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Early this morning Hurricane Ike reached us in The Woodlands where we were “hunkered down” in the Drury Inn Hotel along with what seemed like half of Galveston. Last night an 8pm curfew saw everyone locked in (presumably hoping there wouldn’t be a fire) until 10am today.
At 5am we lost power so it was just a case of sitting it out, watching the wind and rain batter the trees and signs outside and waiting for it to pass.
By 12 today we were ready to leave the hotel and travel to our new home, which we had planned to move into today, but now we didn’t know if it would still be in one piece when we got there.
Generally speaking, in this part of the greater Houston area, things weren’t too bad (It’s all relative - Galveston was basically underwater at this point). You just need to find a way around the trees:
And then after a bit of clearing up (well 10 30 gallon rubbish bags and several hours later) all you’re left with is a large tree to move:
Thankfully it fell the way it did, and our neighbour didn’t complain!
The big problem though - no electricity. Us and approximately 1,999,999 other customers in the Houston area. This is from CenterPoint Energy’s website update today:
“Patience will continue to be a key factor. Customers need to be prepared to be without power for up to four weeks and possibly longer depending on the severity of the damage. Customers need to keep in mind that CenterPoint Energy crews will have limited access to some areas due to flooding and debris.”
And today’s title is a line from Bob Dylan’s 1975 single “Hurricane” which was of course nothing to do with wind but instead about boxing and civil rights (Dylan wrote it after reading the autobiography of Rubin Carter, a middleweight fighter who was charged, falsely in his view, with a triple murder in New Jersey in 1966). Thanks to RM-B for the suggestion...
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We first mentioned Hurricane Ike on 1st September when it was so far off no-one knew what would happen. At that time everyone was focused on Hurricane Gustav.
Well Gustav is long gone and Ike is now in the Gulf of Mexico. Actually it pretty much fills the Gulf of Mexico, as you can see below:
Yesterday the path was predicted to be as shown here:
So the eye of the storm to the west of Houston.
This morning, the forecast path has changed:
Now the eye of the storm is to the east of Houston and its still changing. However, because of its size it means there will be some impact here (such as 12 inches of rain), even 80 miles from the coast.
Ike’s eye is expected in or around Galveston early tomorrow (Saturday) morning. The effects are already being felt there.
Galveston is the location of the deadliest natural disaster in US history. A storm in September 1900 claimed between 8,000 and 12,000 lives. This event happened long before engineer Herbert Saffir and his metrologist friend Bob Simpson defined the Saffir-Simpson scale to categorise the strength of storms (Category 1 to 5 with 5 as the strongest with winds of greater than 155mph). Had the scale been in existence then it would have cateorised the 1900 storm as Category 4 (winds greater than 131mph).
A monument to those who died is on the sea front, right in front of the sea wall:
This sea wall is 17ft high and was built after the 1900 storm. Since then waves have caused damage to parts of the road on the other side of the wall but storm surge (where the sea level rises because of a storm) has never gone higher. Unfortunately, even now (12 or so hours before landfall) the storm is giving it a hard time. The pier is about to disappear underwater so who knows what it will be like in a few hours.
There has been a mandatory evacuation for Galveston and other parts of the Texas Gulf coast for the past day or so. This has affected around 1 million people so far.
This seems to be mostly complete now, given that the traffic on the interstate here was jammed all day and now its clear.
Schools and businesses are closed today to ensure evacuation routes are kept clear just in case more evacuations are required. So not a good time to try and move into a new house (or try and arrange gas and electricity supply, get your children’s inoculations or any number of other things you might have been expecting to do).
In other news a 584ft freighter is stranded 90 miles off the coast of Galveston. Our container is due any day in Houston docks. I wonder if this is it?
And the title of today’s entry? Its from “Riders on the storm” by The Doors. Here are the other storm related entries in my iTunes list:
-The Storm - Blackmore’s Night
-After the Storm - Crosby Stills and Nash
-Mind Storm - Joe Satriani
-Before the Storm - Queensryche
-Ridin’ the Storm Out - REO Speedwagon
-Embrace the Storm - Stream of Passion
-Hurricane - Y&T
I didn’t have anything by Ike (Turner) either solo or with Tina.
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If you’re ever bored whilst living in America, try filling your days getting car insurance.
In order to get car insurance you need two things:
-A US driving licence
-A car registered in the state you are living in
Now in order to get a US driving licence you have to
a)Pass a three-part written test covering rules, signs and vision. Examples of questions asked include “what effect does the use of marijuana and amphetamine have on driving?” (possible answer: “depends on the quality of marijuana and amphetamine”) and “how should you react to a flashing red light?” (Maybe the same answer applies here?)
b)Complete a driving test with a state trooper (who presumably shoots you if you don’t pass). You can’t do this bit until you pass the written test, and then you have to turn up early in the morning (recommendation 6:30am!) to wait for an appointment to take the driving test that day. If you fail you can retake the test the next day and repeat this again (a total of three times for one application fee, which is nice).
And in order to get your car registered you have to:
a)Take your car for a safety test. Unlike the UK MOT, this does not seem (to me at least) to include testing your brakes, or thoroughly checking inside and under your car to ensure everything is sound.
b)Take your test result and other bits of paper to the local Department of Motor Vehicles and get your plates (if you are registering for the first time and you bought your car out of state this can be quite expensive since you have to pay the state sales tax at this time).
