.5 feet, according to a National Weather Service tidal gauge."
The storm surge was only 12.5 feet, says Bloomberg? Is that all?
I mean, what sort of damage could a 12.5-feet surge do? Let's see. It could conceivably drown countless people and pets as it floods every street (and house) in its path. The mere 12.5-feet surge, no doubt, totaled any cars that dared get in its way, too.
Frankly, I don't know why anyone would breathe a sigh of relief over Ike's impact.
The winds reportedly did major damage. Office-building windows were blown out. More than 90% of two power companies' customers are without electricity (and waste water services). Though, some areas of downtown Houston (the ones with underground power lines) have electricity.
Yesterday afternoon, the Houston Chronicle reported that helicopters weren't being allowed to fly over and survey/photograph the damage. Thus, some power companies hadn't discerned whether outages were caused by towers that had crumbled or trees that had fallen on power lines.
If the former, it could be weeks before power is restored to some areas.
Then there's the drinking-water problem: Houston's mayor is urging people to drink bottled water, because officials don't know whether flooding had tainted the water supply. One obstacle: stores are closed (due to power outages), so getting bottled water could be difficult.
And if wreckage is strewn about the streets, getting bottled water into stores will be difficult even after the power comes back on.
We non-Texans won't fully experience the pain of Ike's victims. But we will feel some effects, as the closing of refineries have provided our nation's oil companies with another reason to raise gas prices -- not that they ever really need a good reason.
Memeorandum has commentary.
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