Straight as a Texas telephone pole

Hello all. Just two pictures for this blog, more to come later, just want to talk straight (frankly) for a bit. I finally saw part of the west end. Lots of damage there as well as the east end. Make no mistake, this was a very devastating storm. I would not be suprised and I don't think that it is far off to say that a huge amount needs to be rebuilt. Buildings east to west. Infrastructure of water supply and sewers in some places.

The reason to not let people on gets clearer and clearer. The dead cows (still there) sitting in the bay. The bay smelling like hydrocarbons (gas and oil) poured on top of rotting fish (and soon to be exploding cows - there are several betting pools going on among the different resource pools). The puddles and ground has Vibrio (but it may be going away - but watch out for backflooding from sewers and don't drink the water until cleared to do so). Plenty of kindling material and little water to dump on the hot stuff when it happens (fire). No traffic lites in many places.

I understand you want to come back. I want you all back. The time will come. Please understand also that attitude is everything. If you are lucky enough either to have minimal damage or are able to fix up your abode, help your neighbor. Remember, you are not alone and someday you will need the help.

Telephone poles being held up by their wires, not telephone poles holding up their wires.

The two cows are still there. The black one is by the bow of the ship. The brown bull is midship. The entire debris field smells of gas and rot.

Field Promotion

In times like this you have to take the good in whatever small pieces you can. I had the pleasure to be a fly on the wall for the promotion of one of the Army National Guardsmen that had not one but two promotions "waiting." A note to the DOD - they know that for this "Field Promotion" there were improvised uniforms.

Oklahoma Army National Guard and its new PFC. They are serving to provide communications to the patient operations - network, voice, and radio.

The NCO's

I was personally able to shake hands with the new Private First Class.

Local Area Spots

Hello All! Below are some pictures of a few local spots. I want everyone to play a game - of all of the pictures of different things that you see, remember the top few things that need to stay as is, whether it is an "unintentionally dry-docked boat" or a particular arrangement of cars or what, but what should remain as a monument. I personally so far vote for the fishing troller "parked" perfectly in front of Willie G's, the small boat on Broadway, and the fishing boat on harborside. Pics to follow.

Fishing boat "parked" in front of Willie G's

I think that they will have to add a second movie of our 100-year storm.

Mod took on water

Mod's new study room did not fare well

You Gotta Have Art got stacked

Despite the high sidewalks buildings still had several feet of water on the Strand.

Some other damage around the area

Please remember that this storm hit our whole area. Many of the popular sites have been devastated. Please don't go to these links if you are feeling down. Remember, that when all is said and done, you are not alone. We are all here together, we will all make it whole again.
Kemah Boardwalk and area
Galveston and Bolivar Peninsula
Houston Area

Harketh, do I see the light? -or- Was that a shot I heard ring out?

Tonight, I snuck around to show one of the medical staffers currently present some of Galveston and we noticed something. I'll show you in a bit.
First, at about 2pm today there was a shot that rang out on Harborside. Did someone drop something big? Nope. Turns out that somehow in trying to get the electricity to UTMB, some lines were energized but fortunately the breakers on the lines activated, stopping the lines that are low and touching things or on the ground or that a linesman is holding from energizing. Unfortunately, storm recovery occasionally is marred by the injury or death of power linesman. I wish them all well (my travels took me by some from Georgia) and thank you for working hard to re-energize the island.

Several power company trucks from Georgia working late on the power lines. Note the streetlights.

Chili's and other buildings are illuminated.

A closer image.

What are all of the lit dots? The left 3 red ones are red lights in front of Walgreens and the right one is the moonrise.

The stoplights and streetlights are energized on 6th.

WARNING - Dirty Shower Scene!!!

Hello, world! Well, today was a red letter day. As you may be able to tell, I found the showers after 164 hours of ripening. Was a good shower. Just showered until the water was clean coming off of me. Felt pretty good. Was pretty amazing all of the activity that was going on in the area of Ball High School with all of the state and federal agencies parking there. First is finally finding the showers, second is a view of the shower facilities, and third is a dirty shower scene ;^).

Structural fires

Came upon the scenes below that were still smoldering. I know that fires can smolder for a while and given that they are near Ball High (I am sorry if you recognize this and you did not know before) they probably may not have necessarily happened recently. None the less they are devastating to their owners / dwellers and I am sorry. You are not alone (aren't those lyrics in a Michael Buble song?), we are all here together, all around the area. Albeit the area may be the USA, but we are all here.
This video shows the area of the houses This shows the smoke from the burned buildings.
Note the water from the broken pipes - We may be getting water pressure back.

We're being invaded?

