Ikeonography

Mayor White gets it

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:37:32 -0500

2:40 CT. Just getting around to reading the Chronicle. Mayor Bill White has a great op-ed. I can’t get the URL since Blackberry service is still spotty but it’s worth checking out on Chron.com.

Crash the mall

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:02:54 -0500

2:05 CT.

The photo below is from the Wachovia ATM at Willowbrook Mall in northwest Houston. It was showing the Windows failed boot screen. About half the stores at the mall were open, lest people go without emergency personalized gravy boats, Abercrombie logo shirts, and Bluetooth headets. The snake oil salesmen working from carts were pushier than usual. The Vonage cart was closed down. I don’t envy being the VoIP salesman two days after a hurricane when we were reminded why landlines are still useful. I saw a woman sitting on a bench charging her cell phone and laptop. Smart.

There were strangely few people at the mall or at any restaurants. This seems illogical to me. On the supply side, only some fraction, perhaps a third, of area restaurants were open. Grocery stores are still getting resupplied with perishable goods. Refrigerators were off long enough that anything fresh had to be thrown out. On the demand side, many people are still without power, most people are staying home from work, and everyone’s doing enough physical labor to work up a healthy appetite. And in addition, no power means no AC, and since the restaurants are all air conditioned, you’d think that it might be an additional reason for people to go out. So you might think, then, that the supply of restaurants is down and the demand for restaurant-cooked food is up. So why are there not lines out the door? I have asked the Blog of Diminishing Returns to take up this question.

On the radio, State Farm and Allstate are running ads telling their customers how to get in touch. KTRH, a local AM news station, is doing an ice giveaway downtown. The anchor asked the correspondent why a radio station could get (don’t quote me on these numbers) 30,000 pounds of ice to people in need before FEMA could. This paper by Russell Sobel and Peter Leeson offers a good framework with which to answer this question.

Houston is getting better, but Galveston still has a lot of work ahead of it. They’ve just got the first water back online, and that’s only to the hotel that the local government is using as a base camp. People are being kept off the island, and people still on the island are being encouraged to leave. There’s a long way for the city to go.

Fail

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:41:03 -0500

Fail

Op-ed in New York Sun about Ike

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:01:00 -0500

Op-ed in New York Sun about Ike:

I have an op-ed in Monday’s New York Sun about the first 48 hours of the post-Ike recovery period.

Money grafs:

Because city and county governments are doing what they should do — enforcing the law, sharing critical information, and making honest assessments of the status and future of public services — they have cleared the way for the private sector to respond effectively. By yesterday morning, all local grocery chains had reopened at least some of their locations, and their trucks had made it into town and were busy resupplying. This would have been impossible if the city had been locked down, or if employees had been prohibited from coming to work.

Stressing that people should use their judgment rather than trying to freeze movement, officials have created space for what reports indicate is an incredible — and uncoordinated — response by people clearing streets and storm drains. The official attitude that recovery is a grassroots effort, of which government is just one sector that plays a supporting role, means that recovery is already underway, and people don’t have to wait for officials to draw up (and eventually fumble) a complex, top-down plan.

Full what-have-you here.

The view from the front window early Saturday morning after the...

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 23:57:08 -0500

The view from the front window early Saturday morning after the worst had passed. Buy the time day broke, we were down to tropical storm winds, but the trees that hadn’t snapped during the night were doing their best impressions of hippies as a Phish concert.

Line for gas at the H-E-B store this afternoon.

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 23:46:27 -0500

Line for gas at the H-E-B store this afternoon.

Tree, 1. Neighbor’s roof, 0.

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 23:44:58 -0500

Tree, 1. Neighbor’s roof, 0.

This afternoon was spent in the yard bagging and bailing...

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 23:43:29 -0500

This afternoon was spent in the yard bagging and bailing Ike’s leavings on the lawn. Fortunately, the thunderstorm that came through this morning brought a cool front, so it was only in the mid-80s. This is the debris we collected.

Lights!!

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 20:00:04 -0500

7:43 CT Lights are on! Total downtime 40 hours 39 minutes. Not bad all things considered. Found a restaurant that was open around 5. Had a burger. Warren Zevon is right — you gotta enjoy every sandwich. But I was getting pretty tired of them.

5:45 CT Out abd about for the first time. Trees ripped out by their roots, fences down, few places...

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 17:44:35 -0500

5:45 CT Out abd about for the first time. Trees ripped out by their roots, fences down, few places have electricity. Traffic lights all out but people are driving nicely. Spent the afternoon cleaning up the yard along with the neighborhood. The linemen came by to assess the situation — say we might get power tonight but no promises. The neighbor lady baked them cookies.

Bleg

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 09:49:01 -0500

If anyone knows of any open pharmacies in or around the 77070 ZIP code, please email me at ikeonography@yahoo.com. Nothing critical, but we could stand to get a prescription filled. Many thanks in advance.

God's funny sense of humor

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 09:00:03 -0500

8:20 CT. Nasty thunderstorm last night — more tree limbs down. We’re back under a flash flood watch.

