Hurricanes Hannah and Ike

[DNall]

Looks like the eye is slated to pass over my house at this point, or point west toward corpus (which is worse for us. We're expecting mid-cat 3. WG is spun up. Aircraft are moving to Tyler & Denton as of yesterday/today. We're projected to get hurricane force winds literally all 24hrs of Sat. Storm surge will be 8ft in southern & SW Harris county (which is houston & is inland a county of Galveston County). We're going to have significant flooding from rain alone, plus the surge. Power is going to be down at least a week up to 2-3 for some places (including mine).

It's looking like it's going to be one hell of a mess. And, this is a wide storm, so we'll have a large impact area. We expect quite a lot of mission coming out the back side. If you're in the group of folks who might roll to something like this, I would certainly make sure you're packed. Anybody want to come crash at my place for a couple weeks?

Guess I'm not repelling out of helicopters next week. 

[Larry Mangum]

Dnall where is your house,  my family is located mostly in Brazoria and Matagorda counties. My sister lives about a mile off the beach in Sargeant, TX.  She was planning on evacuating to Bay City as of last night, but now county officals are calling for the whole county to evacuate.

[cnitas]

I used to live in Lake Jackson and ridden out Hurricanes in the past, but I hear now there is mandatory evac of Brazoria county... 

Be safe everyone.

[Larry Mangum]

I know both Matagorda and Brazoria counties have a mandatory evacuation in effect. Galveston also has a mandatory evacuation in affect for the whole island.  I grew up in Bay City.

[JoeTomasone]

Be safe.  The rest of us have you in our thougts.

[DNall]

I've ridden out a lot of hurricanes & tropical storms. Been thru two eyes. Normally, I'm not very easily excited about this kind of thing. I'm usually off buying beer by this point. I've seen enough of these to know pretty well when we're not really going to take a hard hit & avoid running off silly for what's essentially just a big rain storm. This is a pretty large (size) storm that's going to catch us pretty good though. I'm not worried, but we're gonna catch some work.

I'm in SW Fort Bend County, which is to the SW of Houston/Harris County, we are the northern border of Brazoria. Bay City is a little under an hour drive (not straight line), same thru Houston to the sea wall on Galveston.

We got a new flight we've been supporting off my Sq down in Bay City for about a year now. We're keeping an eye on those folks.

If it keeps coming as currently projected... We're going to get very serious winds here for a long time. Galveston, low-lying Brazoria, SE Houston (pasadena/dickinson/NASA), port of houston, TX City refineries, etc will all get rocked pretty hard. A bunch of that will be inundated with the surge effects to some degree. Then there's the rain.

I don't know if you're too familiar with Houston, but we're pretty close to sea-level here & we got a long flat grade off to the cont-shelf, so storm surge it a bad deal. Galveston Island is the only thing that keeps it from being 15ft in downtown. A lot of low lying areas south & both E/W of town take a hit though. Also, we got pretty bad storm drainage, just based on the level of sprawled urbanization (no where for it to soak in) and our low elevation. Most of our freeway underpasses will hold water in a good rainstorm. With flood events in the past we've had 10-15 ft of water pooled in many of those bowls, sometimes with occupied cars under there once it dries out.

I think I covered CAP response up above....
We have an outstanding relationship with the state. The Gov personally sees our SDIS pics on a very regular basis, both training & real. Our Wg/CV is stationed in the state JOC. We'll be flying state & FEMA photo missions as soon as the winds clear. We got GA8s on line also.

This won't be as bad as Katrina, but I can guarantee with this impact area & our developed relationships/capabilities that we're going to have a lot more mission, both quantity & meaningful. We're going to be doing a significant amount of flying & I anticipate a very serious amount of GT work, plus there'll be shelters & CERT kind of stuff drawing off our personnel. We can slam into high-tempo ops pretty quick (we hope), but sustaining past a week or two will be a challenge. At this point I'm concerned the op may go that long. It's also kind of hard to state that sustainment timeframe too, cause you really don't know what personnel you have till after you take the hit.

[Major Carrales]

I've ridden out a lot of hurricanes & tropical storms. Been thru two eyes. Normally, I'm not very easily excited about this kind of thing. I'm usually off buying beer by this point. I've seen enough of these to know pretty well when we're not really going to take a hard hit & avoid running off silly for what's essentially just a big rain storm. This is a pretty large (size) storm that's going to catch us pretty good though. I'm not worried, but we're gonna catch some work.

Try being a RED CROSS SHELTER MANAGER sometime.  In 1999 I did so for Hurricane Bret.  That would have made me 22 year old at the time.  Since then I take these things very seriously.  Don't be so lack in thinking "you cannot be affected."  it is apathy that causes deaths in these cases.

I mean, really, I can see some newspaper quoting your "I'm usually off buying beer by this point" in the shades of the "Steve Fosset" comments from Lt-Col Cynthia Ryan.

Really...to continue a theme from another thread...y'all need to monitor more the subjects and phrases of y'all's posts. 

[Larry Mangum]

Most of my family has now taken shelter in Richmond, TX at my oldest sisters house.

[JoeTomasone]

Anyone outside of TX/LA Wing been put on alert yet?  I would have thought that we'd hear something given the threat to LA, but nothing thus far.

[stratoflyer]

Check out the article.

http://www.aopa.org/flightplanning/articles/2008/080909cap.html

[DNall]

Most of my family has now taken shelter in Richmond, TX at my oldest sisters house.

That's next door. PM me & I'll give you my number in case you have any trouble getting hold of them after it passes.

