Hurricane Irene Crisis Monitor (live streaming tweets)
Streaming Video: Times Square, New York City
Dr. Jeff Masters’ Blog
Weather Underground (Models, Forecast Maps, and Imagery)
National Hurricane Center
New York Times Hurricane Tracker
Hurricane Irene Situation Page
@Blogsofwar Hurricane Irene List on Twitter
Hurricane Irene Media Coverage (Google News)
Red Cross Mobile Site

Again, please take evacuation advice seriously – especially those of you who may be experiencing a storm like this for the first time. People tend to focus on a hurricane’s wind speed but storm surge is the real killer. It is not to be messed with. Just take a look at what category 2 Hurricane Ike did to Crystal Beach a few years ago.

StormJunkie.com – Live storm chaser stream
Bing Map of South Padre Live Cams
Beach Cam
Birding Center Cam
Isla Grand Beach Resort Cam
Pier 19 Cam
Pirates Landing Restaurant Cam (Port Isabel)
Louie’s Backyard
South Padre Jetties
Hurricane City – Live media from the region

JimCantore – The Weather Channel
portisabeltexas – 3 mi. from South Padre
abramsandbettes – Stephanie Abrams and Mike Bettes from TWC
CycloneOz – Hurricane Chase Brian Osburn
elozano – On South Padre Island
KVEO – KVEO is the Rio Grande Valley’s NBC affiliate.
ExtremeStorms – Extreme Weather cameraman in S. Padre
cnnfiegel – CNN producer on South Padre Island
Pro8News – Laredo, Texas
krgv – The Rio Grande Valley’s award-winning ABC-affiliate
kgbt – KGBT Action 4 News for the Rio Grande Valley
southpadrelive – JW Wilson
JulianCablancas – Brownsville,TX
CityofMcAllen – Official twitter of the City of McAllen, TX
BrownsvilleNews – Brownsville, Tx
SPadre_Island- Severe weather alerts for South Padre Island

Also Worth Watching:
TWCBreaking – Breaking weather news feed of The Weather Channel
TrackHurricanes – Tracking Hurricane Information and Reports

Common Hashtags
#HurricaneAlex
#Hurricane
#Alex

If you’re aware of other folks worth following let me know and I’ll add them to the list.

RAINFALL…ALEX IS EXPECTED TO PRODUCE TOTAL RAINFALL ACCUMULATIONS OF 6 TO 12 INCHES OVER PORTIONS OF NORTHEASTERN MEXICO AND SOUTHERN TEXAS…WITH ISOLATED MAXIMUM AMOUNTS OF 20 INCHES. THESE RAINS COULD CAUSE LIFE-THREATENING FLASH FLOODS AND MUD SLIDES…ESPECIALLY IN MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. RAINBANDS ASSOCIATED WITH ALEX ARE SPREADING ONSHORE IN NORTHEASTERN MEXICO AND SOUTHERN TEXAS.

WIND…TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED TO REACH THE COAST WITHIN THE HURRICANE AND TROPICAL STORM WARNING AREAS LATER THIS MORNING…MAKING OUTSIDE PREPARATIONS DIFFICULT OR DANGEROUS.

STORM SURGE…A DANGEROUS STORM SURGE WILL RAISE WATER LEVELS BY AS MUCH AS 3 TO 5 FEET ABOVE GROUND LEVEL ALONG THE IMMEDIATE COAST TO THE NORTH OF WHERE THE CENTER MAKES LANDFALL. THE SURGE COULD PENETRATE INLAND AS FAR AS SEVERAL MILES FROM THE SHORE WITH DEPTH GENERALLY DECREASING AS THE WATER MOVES INLAND. NEAR THE COAST…THE SURGE WILL BE ACCOMPANIED BY LARGE AND DESTRUCTIVE WAVES.

TORNADOES…ISOLATED TORNADOES ARE POSSIBLE OVER PORTIONS OF EXTREME SOUTHERN TEXAS TODAY.

Rain, not wind, is the biggest threat by far but the balance could shift a little for those near the eye:

VERTICAL SHEAR IS FORECAST TO REMAIN LIGHT UP UNTIL LANDFALL OCCURS IN ABOUT 24 HOURS. GIVEN THAT ALEX IS ALSO MOVING SLOWLY OVER SOME OF THE WARMEST UPPER-OCEAN HEAT CONTENT IN THAT REGION OF THE GULF OF MEXICO…STEADY STRENGTHENING RIGHT UP UNTIL LANDFALL SEEMS REASONABLE. HOWEVER…GIVEN THE RELATIVELY LOW CENTRAL PRESSURE RECENTLY MEASURED BY THE RECON AIRCRAFT…RAPID INTENSIFICATION OF AT LEAST 30 KT IN 24 HOURS IS A DISTINCT POSSIBILITY. THE OFFICIAL INTENSITY FORECAST IS A BLEND OF THE LGEM AND SHIPS MODELS.

