Hurricane Ike

Hurricane Ike is the 9th named storm of the 2008 season. It made landfall in the US on September 13th at 2:10am CDT in Galveston, Texas. At the time it was a Category 2 hurricane with winds of 110 miles per hour. However it was much, much larger than an average hurricane. A bigger storm makes a bigger storm surge and because the water around Texas and Louisiana is shallow, that area is more susceptible to storm surges than other areas. 

The death toll for the storm wasn't very high but thousands and thousands of people were displaced and whole areas were completely destroyed. Hurricane force winds from Ike got as far inland as Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana. More than 2 million people are without electricity in those regions. Chicago also had a record rain fall of more than 7 inches in 24 hours and the city experienced flooding in some areas.

It's always sort of strange that every time a hurricane or storm hits the US coast a big deal is made out of it but whenever a storm hits one of the island nations like Cuba or the Bahamas, it's only mentioned briefly. I suppose it's because those are different countries but it's still sort of strange. For example Haiti has been hit hard by four hurricanes in a row Fay, Gustav, Hannah and Ike, but nobody is really talking much about it. The Haitian city of Gonaives was devastated by Hannah and 495 bodies were recovered by September 5th. Officials expect that number to grow because they still can't really get into the city. Ike further damaged the city causing flooding so severe that the prime minister said they might have to rebuild the city elsewhere. 

While I like rain and storms, hurricanes are a bit too destructive. According to some speculations, because of global warming raising the temperatures of the oceans, hurricanes will be getting stronger. That's a scary thought.