Now at each stage of this process you will be asked for your social security number and there will be a period of shock and silence when you explain that you don’t have one. So really, you need that too unless you are one of the people here who like to point out that there is no legal requirement to have one (which seems to be true), and go to great lengths to avoid having one. Good luck to them. If our experience of trying to buy basic services like telephone and TV is anything to go by they will be spending a lot of their waking hours arguing (usually without success) with shop assistants and call centres.
Despite the complexity of other elements of daily life, the process of applying for a social security number is thankfully quite simple and only involves waiting a few hours in a building with the previous and future residents of the local county jail (don’t start up any conversations to while away the hours).
For those interested in history, the lowest US social security number (001-01-0001) was issued to Grace Owen of Concord, New Hampshire in 1936. This wasn’t the first social security number to be issued in the US though, this was 055-09-0001 which was issued to John Sweeney, Jr of New York, also in 1936. Now despite the purpose of social security being to help people in their old age Mr Sweeney died in 1974 aged 61 without ever having received any benefits from the programme.
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After a few days without traveling I thought it was time to start again, so I’m now in Durham. This is Durham, North Carolina, USA, not Durham, County Durham, UK.
Now the Durham in the UK is the older one, but unlike some other places with similar names, Durham, USA, doesn’t seem to be named after its older cousin (Durham, UK can be traced back to at least 995AD and Durham, USA back only to 1853AD).
See if you can spot the difference between the skyline above and this one:
Durham, UK was named after the old English “dun-holm” which means “hill-island” and was founded by monks from Lindisfarne, an island off the coast of Northumberland where Saint Aidan founded a monastery in 635AD.
Ah Lindisfarne, what a great band they were (despite Paul Gascoigne, English footballer, ruining one of their most famous songs “Fog on the Tyne”).
Have a look and listen at this:
One of their finest songs ever, “Winter Song”, back in 1984 at their regular Christmas venue of the time, Newcastle City Hall (you can even hear Def Leppard playing a version of it from 1994 but its not as good as the original sung by the man who wrote it). Sadly, Alan Hull (singing) is no longer with us but he will always be remembered fondly by many from the North East of England.
Back to Durham, USA. This seems to have been named after Bartlet Durham (now he might have been named after Durham, UK) who lived in the area and donated land to the railroad, which then named the depot formed their after him. This then extended to become the city today.
Another interesting link between the two cities of the same name - Durham, USA, is the home of the Bull Durham Tobacco Company. The name Bull Durham is supposed to have come from someone who got the idea from the bull on the label of Coleman’s Mustard (not to be confused with French’s Mustard that you get here in the USA which is only for wimps - This is man’s Mustard to be taken in small quantities). Now this guy thought that Coleman’s Mustard was manufactured in Durham, UK. It wasn’t - its from Norwich (where it was presumably made by people with three fingers who were married to their sisters).
OK, maybe its not that interesting to you, but it is when your name is Mustard, especially one from County Durham!
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In its 30+ year existence the Hostess Fruit Pie, as far as I know, never made it to the UK. My first exposure to Hostess and its fruit pie (they also make Twinkies and Cup Cakes) was in American comic books in the 1970s, where adverts like the following appeared in every issue:
Now who wouldn’t want one after that?
It took me until my first trip to America in the mid-1990s to try one for myself. The love affair has continued ever since.
I have checked the nutrition detail on the wrapper and I can confirm that:
-They should not be eaten as part of a calorie controlled diet
-Cockroaches will not be the only thing that will remain intact after a nuclear holocaust
Here are some key facts about this wonder of nutrition-free gastronomy:
-Fat content one third of a normal male’s recommended daily intake (No, don’t assume that you can have one for every meal)
-Colours are probably not from real fruit – Unless Red 1, Yellow 4 and Blue 40 grow on trees
-Ingredients include “animal shortening”, “locust bean gum” and what appears to be a repetition of the periodic table
Sadly, these days, finding a store in America that stocks this delight of artificial foodstuffs is a challenge, so its all the more pleasing when you go into a dodgy gas station (the kind featured in films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and see a shelf full of them. Come to think of it, for all I know they’ve been there since the 1970s...
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Today is Labor Day here in the US. Labor Day is a US-wide public holiday which has been celebrated since 1882 when the Central Labor Union of New York City suggested a day off “for the working citizens”.
Anyway, its anything but a holiday for the residents of New Orleans and other parts of the Gulf Coast in Louisiana. Hurricane Gustav, on its way last night hit the coast around 10am this morning, 70 miles southwest of New Orleans. Fortunately, it was a Category 2 storm as opposed to the Category 3 or 4 expected. The largest evacuation in US history, with almost 2 million residents from the Gulf Coast relocating happened with few incidents and the levees in New Orleans, strengthened after the Hurricane Katrina tragedy, have held. Its far from fun but it could have been a lot, lot worse.
So as its Hurricane season, Gustav is not the end. Hurricane Hanna is on its way, but this time more likely to hit in Florida or the east coast near North or South Carolina. Hanna is followed closely by Ike, which is still some way off so its anyone’s guess where that one will land. Then its Josephine’s turn, although she is just leaving the coast of Africa so is around 10 days off reaching the US.
And where do they get the names for Hurricanes from?
Well hurricanes in the West Indies were traditionally named after the particular saint's day on which the hurricane occurred. An Australian meteorologist began giving women's names to tropical storms before the end of the 19th century.
In 1953, the US National Weather Service began using female names for storms. In 1979, both women and men's names were used. One name for each letter of the alphabet is selected, except for Q, U and Z.
The World Meteorological Organization uses six lists in rotation. The same lists are reused every six years. The only time a new name is added is if a hurricane is very deadly or costly. Then the name is retired and a new name is chosen.
Anyway, at least we know where to go if one is coming our way...