If Alex does reach category 2 or weak category 3 status wind becomes a significant concern but flooding will impact, and kill, many more people than wind. FEMA on flooding:

The next time you hear hurricane — think inland flooding!

While storm surge has the highest potential to cause hurricane related deaths, more people died from inland flooding associated with tropical systems from 1970 to 1999. Since the 1970′s, inland flooding has been responsible for more than half of all deaths associated with tropical cyclones in the United States. Flooding from hurricanes can occur hundreds of miles from the coast placing communities, which would not normally be affected by the strongest hurricane winds, in great danger.

Just in from the NHC:

…ALEX BECOMES THE FIRST HURRICANE OF THE 2010 SEASON AND THE FIRST JUNE ATLANTIC HURRICANE SINCE 1995…

The good news is that this is looking like a relatively minor storm – by hurricane standards:

ALEX IS BEING UPGRADED TO A 65-KT HURRICANE FOR THIS ADVISORY. VERTICAL SHEAR IS FORECAST TO REMAIN BELOW 10 KT FOR THE NEXT 24-48 HOURS SO THE HURRICANE SHOULD REMAIN IN AN
ENVIRONMENT CONDUCIVE FOR INTENSIFICATION UP TO LANDFALL. THE SHIPS RAPID INTENSIFICATION INDEX SHOWS A 33 PERCENT PROBABILITY OF RAPID INTENSIFICATION…I.E. A 30-KT INCREASE OVER 24 HOURS. HOWEVER…NONE OF THE OTHER NUMERICAL INTENSITY GUIDANCE SHOWS ALEX STRENGTHENING BEYOND CATEGORY ONE STATUS PRIOR TO LANDFALL. THE OFFICIAL INTENSITY IS VERY CLOSE TO THE LGEM GUIDANCE AND ABOUT THE SAME AS THAT FROM THE PREVIOUS PACKAGE.

This storm is still a significant danger to those along the Mexican and Texas coasts near landfall. Rainfall and flooding will be a far bigger threat than wind.

Alex is expected to be at the low-end of the hurricane strength spectrum, but still will bring torrential rains to a Rio Grande delta region ill-suited, both economically and geographically, to handle it.

Passing showers Tuesday quickly pooled along parts of downtown streets in Brownsville and Matamoros, a worrisome sign with Alex expected to dump eight to 12 inches of rain in the region and as much as 20 inches in isolated areas.

The latest 12 UTC (7am CDT) runs of our most reliable computer models have come into much better agreement. A consensus forecast arrived at by averaging together most or all of the tracks of our top models–the GFS, ECMWF, GFDL, NOGAPS, HWRF, UKMET, and GFDN–is pretty much what NHC always uses as the basis of their forecast. This consensus forecast has narrowed in on the region just south of the Texas/Mexico border as being the most likely landfall location, with the usual cone of uncertainty surrounding it. The computer model that had been making the northernmost landfall predictions, the Canadian model, is now projecting a landfall 100 miles south of the Texas/Mexico border. There has been a general southward shift of the models in their latest runs, and the most northerly landfall location, near Port Mansfield, is now being predicted by the HWRF model. The earliest landfall time is Wednesday morning, and the latest is Wednesday night. Which model should you trust? Last year, the best performing models at the 3 day forecast period were the GFS, Canadian, ECMWF, and GFDL.

I wouldn’t say that anyone on the Texas coast is out of the woods just yet. Keep an eye on Alex. These storms can be incredibly unpredictable.

although the cloud pattern of Alex has become a little distorted this morning…the cyclone has continued to gradually intensify. An Air Force Reserve reconnaissance plane found peak flight-level winds of 66 kt…SFMR values of 51 kt…and a decrease in pressure to 989 mb. Thus the initial intensity is increased a bit to 50 kt.

