Any Ike news? I have heard nothing from Galveston.
BTW, I was wondering if any of these reporters have ever been killed while providing their storm coverage. Anyone know of anyone? I find it amazing no one has ever been impaled by flying debris or swept off into the current.
For the record, while I think that sort of coverage is idiotic, my mother, for whatever reason, loves it. It honestly makes her day when one of the reporters gets knocked down by wind.
*** Update ***
Someone threw a link to this in the comments:
My mother called me yesterday, while on vacation (they are in DC and then off to visit my sister, spent some time at the WWII memorial and my mom spent a day at the Spy museum), to let me know that Geraldo had been knocked over.
cmh
I have a friend in Houston who texted me about 3 am pst saying that the power was finally out. The eye of the storm had just passed over him when I called about an hour later. He said the wind is about 40-50 miles per hour.
gil mann
Y’know why they’re calling this one Ike? Because it doesn’t want to lash your shoreline, baby, but you just make it so mad sometimes, the way you sass it!
Okay, so I’ve made light of natural disasters and domestic violence, and I just got up. Gonna be a constructive day.
Anonymous JIm
With regard to the idiotic hurricane coverage (which I am grateful for in this instance because I have family in the area), I blame Dan Rather.
Elroy's Lunch
In our house the wife and I play a game called “Where’s Jim (Cantore)?” Once we find his location we know to go somewhere else.
demimondian
Dan Rather saved a lot of lives that day…the simple graphic of the storm laid out on the Gulf brought home just how big Camille really was…
According to NOAA, Ike came onshore at about 2AM CDT (six hours ago, as I type), with a roughly 14 foot storm surge on Galveston Island. The surge has been less significant than was predicted, although the city will still have taken a monstrous pounding.
p.a.
I know at least one scientist died at Mt. St. Helen. Did any reporters?
Dennis - SGMM
Los Angeles suffered its own disaster Friday afternoon when a commuter train crashed head on into a freight train traveling in the opposite direction.
So far, the toll is seventeen dead and at least 135 injured.
Kate r
I like your mom. She must be as delighted by Geraldo as those local anchors. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZS92GpzAnY&feature=related
Dennis - SGMM
Reid Blackburn, a National Geographic photographer, was killed while covering the eruption.
Brett
I’ve been trying to find good coverage of it across the Internet. I’m slightly hampered by last night’s beer pong.
sublime33
Call it cosmic justice when Geraldo gets blown over.
Kate r
Someone in the comments? Someone?
That confirms it: I really, really like your mom. I hope she didn’t get you a shocking pen at that spy museum. My kid got one and it’s unpleasant. The “I Was Never Here” teeshirts are good though. And the hidden container car coffee mugs.
Zifnab25
I went off to Dallas, but I’ve got friends in the area telling me that power is out across the city. Lots of wind damage – blown out windows on tall buildings, downed trees, lots and lots of downed powerlines. There were a few fires, at least one on Westheimer, that went unattended. And the east side of the city that was a flood zone was, predictably, flooded.
That’s all I’ve got for now.
PeterJ
The just reported that the Queen of the Waves memorial is gone.
Martin
That’s cool, but did you know that John McCain was a POW?
gravie
Don’t you just know that the local firefighters and other first responders love having to take time away from their real work to keep assclowns like Geraldo from killing themselves?
Scott H
They would want their uplink trucks in the impact zones beforehand – they won’t be getting in afterwards – so, they might as well kill time with the storm show, and people watch. I don’t see them them taking too many chances. I saw Rick Sanchez do something fairly stupid, but I got to see Jim Cantore bail on his post (very sensibly it seemed to me).
South of I-10
I am far from the eye here in LA, but we are still having pretty gusty winds. Been text messaging back and forth with a friend in Lake Charles (70 miles west of me), she says she has no power/water. She says the flooding there is pretty bad, as bad or worse than Rita and they are still having high gusts of wind and a lot of rain. There are rescue operations underway south of me in Vermilion Parish for people who refused to evacuate.
shmo
This just in:
JenJen
Geraldo eating a wave. Classic! :-)
Interesting story below… is there anything they’re not lying about? From 8,000 to 23,000?
McCain-Palin Crowd-Size Estimates Not Backed by Officials
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=a1J0tfV3XJYs&refer=politics
yet another jeff
I like to call it “Weather Porn”.