Today the Navy landed a support team on the beach by 4th street. Using landing craft they came in from their ship, a floating hospital, the USS Nassau. They are helping to support the medical mission. Please make no mistake, though. They are not a "hospital" ready to take on the complete needs of a the complex community tertiary care that we are as UTMB. Make no mistake. When they open the island to those who have property here, make no mistake about it, the hospital will not be fully open. Noone will be able to be an inpatient here for a while. Even though there is electricity to UTMB, each electrical system of every building has to be inspected for damage. There is no water yet, but there is a shower trailer here, yay!

Naval personnel set up lights at sunset.

A lark and a bulldozer await their roles. (Personally, the lark looks like a modern version of the vessels used for the Duck Tours, a duk)

A non-insignificant bulldozer

Sigh, such a nice sunset.

Temporary Navy base of operations

A monsterous 6 wheeler.

Some problems you can't necessarily plan for

Hello everyone out there! Please make an effort to take a look at an interesting blog that I follow from Angela Gardner, MD - gardnersgate.blogspot.com.

To perhaps add to some of the health issues that she speaks of I have a few questions. Who deals with water problems usually? Well you might say Coast Guard, maybe EPA or TCEQ here in Texas. Who deals with livestock - perhaps Wildlife or FDA, right? Well, what about dead floating cows in the bay in front of the hospital? I think this problem will be solved tomorrow, but until it is solved, it isn't. The area only smells like rotting fish, not cow yet. Please see below for the shots of the cow and the bull.

Under the word PILOT, floating in the water is a cow who was a few miles short of jumping over the moon.

The brown near the rocks is a bull. There were reports of a third somewhere there that I was not able to visualize.

Dwellings

Below I am going to put some travels thru the East end that I have done. I will try to go a little farther and wider today. There were some reports of fires but I am not sure where people have gotten news of that.
On a personal note, the new cafeteria is now open in the center parking lot (1 kitchen tent and two A/C's tents I believe) for employees and UTMB related contractors. Today's goals : shaved (already done) shower (after lunch in the new tent), Insurance calls, and getting more multimedia experience of the island. If you are an employee, regular email is back (never realized all of the spam that is filtered out), can be accessed on the web. Go to the home page for official updates.
For Galveston, www.galveston.com is putting out some update links to news stories and also links for FEMA relief and finding lost family and friends.
Thanks for watching this blog.

The real source of the fire - are you commenting (about the blog in general or your current experience)?

The fire was a gray black belch of smoke from plastic / fiberglass / resin boats. This fire because of its dense smoke made several news agencies guess that UTMB was on fire. When it began, Galveston Fire looked at it and the rising waters made it impossible to fight. Two blackhawks surveiled by air after this but with the winds gaining speed left the area to safety. Life over property.

Some more pix - Don't forget to please comment!!!

So we were able to get some time to noodle around with help from the DMAT teams getting patient care taken care of. So, here goes... Large amounts of water require larger pieces of equiptment. Pumping out the first floor and other below grade volumes. Parking lot drains clogged, making the first floor a pool of water pumped out two days later (just pumped out on tuesday). This is a scene repeated all over - usually it is the poles that hold up the wires. Forceful acts of nature often create seemingly random effects. Here a large potted plant is placed almost perfectly in the middle of the intersection.

3 injured in structural fire overnight

This is why folks need to stay away / evacuate off premises of the island. I am sorry if I offend or are pushing this card too much, but just think Is it worth it? I am now alive, and it is only a stuff issue. Don't turn it into a threat to your health or life. No water, no sewer, no electricity is fun camping in the forest, but not in potentially dangerous houses with nothing much to deal with them. Please think twice before being ill prepared, especially this early in the game.


These pictures are from the time of the storm and as it was leaving / left. You may walk your halls at work on a daily basis, and say you can do it blindfolded, but could you really? How about if the power goes out and the newly waxed floors in the place with no power (no A/C) is constantly with condensation forming?

The water is receding some - was at the top step.

Alas, a bunch of water in the neighborhood still was there even after the winds died away. Just at it came before the wind it took 2 days to (mostly) drain.

A beautiful old live oak pulled the sidewalk up with it.

Note the double water mark denoting the high mark and then a lower persistant level. This is under a porch. My porch.

Tiger threat neutralized; L&L suspended

Hello All Out There!!! Wish it was a regular ol' day I am sure. This is the weather that we all wait for. Cool, low humidity, nice breeze. Great sunsets and moonrises.
Had a report that the Tiger threat on the west end was taken care of, not sure how (trapped or otherwise). As of 5:30 pm Look and Leave was suspended, not sure what it will be in the AM.
Was out today, watching the progress, will put pix and vids up later. Let out a cat. Tried to get two others but someone beat me to it to rescue them. Looked inside a friends house with only 1 foot of water, ate his cookies (Wow, they tasted great after several days of not having that type of stuff).
Went to my house. Sludge in ground floor and garage stuff mostly flipped upside down. Kinda sad, but makes reducing easier. Got new underware and some more shirts.
One of my friends came by and was happy to take care of my (relatively) recently pampered pooch because he and his wife are fond of dogs. Oh yeah, he has power, water and A/C (we had A/C).
Unfortunately no shower yet but will probably get showers here tomorrow (we have about 17 portajons spread around campus). I did the "european" bath and put on some decent smelling mosquito repellent.