The initial motion is 330/5…to the right of previous estimates. An upper-level trough seen to the north of the storm may be contributing to the more poleward motion by causing a weakening of the ridge over the Gulf Coast. This trough is forecast to lift out of the area in a day or so…which should allow ridging to build back in slightly and steer Alex more toward the northwest. After that time…the strength of a ridge over the Central Plains should help determine whether the tropical cyclone continues a northwestward motion or makes more of a turn toward the west-northwest. The model guidance is in pretty good agreement through 48 hours…then has a bit more spread. There has been a subtle shift northward with some of the 06z guidance…and the NHC forecast has been adjusted in that direction.

Some northwesterly shear is currently affecting Alex…although this has not prevented the storm from slowly deepening. This shear is forecast to abate by tomorrow as the upper-level trough pulls out of the Gulf of Mexico…which could then allow for more significant strengthening. The statistical models continue to show more intensification of Alex than the dynamical guidance…which seems reasonable given the likely environmental conditions. The NHC forecast is close to the statistical models and the previous forecast.

Dr. Jeff Masters on the various models and the uncertainty associated with this storm – and all hurricanes for that matter:

This consensus forecast has narrowed in on the region near the Texas/Mexico border as being the most likely landfall location, with the usual cone of uncertainty surrounding it. The northernmost landfall location is Port O’Connor, as predicted by the Canadian model. The southernmost landfall location is near Tampico, Mexico, as predicted by the ECMWF model. Alex’s landfall time varies from Wednesday evening to Thursday morning. Which model should you trust? Last year, the best performing models at the 3 day forecast period were the GFS, Canadian, ECMWF, and GFDL. Three out of four of those models are predicting a landfall between Brownsville and Corpus Christi, with only the ECMWF model predicting a landfall well south of the Texas border. With steering currents relatively weak, the uncertainty in landfall location is high. The average error in an NHC 72-hour track forecast last year was 230 miles, which is about the distance from Brownsville to Port O’Connor. Consider also that the NHC cone of uncertainty is the region where 2/3 of the time (using the last 5 years of statistics) the center of a storm will go. That means that 1/3 of the time a storm will not be in the cone of uncertainty. Given the slow motion of Alex and the recent uncertainty of the computer models, people living just beyond the edge of the cone of uncertainty should not be confident yet that Alex will miss them.

In short, residents of Texas and Louisiana can’t take their eyes of Alex yet and significant uncertainty will persist for the next 36-48 hours. However, if I lived between Brownsville and Corpus Christi I’d kick my hurricane preparation into gear immediately. Watches have been issued.

Hurricane season means hurricane blogging. TD Alex shows every sign of becoming hurricane Alex soon and some of models are starting to shift towards the upper Texas coast. Dr. Jeff Masters:

While the track forecast for Alex today through Monday is fairly well-assured, the longer range forecast has become highly uncertain. An increasing number of our reliable models are now indicating Alex may take a more northerly track beginning on Tuesday, with possible landfall on the Texas coast near Galveston on Friday (according to the 8am run of the GFS model) or into western Louisiana on Wednesday (the 8am run of the Canadian model.) The key question remains how Alex will react to the trough of low pressure expected to swing down over the Eastern U.S. on Monday and Tuesday. Most of the models were predicting that the trough would not be strong enough to swing Alex to the north, and several of them continue to predict this. The 8am runs of the NOGAPS and ECMWF models, for example, take Alex into the Gulf coast of Mexico 150 miles south of Texas, on Wednesday. The GFDL and HWRF models split the difference, with the GFDL predicting a Thursday landfall in southern Texas near Brownsville, and the HWRF predicting a Thursday landfall near Corpus Christi. Morris Bender of the GFDL group has just provided me the track forecast from an improved experimental version of the GFDL that shows landfall between Corpus Christi and Galveston. So which model should you trust? Last year, the best performing models at the 3 – 4 day forecast range were the GFS and the Canadian, and these are the models that are currently calling for the more northerly track towards the upper Texas coast and Louisiana. Residents of those areas should review their hurricane preparedness plans and anticipate that Alex could make landfall as early as Wednesday in their vicinity. Residents of the Mexican coast south of Brownsville should make similar plans, as Alex could just as easily hit there.

This is an excellent time for everyone along the Gulf to start thinking about hurricane preparedness if they haven’t already.

If it does head this way I’ll blog the approach and the storm itself – as I did for Ike and storms before it. BoW HQ is relatively safe in a very secure building several stories above ground in downtown Houston. My biggest worry is usually life after the storm.

Check out the weather resources in the left sidebar and stay tuned to Blogs of War for rapid updates if this thing heads our way.