[DNall]

I've ridden out a lot of hurricanes & tropical storms. Been thru two eyes. Normally, I'm not very easily excited about this kind of thing. I'm usually off buying beer by this point. I've seen enough of these to know pretty well when we're not really going to take a hard hit & avoid running off silly for what's essentially just a big rain storm. This is a pretty large (size) storm that's going to catch us pretty good though. I'm not worried, but we're gonna catch some work.

Try being a RED CROSS SHELTER MANAGER sometime.  In 1999 I did so for Hurricane Bret.  That would have made me 22 year old at the time.  Since then I take these things very seriously.  Don't be so lack in thinking "you cannot be affected."  it is apathy that causes deaths in these cases.

I mean, really, I can see some newspaper quoting your "I'm usually off buying beer by this point" in the shades of the "Steve Fosset" comments from Lt-Col Cynthia Ryan.

Really...to continue a theme from another thread...y'all need to monitor more the subjects and phrases of y'all's posts. 

Yeah, uh, okay. If I'm not getting hit then I don't stress out about it. We got shelter in place orders. Place it nailed down. Once you've prepared there's nothing to do but enjoy the show. You can cower in fear or keep a positive attitude.

This is a situation that is going to impact my area pretty good. Not as bad today as I thought it would be yesterday. We were anticipating 3.5 versus high 2-low 3. But, it's still going to be significant based on our geography. We'll certainly respond and do our job. I won't be a shelter manager, just like I won't be a FLS or CERT or toss sandbags if I can at all avoid it. I might do some GT in a pinch, but probably more GBD & knock out the rest of my training to IC3. If it doesn't impact us in a big way & other people got it under control, and if my guard unit doesn't need my backup team, then I'll go ahead to Air Assault on Sunday night. Life goes on & I trust the org to do it's job in most cases w/o my help.

[DNall]

1845 local

Currently tracking Sq assets & mbr safety. Everyone's set to ride out. Mandatory evacs are at destinations. All mandatory report after storm conditions pass.

In contact Wg/ICP staff. Coordinating requests from Ft Bend & Brazoria counties. Have CERT personnel on standby to support EOC ops. That'll involve MSA/MRO duties. They are aware of CAP's additional capabilities. I will be moving to EOC after the storm to begin liaising btwn them and ICP, which is currently located at Brooks City Base/San Antonio. Waiting auth to proceed, should be forthcoming.

We expect primary impacted area east of Houston, with most of Chamers county going under water. Galveston is already getting rocked as well. We got well into trop storm force winds here for the last several hours. Expect 100mph gusts at min to sustained possible by tonight & going for quite a while. We'll have mostly wind damage & some flooding here. Prob power loss that will be down for at least a few days to a week or more.

I'll try to keep you updated much as I can.

[JoeTomasone]

I'll try to keep you updated much as I can.

We'll be here.   Be safe. 

[DNall]

not raining here yet, just started in Galveston via the news. getting close to hurricane force gusts. Should be 100mph by tonight. Under curfew since 7pm ($500 fine here, 2k in galveston). Still got power, for now. See how long that lasts.

I'll be at the county EOC in the morning. We should be tasking a couple photo flights for them routed thru the SOC for funding. Same for Brazoria. Otherwise we'll be running ELTs in the two counties and CERT backing up the EOC staff at FT Bend to start, we'll see about Brazoria later. Don't know about comm support yet, but probably.

I got an aircard & backup bats for the laptop, plus power at EOC, so if cell service holds or I can plug in over there, I'll try to keep running updates much as I can. Don't think it'll be too bad here, we'll see to the East.

[Major Carrales]

not raining here yet, just started in Galveston via the news. getting close to hurricane force gusts. Should be 100mph by tonight. Under curfew since 7pm ($500 fine here, 2k in galveston). Still got power, for now. See how long that lasts.

I'll be at the county EOC in the morning. We should be tasking a couple photo flights for them routed thru the SOC for funding. Same for Brazoria. Otherwise we'll be running ELTs in the two counties and CERT backing up the EOC staff at FT Bend to start, we'll see about Brazoria later. Don't know about comm support yet, but probably.

I got an aircard & backup bats for the laptop, plus power at EOC, so if cell service holds or I can plug in over there, I'll try to keep running updates much as I can. Don't think it'll be too bad here, we'll see to the East.

Now that's the kind of posts I like to read from you.  Stay safe and keep us posted.

We are in the process of gathering a van full of aircrews for "afterwards" to head to SA for use depending on the IC's orders.

[DNall]

I understand ICP moving to GpIV after storm. Prob DWH (hooks), but no word yet. We may run out of ellington is the primary effects are east of town. We'll see.

[Laplace]

Good Luck guys!  Looks like its going to be a rough night.   Hope to see posts in morning.

[DNall]

0245 -- Freakin window about to blow out of the frame over my head, so thought I'd commute to the couch. Hurricane force right now, for a while now just judging by my window, but I might be biased on that one. Not much rain. Usually a lot more in tropical storms, but whole ton of wind. Power's still good, flickered a bit earlier, but that's it. Even the sat dish is still working & it on the windy side. Might lose a window or two, but wanted to replace them anyway.

Again, headed to Ft Bend EOC in the morning to brief CAP capabilities, standby to support ICP move back to the group, and liaise till then at EOC.

[IceNine]

Grab your favorite blankey, and hunker down.  I hear thumb sucking helps calm fears.   

I all seriousness I get nervous enough with the threat of tornado's I can't imagine the waves of crap y'all have to endure.

Good Luck!

And Sell CAP well I'd like to leave my Illinois Sanctuary to come down and assist!