Hearsay on Hurricane Ike at 3 a.m.

I've been up most of the night (though I fell asleep in front of the computer for two hours at one point) watching KFDM's coverage of Hurricane Ike. It looks absolutely abysmal for my hometown area of Southeast Texas. Since I know you come here to find out everything from recipes to weather, here are some things I've read and heard on the streaming newscast:

-Garret (who's also watching the video stream from KFDM) told me that while I was sleeping, they announced that it was becoming so bad in Bridge City that some people tried to get out and water had come up over the cars. They didn't know if the people had survived or not.

-The AP news reports have said that only half of Beaumont's population of 110, 000 has evacuated. I hope that Beaumont is not as bad as Bridge City, or this could be another Katrina.

-KFDM has made the very questionable judgment call to send people down to the Port Arthur seawall during this storm to send in phone reports. (It couldn't wait?!) The reporter who went down there earlier this evening said that she saw a very upset woman running down the street, and she was lucky enough to be picked up by a tow truck driver.

-Mom forwarded me the messages she's receiving from Orange's police chief, Sam Kittrell. I suspect she's asleep now, but the last messages from late Friday afternoon and Friday evening included the following pictures of Adams Bayou in the Orange Cove area. As you can see, the water rose long before Ike actually came. I thought it must be very eerie to watch the water rise when there's not even any rain yet.

-Winds had reached 110 mph at one point, and 111 mph is the speed at which it becomes a category 3. So it's still a 2, but we can see that doesn't mean much now.

-There is four feet of water in the Ferry Road area in Bridge city. There are two people there who are requesting "rescue" right now...and it's not coming! I hope you folks stay safe--but there's no one to come and get you!

-The storm surge, which ought to be at its worst by now (from what I understand) is at 14.2 feet now at the Sabine River station. Sam Kittrell's noon Friday email said: "The NWS is saying that we will have a 17 foot storm surge in Orange. To put that into perspective, the elevations in Orange range from seven feet to 20+ feet. The downtown area would be the 7' area and in the 16th Street area and north of Park moves to the 12 to 14 feet area. The Roselawn area is 14' or more as is the neighborhoods north of Interstate 10." Hopefully my parents will be ok--they live north of I-10. Their yard slopes upward to the house, which could help.