The answer is still usually no unless you live on the West side of town. Anything along and East of I-45 took a pretty hard hit. Much of that area, especially parts South of the 610 Loop, will be without power until sometime late September or early October. Amazingly, power outages extend up to the Lufkin area and East past Baton Rouge Louisiana. The CenterPoint restoration map will give you a pretty good feel for Ike’s path.

My family in Clear Lake continues to live without power but they were well prepared. They bought a large generator, window unit air conditioner, and a supply of gas before the storm hit. I was well prepared as well but all of my services were restored quickly. One of the advantages of living downtown is that restoration of service to your area will be a relatively high priority.

Gas has been a major problem for many. Lines aren’t as long but they’re still there. I pass by many closed stations every day. I don’t know if a lack of fuel, power, or both is to blame. This issue hasn’t really been an impact for me either. I filled up my SUV before the storm and limited travel as much as possible to conserve fuel. I have been driving to work since Wednesday but I live within 5 miles of my office. I don’t know what people who commute long distances are doing but they must be pretty miserable.

Those of you in Houston, or surrounding areas, who’d like to help with the relief effort can find a list of places that need your help at one of the Houston Chronicle’s blogs. I hope the rest of you will consider making some kind of donation to the American Red Cross. They are going to have their hands full for a very long time. We all will.

Update:
Glenn Reynolds asks “Why do hurricanes that hit Texas get so much less attention than hurricanes that hit New Orleans?”

Also:

Houstonist rides along with CenterPoint.

I took this photo in the Heights about 3 blocks from were I rode out the storm.

My place did sustain some minor flooding damage. It looks like water came surging up a sink drain. The resulting mess clogged the sink and damaged some carpet. I did have to trash the contents of my fridge but the loss was not significant. My place is still very livable so I consider myself fortunate. I’m working hard to get everything cleaned up and to get ready for work in the morning.

I still have plenty of cash on hand and the gas tank is 3/4 full. I filled up before the storm and tried hard to minimize driving so I haven’t had to wait in a fuel line. I hope to make the gas last long enough to avoid that altogether.

Again, please consider making a donation to the Red Cross. They will be assisting our region for a long time to come.

I-45 South was mostly clear. Few of the businesses that lined the freeway were open but those that were had enormously long lines. Clear lake itself was a mess but most of the damage, along Bay Area, seemed tree related. Brook Forest and neighborhoods surrounding it seemed particularly hard with with massive trees down in huge numbers.

My family lives in the Brookwood subdivision and it looked horrible. Most of the homes were structurally sound but many, including my parent’s home, suffered minor damage from fallen limbs and trees. A contractor with heavy equipment was working his way up and down the streets removing fallen trees and patching damaged roofs. He was doing a lot of business and will likely continue to do so for weeks.

My place is still without power so I continue to stay with a friend. We’re the lucky ones though. We have power and we prepared well with plenty of food, water, and gas. We’ve both lived through many hurricanes and tropical storms, Including hurricane Alicia, and knew what the aftermath would be like. We’ve turned most of our attention to supporting family and friends

Updates dropped off the night during the worst part of the storm as we dealt with the worst Ike had to dish out. I’ve spent the remaining time dealing with recovery efforts for myself, friends, and family. I’ll try to recap the highlights.

As the eye neared we moved to the fourth floor. There was a hallway with a sheltered balcony that faced I-10 and we moved there, with a few others, to watch the central portion of Ike pass.

Initially the winds were probably 50-60 mph sustained. It was enough to blow some leaves around but damage was minimal. However, we soon moved into the more intense part of the storm near the eye wall. Sustained winds moved up into the 80 mph range and we were surprised to see extreme gusts that easily exceeded 100 mph. Transformers were cooking off throughout the city and filled the sky with intense blue-green flashes of light. It looked like shock and awe over Baghdad for a while.

Tree limbs, and sometimes entire trees, were snapping with explosive pops during this period. It wasn’t too frightening until a huge gust moved the large exterior wall I was leaning against about a foot. That got my attention and ushered in a period of increasingly intense wind gusts. We could hear aluminum siding and other building materials being ripped free from the structures around us. Some small trees were completely uprooted.

By this point we’d had hours and hours of wind and intense rain. The complex we were in sits about 40 feet above White Oak Bayou so we decided to move to the other side of the complex and check the water level. Our view was severely restricted by the wind and sheets of rain even though the bayou was only 30 yards away but it didn’t look good. In fact, it looked like the bayou was about to top its banks. This left us pretty worried since hours of rain and wind remained. We decided that we’d rather risk a short walk to the bayou and determine the severity of the flooding than risk being taken by surprise.