Dennis - SGMM
McCain’s ads widely flagged for distorting Obama stances
“If you and the Obama campaign…” In other words, anyone who questions McCain’s lies is just working for Obama.
TxDeb
My son is in Houston and has been twittering about Ike at http://www.twitter.com/timtrice. He also has a website at http://www.personalhurricanecenter.com. He is definitely updating Twitter because he had orders that no matter what, he’d better keep Twittering or face the wrath of mom.
BTW, I’m not a fly-by-nighter who goes to websites plugging a site. I’ve been reading BJ for a long time, and my son has had his website for a long time. I wouldn’t be plugging it now except that he lives in Houston.
LiberalTarian
Yay. Ray made it.
God looks after drunks and fools.
Notorious P.A.T.
Haha )
iluvsummr
Watching the weather channel on Galveston (Jim Cantore reporting): the Queen of the Waves memorial is still there. There are people unaccounted for in the western part of Galveston which didn’t have a storm wall, but they’re hoping to find them all okay (amphibious vehicles sent in).
JenJen
Deep Thought: As Andrew Malcolm at LATimes suggests, maybe McCain’s fractured fingers (that never healed, apparently?) really do prevent him from using teh email.
But he sure as hell can wield a set of barbecue tongs.
Peter VE
I was watching Cantore about 10 PM on the Weather channel, and he was commenting on the idiocy of some other media who went right down to the sea wall to do their live shots. Switch over to Fox, and guess who that idiot is? Geraldo, of course. If G*d answered prayers, he would have been swept out to sea last night.
iluvsummr
He’ll have quite some stories to tell to the other 799 residents that left.
Even in the midst of chaos, new life:
At least one family had something to smile about!
Kali's Little Sister
I recently moved from the PacNW to the land of sun, non-political flip-flops, and hurricanes. We got our asses kicked by little ol Fay a few weeks back and that wasn’t even a hurricane.
Even watching teevee guys get knocked around did not make the reality clear to me before. You see them a day or two later cleaned up and dry in some studio. We’ve all moved on. Let’s just say I have a whole new appreciation for what those folks are facing and what they will continue to go through in the days and weeks ahead.
flywheelgrinding
Oh my god, I feel the sanity creeping back into my body when I come here.
Back in 1952, when America seemed to be a sea of “I Like Ike” buttons, my big brother (RIP) took a big lid off a jar, fashioned a wire so that it could be pinned on his shirt, painted it gold, and hand lettered the words “I Don’t Like Ike” on it. I’m wearing it now.
Thank you John for the link to live news from KHOU in Houston that you offered in one of your earlier posts.
I have a friend who lives in Galveston. He left and went to Conroe to stay with relatives, but got whacked by IKE with that hard right hook. His wife works at UTMB in critical care so she always stays.
The saddest news is that The Balinese Room is gone, washed away forever. (Sobs, wails, gnashes his teeth.) That is the legendary illegal casino that was on a pier back in the day. The casino was all the way at the end of the pier, so when the cops would show up to bust the place, the band would strike up “The Eyes of Texas” and the casino guys would flip the tables upside down. Frank and the Rat Pack played there, Bob Hope, George Burns, Harry James. A legend. Gone. I am fucking sad as hell.
Why the hell not. I have decided that I am a famous author, a record setting pilot, a deep sea diver, and I climbed Mt. Everest. Oh, I forgot that I was a movie star back in the 30’s and 40’s, too, but I’m still only 30. If anybody doubts me, well, then that is just a matter of interpretation. You must be biased against me.
Charity
Penn State is completely DOMINATING Syracuse. 35-zip!!!
SAB
Re: reporters at risk. Don’t you remember when MSNBC, unhappy with Ashleigh Banfield’s comments about the compliant press in the run-up to the Iraq war, sent her Bermuda to cover a major hurricane that was supposed to destroy Bermuda. When it didn’t, and she survived, they had to fire her.
Sister Axe of Courteous Non-Dualism
I’m sorry, call me callous, but the 40% who refused to leave Galveston drive me nuts. They choose to live below sea-level, then refuse to leave when told, then have the gall to call 911 and expect rescuers to risk their lives… at this time thankfully, the death toll is “only 2.” As it is, I pray for everyone effected by Ike, including those who chose to “ride it out.” If nothing else, I hope their children and pets are safe.
Jackie
Sorry, that was me above, I forgot we had a “name searching” game a few wks back.