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From : TheTornadoChaser
Added: Sep 18, 2008
**Category 2 Hurricane Ike** Chase Summery: Tyler Constantini, Mike Scantlin and I headed to Texas on the 12th of September to ride out Hurricane Ike and film as well as report on its furry as it hit the Galveston Bay and the surrounding Houston Metro. After assisting my Uncle and Aunt install their finnal hurricane shutters early in the morning, Tyler, Mike and I embarked down Interstate 45 towards the Johnson Space Center and arived th shortly after sundown at the Hilton across the street from the space center and near the coast of Clear Lake. By this time the surge was already rising, joining the lake and the nearby Galveston Bay into one large body of water. The hotel where we first started filming at is where Jim Cantore and the Weather Channel as well as MSNBC and NBC and a smaller hand full of local stations were broadcasting out live footage from their sat trucks. We were suprised to see that the surge, well over four hours before the eye would make landfall, was already spilling into the parking lot. On the side of the hotel facing the space center (away from the bay) you will notice that a large area of the Wall had been blown out by the storm. This WAS done by the storm according to the staff person I asked and the winds at the time of th film had YET to reach hurricane force and were just tropical storm force. The area of lost plaster was large enough to drive a full sized semi truck through. Later that night after we left Clear lake when we began to become worried that the surge would block us into the hotel's lot and that we would be come trapped and in fact we were right as this happened to the media crews here which at one point were ordered inside by the local police due to the life threatening conditions that hit there not too long after we had left. We evacuated back to the top of a 6 story parking garage in the Theater District where we watched as power lines arched and transformers blew. Remember, that isn't lightning... those are power flashes. Hurricanes have little to no lightning in them and you can tell they are power flashes by the eerie aqua or green color. Once the eye wall began to move on top of us we ventured out into the downtown area where we started to film the effects of the storms winds as they raced through the large towers that formed the city's skyline. As we passed between the towers the winds began to pick up more and more and we started to see more and more signs of windows being blown out until the inevitable happened and the vehicle was struck with a large piece of glass.... right next to my head! I yelped in horror due to how close it was to me. The camera's mic auto adjusted for the sound of the glass striking the car, turning down the mic's sensitivity for a brief moment. We quickly learned our lesson and headed back to the shelter of our parking garage where we waited out the rest of the storm down one level from the top. The following day we found it a bit troublesome trying to leave the downtown area due to the massive flooding going around it. That scene of us driving over the flood on the interstate was an area where the water had raised well over 15 feet and that WAS NOT storm surge... but rather was strictly freshwater flooding. Before we got on the freeway we were blown away (no pun intended) by just how damaging the hurricane was as just a Cat 2. The storm also gave me quite a surprise on the way home leaving power out around I-45 till we were 3/4ths of the way to Dallas from Houston and even in my home of NW Arkansas there was widespread tree damage and power outages due to Ike which was a tropical storm when it affected my home town. **Hurricane Ike was a CAT 2, Hurricane with winds at landfall blowing at 110mph and has been rated the 3rd Costliest tropical system to hit the US and the 4th costliest Disaster in the nation's historty. Hurricanes and tropical storms are exetremely dangrerous. DO NOT chase them unless you have had training and are not alone and are with an experianced expert. If you are in a mandatory evacuation area head the warnings and leave before it is too late. Please keep your prayers and thoughts with those affected by this system. All footage is copyrighted to Joseph Bart Comstock.** hurricane, tornado, severe weather, severe, weather, meteorology, bart, comsotck, bart comstock, flood, flooding, floods, surge, thunderstorms, tropical, cyclone, tropical cyclone, category 2, category 3, cat, nasa, texas, texas city, kemah, natural, disaster.
Category : News

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