Everything's coming up Milhouse?

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 23:29:00 -0500

11:55 CT. Got a burst of email so it looks like T-Mobile is getting coverage back online. This is an excellent sign. Perhaps this blog post will make it out. Still no power and it’s humid as hell and in the upper 80s. Power is likely to be out for days, perhaps weeks. A couple of neighbors have generators which we can hear humming. Galveston is a wreck, as apparently is downtown. Cleanup will be massive. Ike wasn’t intense but instead massive. Few reports of looting or criminal behavior. Exiles on Runnells Street report they have power but most of Houston is in the dark. It will be a long haul back, but deaths are under 5. All good signs. Will cover this more in an oped in the New York Sun on Monday assuming I can get a column written on limited laptop juice and my Verizon wireless broadband service is working.

8:50 CT I’m ok. No lights, no cell service, a messy yard, but unscathed. Neighbor’s...

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 20:54:05 -0500

8:50 CT I’m ok. No lights, no cell service, a messy yard, but unscathed. Neighbor’s house had a tree fall on the roof. Few people out on the streets. Curfew still in effect. Will see what tomorrow brings.

County Judge Emmett speaks

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 07:56:01 -0500

7:55 CT Emmett’s statement, given on behalf of himself and Mayor White, was a list of facts and suggestions, a helpful contrast to Bush’s non-statement. Asking people to conserve water. Some of the major bayous (pronounced “buy-yo” in Houston) are still rising and flood warnings are in effect. Houston EMS is still not responding to calls. (I heard sirens near my house around 7.) Ike is speeding up and moving out, which is good in a city still tormented by memories of Tropical Storm Allison, which came to visit and took three days to leave. Asking people to restrict 911 calls to life threatening emergencies, and no guarantee they will be responded to. Closing line: “This afternoon we will be about the business of neighbors helping neighbors” recover from the storm. Should have added “Git ‘r done!”

POTUS speaks

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 07:47:03 -0500

7:45 CT. Bush speaking from the White House. Upshot: he’s sending Chertoff to Texas, and he’s joined the chorus of people rambling about price gouging. All politics, no policy. Local authorities speaking momentarily — hopefully they will be more helpful.

Morning has broken

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 07:41:31 -0500

7:40 CT. It’s morning now and we’re getting our first look at the damage. From my end, nothing serious. Yard and street are strewn with branches including some that are probably a good four times the width of a man’s thumb. I took some video but it would take ages to post and since there’s no power what little laptop juice I still have I need to hold onto. To some degree I was happier when I couldn’t see what the trees were doing. There’s still a few hours before we’re out of this. According to the news the back end of the storm is still coming but for now it feels better than it was three or four hours ago.

Early morning update

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 05:14:32 -0500

5:20 CT. We’re getting pounded, and it keeps getting worse. Every couple of minutes there’s a crashing sound of a branch or something else hitting the roof. The yards are full of branches larger than your thumb. The rain is pouring down. The dog, who’s been a trooper so far, is staring to freak out. Virtually all electricity is out across the area except for some downtown and Medical Center areas where the power lines are underground. The eye is passing over eastern Harris County, but my area is not going to get the eye. Reports indicate that the back side of the storm is even worse than the front. There will be a news conference at 6 where we should get a sense of official plans. This isn’t going to be over until the afternoon. At least an hour or so will bring daylight which will be an enormous psychological boost.

Power's gone

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 03:05:34 -0500

3:05 CT. Just watched the transformer behind the house blow. Looks like we’re into the darkness. Perhaps worse, no AC. T-Mobile still working though as is the landline.

Brennans has burned

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 01:40:06 -0500

1:40 CT.

Brennan’s of Houston has burned to the ground. The restaurant, the Texas outpost of the famed Brennan family’s New Orleans restaurants, was engulfed in flames by the time firefighters arrived. The Brennans own several restaurants in New Orleans, inclding Bacco, the Red Fish Grill, and the eponymous French Quarter institution (birthplace of Bananas Foster), which were all closed after Katrina having suffered various levels of damage.

Out here in northwest Harris County, the rain has started and wind gusts are up to I guess around 50 mph. Phone, cable, and and power remain uninterrupted, but the question is not if but when. Cable internet access seems to have gone offline.

My T-Mobile blackberry lost service briefly but is not back online. My Verizon aircard is connecting without a problem, but only at the slower, dialup rate, not the full-fledged broadband rate.

At this point, one million CenterPoint Energy customers are without power. A company representative clarified that a “customer” may include an entire apartment building, so the number of households is probably higher. Transformers are blowing in downtown Houston, which means it’s about 60 to 90 minutes before we get the same treatment out here. Texas has a deregulated energy market, so I would guess that there are a significant number of customers of other companies that are out too.

The eye is about an hour away from Galveston.

Just got the first power blink. Time to sign off. I will try to update from my blackberry if there’s anything worth reporting. Goodnight and good luck!