Category: Storm Chasing

Here is a little video of the incredible surf pounding the Galveston seawall as Hurricane Ike was looming in. The seawall here is 17 feet tall and there is usually quite a bit of beach out there. Some of those waves crashing in were reaching nearly 30 feet tall! The noise was deafening. It was a bit unnerving to realize that certain death loomed only a few feet away.  Have you ever seen such angry water?

Every building in that video no longer exists after Ike came through, except the large Flagship Hotel in the distance. The first building in the video is the historic Balinese Room. It was sad to realize we shot what were probably the last images and video of the place still standing. It has quite a long and rich history and many big time folks played and spent time there.  A 70 year old piece of history, now gone with the wind.

We made it through the night and were out at first light documenting damage.  It’s extensive along the seawall. Virtually everything outside the seawall only exists as a big pile of debris now on Seawall Blvd.  There is still quite a bit of flooding on the north side, but wind damage is hit and miss, most structures survived.  A huge pile of debris on I45, we couldn’t even get very far to see much that direction.   West end of the island is shut down by police.  They told me they don’t even know what is down there, the roads are washed out.

This huge fire broke out at an apartment complex early afternoon and burned out a number of units.  I may not be able to update any more until after we get off the island.  Comms here are sparse and we are super busy documenting things.  Some incredible damage video to be posted later.

Below is the ENG footage we send out to the news.  CBS and AP picked this up so far.   I have also put an extended version of this fire as stock footage on my YouTube account.