Safely In the Hospital

Got to the hospital this morning about 6:00am. There were not many cars on the road, but a pretty steady flow of traffic heading north on I-45 from closer to Galveston. The gas stations and fast food places that are usually open that time of morning were closed, but lots of lights were on so it didn’t seem too strange. Businesses and houses are intermittently boarded up, some looking like they were done by professionals and others with sheets of plywood slapped up haphazardly covering parts of windows and doors but leaving other parts exposed. The real serious businesses have the roll down metal storm shutters fastened tight against whatever Ike is bringing us.

Woke up this morning to news media saying the National Hurricane Center had issued a warning for residents of Galveston Island to evacuate or face, and I’m quoting here, “certain death”! Wow. I guess if you combine a 16 foot high sea wall with 20 foot storm surges (and 10-15 foot waves on top of the surge) you get “certain death”. Their big problem – as is ours frankly – is Galveston Bay, which sits between Galveston Island and the Clear Lake area.



If you look at all the little cities that surround Galveston Bay, you will get a pretty good idea which areas were under a mandatory evacuation. They are saying that a 16-20 foot storm surge could push into the bay, which will cause major flooding all around our area, but also will push up the backside of Galveston and meet the storm surge coming in from the seawall side. That’s roughly what happened in 1900, which cause such massive loss of life and property.

On the map above, the little “A” marker is where the hospital is located. We are at 29 feet above sea level, which makes us one of the highest spots in the Clear Lake area. In fact, several of the local governmental agencies have requested use of our parking lot to park their vehicles since we are at such an attractive elevation compared to our surroundings. Our house is roughly where the “a” is in the word “League City”. Are biggest risk is from wind damage, but since our house is only a few years old, it was built under pretty strict requirements to withstand such a thing. I can remember the inspector pointing out some of those things to me, like extra stabilizing bars on the garage door, and special sealant around the edge of the roof shingles. We’ll see.

It was only a little breezy when I got to the hospital, with the palm trees rustling but not give any clues that were a few hours away from 50 miles an hour winds, and less than a day away from 100 mph winds. We got down to 143 patients as of midnight, with staff and family in the hospital until Saturday morning. I’ll keep you posted.