They are cleaning up the streets

They have moved in with some heavier equiptment and are cutting fallen trees and pushing stuff to the side. Still waiting for porta-potties at the hospital. Gonna go take care of some cats and birds and my place today (ground level was flooded).
I think that some of the thick soup left is a modern version of the primordial soup which gave rise to life. Just a bit more toxic. Have seen a few folks develop more nasty infections from small pricks in just 24 hours.
I am very proud to be part of this country and this recovery effort. I am thankful to all from the Coast Guard helicopter pilots and crews and other military pilots and crews who flew in the 50-70 mph winds to all those here today. I am thankful for all of the other ground support from the military and DMAT medical support and the SETRAC transport support. I am thankful to all who support this university operations and this city's operations. Please tell your loved ones who may be on this island that if they are staying, they are making a foolish mistake. Go, relax for a bit and you will be let back on. Stuff is stuff. If you stay and get very sick you will be going. No one is telling anyone to leave and never come back. We just want to let the folks supporting the recovery effort work on that and not worrying about John Q Public. It will allow it to proceed quicker. I live here and want to be back in full swing quick also.

Just to clarify - UTMB was never on fire. This proved to be an interesting issue (I can say interesting because the issue has come and gone). The acrid smoke only increased in volume and then came straight at UTMB. I had a sore throat for a few hours (yes, I was a dummy and was out in it some - helped move a locked motorcycle up to higher ground). The smell permeated the ED and went into the rest of the building. The ED was moved for a while, but then returned.

Here cAme the flood

The above shows where the water came from on the north end of the island (it is called Harborside Drive or Port Industrial). This is still BEFORE he hit. The road was flooded from 12th street to ???

Pix of before on the 12th

In this series of 3 photos, note how the waves not only are splashing high after slapping the seawall, but how they sort of roll down the seawall. The streets decrease in number as you go from background to foreground.

Shot #2

Shot #3

Note the potato head holding onto the sign. These waves are hard to predict as to which ones are going to be 1 foot splash versus 30 foot soakings. It is not hard to imagine someone being swept away (this person was fine, just wet afterwards).

The lion is dead and the tiger is around somewhere

This is not code for anything. This is not unusual for the folks on this island. I know that this must at least a bit self-apply, but who lives on an island in the Gulf of Mexico more than 1 mile off of the mainland shore? Someone had some "Exotic pets" and supposedly the lion was dealt with but they are trying to find the tiger.
Today I am going to have a wet dream - and all of you dirty folks (note that I said folks, not minds) know what I mean - a shower! Woo Hoo!!!
Help is slowly coming. One note about the toxic soup. The stuff is in the sludge, which is drying on the street some. Only some puddles remain on the east end (not sure about west). There won't be electricity and water for a while. Please heed the Mayor's warning and make plans for at least 3 to 4 weeks. Stuff is Stuff. Remember that the most important things are not things.
More pics coming.
Remember that no matter where you are, no matter what is going on, you are not alone.

First One, a bit late

Hello all! A warm welcome to my new site and thank you for reading about Galveston, post-Ike. Let me tell you that I will tell you more in the coming days and show you more pics and vids of the island.
Let me reassure you also that there are not piles of dead that are being hidden anywhere. I have heard from many off of the island that the relative news blackout (also fed by a few news agencies suggesting that this is the truth) is because of the extreme destruction. Was it bad? Yes. Was it 1900 bad? No Way. Are there some dead so far? Yes, and there will be more found. Some poor souls may never be found. The news agencies are being kept out intially because they serve no purpose. There are news trucks on the island that weathered the storm already. Anyone else coming needs to be either first responders, or critical employees of the city or of UTMB. There is no water, no electricity, probably no effective sewer drainage.
There is no food, no gas. If you live on the island, give it at least 2 weeks to get back. There is no medical care - anything of consequence will be shipped off the island as the hospital has only minimal functions. There are no pharmacies open.
There are plenty of people walking around (alive, unlike the implications by the news agencies). There are plenty of boats in the wrong places (on Harborside, near the ED, on Broadway, on the Causeway).
I am going to sleep now. We are here. We appreciate all of the federal teams that have come in to support the operations (military, DMAT, state and private agencies) and are helping them where we can.

These pictures are from before the storm! The water was already backing up (the surge) before we felt any wind of consequence.

The little fella crossed Harborside drive and was walking to the emergency department (didn't like what was going on - the storm coming).

The ED had closed all hurrcane blinds except for one door.

A ground level parking lot is empty.