We donned wind breakers (better than nothing) and flashlights and started to head out. We made it perhaps 30 feet when a huge explosion to our right forced me to grab my friend by the arm and pull him behind a nearby wall. We were shocked by the noise, bright explosion, and sparks. We ducked and took cover behind the wall – stunned. A transformer across the street had finally given in.

We made our way down the feeder to the bridge over the bayou and were shocked by the volume of water flowing by. The bayou was over 100 feet across, perhaps 40 feet deep, and flowing at an incredible speed. With hours of Ike still ahead of us we thought flooding of our apartment complex was inevitable.

It was then that the weirdest event of the long night occurred. We noticed a lone figure walking headfirst into 90 mph winds directly up the centerline of the feeder road. He was leaning into the wind and trying to cover his face with his shirt to ward off the painful sting of wind-driven rain. Amazingly, he was also barefoot.

I assumed that the guy walking towards us was a homeless man who had been chased from his underpass by the rising waters – who else would walk down an interstate feeder road shoeless in a hurricane? As he approached I screamed “Are you ok?” He walked up to me and told me that his car was flooded. He’d been trapped and was running back home. “Did you leave your shoes in the car?” I screamed. We were a foot from each other but had to scream over 90 mph winds. “Nah, I was just running out for smokes.” I was stunned. “You went driving in a hurricane without your fucking shoes?” I asked. He laughed. He seemed to realize the stupidity of this but was still stupid enough to find it amusing. He closed with “Dude, I have to go to 16th street!” We wished him luck and he leaned back into the wind and trudged forward.

We watched the bayou for a minute to see how fast it was rising and decided to head back. Walking into the wind and rain was incredibly painful. It felt like we were being stung by a swarm of bees. Looking forward was impossible. We walked, leaning into the wind, with our heads down and our arms and hands held in front of us to block the pain. To make maters worse we were constantly pummeled by branches from the small trees nearby. Had those trees been larger the trip would have been impossibly dangerous but they were only about ten feet high. It still seemed to take forever. At one point I took some bad hits from the wind and went to the ground next to a concrete wall to take cover. I briefly considered rolling into the fetal position and riding out the storm there but jumped up and nearly ran the rest of the way back.

The bayou was moving so quickly that structural damage would have almost surely resulted and it’s unlikely that even the upper floors would have been safe. We spent the rest of the night and early morning watching it nervously. The bayou finally reached its peak a few feet above flood stage but stopped just short of our property. The relief was immense. For a few hours we faced the possibility of having to quickly abandon our shelter – in the middle of hurricane Ike.

The interstate in front of us looks like a 100 foot wide river. I’m hearing that I-45 south is similarly flooded and sealed off. It’s going to get worse too. Radar shows much more rain on the way.

We need to reach a friend’s family with some supplies. Unfortunately, they’re in Clear Lake which means that we’ll have to skirt a lot of flooded highways, We’re leaving in about a hlf hour and expect this to take several hours. Hopefully, we’ll make it back before the city-wide curfew goes into effect.

More updates to follow.

Update:
Mayor White is asking people to stay off the streets. That’s great advice. We’re only traveling out of necessity. We’re both locals and have decades of experience dealing with these kinds of situations.

My family’s place is a couple of miles from this hotel. They returned home today to find a tree on the house, a broken skylight, and quite a bit of water and leaves in their home. Power and water may not be restored for weeks,

This is all still better than the outcome that we all expected. We thought the home would be lost for sure.

Alison Cook, the Houston Chronicle’s restaurant critic, on the destruction of a Houston landmark:

When I pulled up to the restaurant and saw the second-story windows gaping blankly at the sky, I finally believed Brennan’s was gone. Yellow plastic tape cordoned off the building, gawkers shot pictures on their cell phones, inebriated shrieks echoed from the apartments across the street, where a hurricane party was in progress. I wanted to cry.

So did Alex Brennan-Martin, talking grimly into his cell phone. His eyes looked as blasted out as those charred windows. A manager and his 3-year-old daughter who had been riding out the storm at the restaurant were hospitalized, as was another man, and Brennan-Martin was too choked up to talk about any possible future for the restaurant.

Still, his family has become part of the warp and weft of Houston. After Hurricane Katrina, Brennan-Martin sprang into action, taking in staffers from Commander’s Palace (a New Orleans sister restaurant to Brennan’s Houston), setting up a job referral system for Louisiana chefs, and raising money. I remember talking to him in those awful days after the storm, and he sounded like anything was possible.

