Tracking Hurricane Ike: Sept. 11-14

Updates Below: Thursday evening, Sept. 11; Friday afternoon, Sept. 12; Saturday, Sept. 13; Sunday, Sept. 14

Tuesday evening my cousin Karen called me from Palacios, Texas, and we got to talking about Hurricane Ike, which had just cleared Cuba and was in the Gulf of Mexico. "Where is the hurricane headed?" I asked. "Straight toward my house!" she exclaimed, and she said that she would be evacuating inland to relatives in Austin or Lake Livingston.

Yesterday evening my mother, who lives in East Texas, called, worried about our son in Austin. "Does he want to evacuate to our house?" she asked, and she said that she would be willing to drive to Austin to get him, a trip of at least four hours one way, because Benton does not have any transportation beyond a bicycle. (He doesn't want a car yet, he says: he doesn't want to pay for gas, and he would rather get around Austin by bike and public transportation).

We consulted the National Weather Service again: a three-day forecast had Ike coming ashore at Port Lavaca--indeed, right over my cousin's house--and inland over Austin. My husband called our son to tell him of his grandmother's offer, but we advised him to stay in Austin unless circumstances suggested otherwise within the next twenty-four hours. We told him to stock up on water, food, and batteries, and to locate a place of safety if it looked as if the Austin-area would be buffeted by very fierce winds. That apartment complex he lives in looks mighty rickety to me.

About one o'clock this morning I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep, so I got on the Internet to check on the estimated track of Hurricane Ike. The path had changed again. The hurricane was expected to come on shore around Freeport (further north along the Texas coast; my cousin's house would be on the western, drier, side of the hurricane) and then track further east of Austin and closer to the Houston area as well as closer to my parents' house near Nacogdoches, Texas.

While I was on the computer, my son came online, so I sent him the newest information by g-chat.

Just a few years ago, this kind of instant information and communication would have been nearly impossible. When I was young and living on the Gulf Coast of Texas, we tracked hurricanes by geographical coordinates. Some grocery stores in our area printed on their paper grocery sacks maps of the Gulf Coast, with longitude and latitude lines. We would inevitably have one of these grocery sacks at hand when a hurricane was in the Gulf, and we would track the storm's progress by longitude and latitude on the map provided by a local grocer. I remember the excited thrill I would get as a kid as our little, penciled-in, hurricane symbols moved across the map, closer and closer to land.

I wonder how many people plot the tracks of hurricanes now, using longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates. Of course, today's young child can learn how to do so by following directions on a website. Here's one at "Enchanted Learning." The easiest method, of course, is to go to the professional charters at the National Weather Service."

What we haven't been able to change, however, is the unpredictability of hurricanes. I'll keep checking the National Weather Service throughout the day, thinking about my son and other relatives in or near the hurricane's projected path. And praying for their safety.

Update, 10:00 p.m.

There is still uncertainty as to where Hurricane Ike will make landfall, though the latest projected path has the hurricane coming ashore at Freeport and passing over Houston. If that path runs true, one of my sisters and her family as well as my brother and his family--in Chambers County-- will be on the east side of the hurricane, the most dangerous side. I talked with my sister Nancy this evening; she and her family are "hunkering down," as the mayor of Houston suggested many people do in the Houston area. They live on what was once my grandparents' land, which is just seventeen feet above sea level and not far from Old and Lost Rivers and Trinity Bay. My sister is thinking of moving the family to a local school if it seems that they might be cut off by rising water. A small river borders their land and is not far from their house.

In Hurricane Carla, a category 5 hurricane that became a category 4 as it made landfall near Port Lavaca, Texas, on September 11, 1961, water in the bay surged to 22 feet. Although I was just short of four years old at the time, I remember the water in the yard of my grandparents' house, where my sister lives now. One of my nephews is quadriplegic, which makes evacuating more difficult for the family. My sister and her family evacuated for Hurricane Rita and spent long hours on the highways; and they still did not reach their destination.

I also talked with my mother this evening. She, my father, and one of my nephews live near Nacogdoches, Texas. If the storm continues on its present projected course, they, too, will be on the east side of the eye of the hurricane.

Update II (Sept. 12, 12:55 p.m. ET): My sister Nancy and her family have evacuated their home in Chambers County, Texas, and are at my parents' house in Nacogdoches County. Hurricane Ike is expected to hammer East Texas, too, but at least my sister and her family won't be cut off by rising water. They left Chambers County at 8 a.m. and arrived just minutes ago at my parents' house (11:45 a.m. or so). This is a drive that usually takes about 2 1/2 to 3 hours, so they weren't on the road much longer than that.

My cousin Karen, who lives near Palacios, Texas, south of where the hurricane is expected to land near Galveston, is riding out the storm with a friend "in a concrete fortress of a house 30 feet above sea level," she says.

My brother and his family are also "sheltering in place," in Liberty County. And people who have evacuated the coast are filling up shelters in Central Texas where my son and my youngest sister's family lives. We've been receiving e-mails from other friends who have decided to hunker down near Houston. And what happens to these folks: prisoners on Galveston Island

Update III, Saturday, 13 September: My brother's family in Liberty County has been without electricity since 1 a.m. Central Time. When I called this morning (11:20 a.m., ET;10:20 a.m., CT), my sister-in-law said that they have lost some big pine trees and that they were still experiencing wind gusts of 60 miles per hour. A few minutes earlier, I called my parents' house in Nacogdoches County. My mother says they are without electrical power, they're under tornado watch alerts, and they are getting some wind from the hurricane. At this point, Hurricane Ike is about 36 miles from Lufkin, Texas. The hurricane seemed to follow the I-45 corridor north of Houston. We have friends hunkered down in The Woodlands and in Huntsville. Meanwhile, in Austin, my son says that the morning is sunny, with the area showing no obvious effects of the hurricane that's now traveling through East Texas.
1:49 p.m., Central Time (2:49 p.m., ET): My mother and sister report that they are fine in Nacogdoches County. They are without electricity but are keeping several appliances going with a generator. The high winds have blown down a pecan tree in one of my dad's pastures and split a pecan tree in another pasture. My sister, who evacuated Chambers County with her husband and one son, reports that her other son, who stayed in Chambers County, is now out in his boat surveying the damage. The old homeplace of my grandparents--where my sister lives--has suffered very little damage, and water is up only to the edge of the yard.
6:16 p.m., ET: Our friends in Huntsville have e-mailed to let us know that they are fine. Limbs of trees are down everywhere, and they may be without electricity for four weeks. Of course, they are hoping that the four weeks is a worst-case scenario that won't transpire!

Update IV, Sunday, Sept. 14: My mother just called ( 12:30 p.m., CT; 1:30 p.m., ET) from Nacodoches County, Texas. Electrical service has been restored to their home and probably to the area--much, much sooner than they had expected. Also, about an hour earlier, my cousin Karen called from Palacios, Texas. Her house on the coast hasn't received any damage. Her banana trees have been flung around, but they will recover. Although the path of Hurricane Ike was first projected to pass right near her house, at Port Lavaca, the hurricane went in farther north on the coast, at Galveston. So Palacios did not get any of the worst weather.
While my family escaped the worst of Hurricane Ike, many others did not. My thoughts and prayers go out to those people who continue to suffer from the devastation left behind by the hurricane.