Maybe it still is.

It may take time but I believe that Brennan’s will be back.

Trees have been ripped apart, parts of the building’s siding have been ripped off, and the bayou next to us (I-10 and Studemont) is rising to frightening levels. I think we are in for some severe flooding. Yet somehow, through all of this, electricity and internet remain functional.

My personal safety isn’t an issue. I can go up several floors if catastrophic flooding occurs and I have to say that I can’t imagine it not occurring at the moment. I hope that the rain lets up.

We’re hearing reports on the police scanner of a large fire near Smith and Brazos. Twitter is full of reports that the historic Brennan’s Restaurant has burned to the ground. It sounds like the same fire.

It’s getting pretty hairy around here.

Update:
There seems to be some confusion at HPD – The dispatcher reversed the call and is sending officers on code 1 and code 2 calls only. The move to stop running all calls is expected soon but they will resume running calls as the eye passes over.

We have generators and car batteries with power inverters so we’ll just have to see how it goes. I may also be able to post Twitter updates via my Blackberry. I’ll do whatever I can to keep the updates flowing.

Update:
HPD is reporting power lines down across the Southwest Freeway at the Loop.

The fires can’t be contained in this weather and flooding so it’s unlikely that we’ll know the extend of the damage until Ike has passed.

We’re starting to see really strong gusts. They’re moving the trees around quite a bit and you can hear the big ones coming for 30 seconds or so before they hit you. Stuff isn’t coming apart yet but that is almost certainly going to happen as the eye nears us early in the morning.

Thankfully, we still have power and satellite TV despite brief flickers. I don’t have much hope that we’ll maintain this luck through the early morning hours.

Stay tuned.

This is wrong on many levels but it’s also the first time I’ve laughed in a couple of days.

H/T: Houstonist

Update:
Power is flickering now. I doubt we will have it much longer. We have car batteries with power inverters for electronics and a generator for larger items. If Internet access is possible I will continue to update.

Ike is closing in on Galveston and the video making it out looks pretty horrific. We’ll probably take a real turn for the worse after midnight here. That’s been the case for every hurricane I’ve been in for some reason.

It still looks like we’re in line to pass through the eye of the storm. More updates to come – as long as I can anyway.

We’re getting some strong gusts now but the real weather is still on the way. It’s pretty amazing to watch the cloud bands circle by at high speed. Unfortunately, the bad stuff is going to hit us just as it gets dark. Riding out a major hurricane in the dark – probably without electricity – can be slightly unpleasant.

I’ll be up capturing video and photos, monitoring the police scanner, and posting upates throught the night and early morning – at least as long as the Red Bull and broadband hold out.

I’m just starting to hear reports of fallen power lines. Units seem to be primarily focused on getting in position to ride out the storm in their designated areas. It’s quite an active time.

There are a few reports of looting-type activity but nothing significant at this time. I wouldn’t call it a problem at this point.

2 laptops, 1 desktop, 2 video cameras, 3 phones, 1 Blackberry, and a 1,000 channel police scanner, all powered by Red Bull and a generator. I just hope that the broadband holds out.

I’m now settled in and ready to ride out the storm. We took one last quick trip to Christian’s to grab a hot meal. It may be our last for quite a while if power is lost.

Christian’s is the place to eat at times like this. They never close and have been known to deliver burgers to the city emergency officials in downtown during crisis periods such as this. They even stayed open during the hurricane Rita evacuation which practically cleared out the city. Midtown residents, cops, and other public service types love the place.

We’re being told that hurricane force winds will be impacting our area within two hours. I’ll provide updates as long as possible.

Petty Officer Tom Atkeson said Friday afternoon that the five Coast Guard and Air Force aircraft, hauling rescue swimmers, were forced to land in Lake Charles, La.

Atkeson told The Associated Press that the planes encountered winds of 80 knots, about 92 mph, at the site of the drifting freighter, about 120 miles southeast of Galveston. Such strong winds are above the safety parameters for a rescue attempt.

Twenty-two men are aboard the 584-foot freighter Antalina, which sent out a radio call for help just after 4 a.m. Friday.

Atkeson says the Coast Guard is in contact with the crewmen and using weather instruments on the ship, built in 1984, and might be able to relaunch a rescue attempt later.

It’s hard to imagine conditions allowing for another attempt any time soon.