Hurricane Ike - the sound and fury

[John Shasteen]

If you wonder what a big hurricane hitting your marina might be like, take a look at these pictures taken of Houston Yacht Club. HYC sits at the very northern top end of Galveston Bay and when Ike it, the hurricane was probably still at full tilt and pushing a big storm tide. One look at this and you will see that having your boat hauled and blocked up on the hard is not a solution in a really big storm. Lola, you might send these to your insurance agent as a wake up call.

http://www.byrneartandphoto.com/photo/events/2008_ike/index.html

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-86225

http://flickr.com/photos/30905659@N00/2860367811

[LOLA]

WOW..REALLY A MESS.......

[ROD MCDONNELL]

WOW!!!! THANK YOU FOR PICS. I SURE AM GLAD I'M HERE AND NOT THERE. IT REMINDS OF WHAT AN ELDERLY FISHERMAN OF LAKE ERIE ONCE TOLD ME IN THE 80'S: " THERE IS ONLY 3 THINGS THAT HURT BOATS: ROCKS, DOCKS, AND OTHER BOATS. IF A BOAT SINKS, YOU PULL IT OUT, DRY IT OFF, AND AWAY YOU GO."

[MoonSail]

A perfect example of why floating docks are good, and fixed docks are bad in an area with high tidal fluctuations (not TX) or that is hurricane prone (TX). In the Galveston Bay/Clear Lake/Houston area about 70% of the marinas have floating docks that were unscathed by Ike. The 30% that were fixed docks were destroyed and the boats in those marinas, like HYC, are the ones you see in all the dramatic pictures. Look at pictures from the Boardwalk Marina, or Portofino, or Waterford, which are all floating, and you will see lots of crap in the water, and marina buildings damaged, but the only boat damage is shredded sails on boats that are owned by people too stupid to prepare them for hurricane season.

[Banana Wind]

Amen to what Moonsail said! If we had had floating docks down here on Pleasure Island during IKE ...its a good chance we wouldnt have a devastated Marina like we have now. We have been fighting the Island Commission down here for years ...trying to get them to improve the Marina to no avail ....nows there's no question since we are wiped out and will have to be completely rebuilt. We've been too busy picking up pieces of our lives since the storm - but we plan on posting pics on our site soon ...stay tuned for PA carnage ...it's very comparable to the HYC if not worse......

[MoonSail]

Banana Wind,

Sorry to hear about the Pleasure Island marina. We have two friends with homes in the development just east of the marina. Bud Byram is on the water, the second house south of the place with the crane to lift boats out. We have seen his house sustained quite a bit of damage. Bob Brammer is a little further east on the canal of that development. We haven't heard from him. We also know the previous owner of a boat named Parrothead that I think moved to Pleasure Island a couple of years ago. Good luck to you in the clean-up.

[Banana Wind]

We know Bob Brammer well ..we often taunt him into playing a set or two for the socials when he's available. I have been doing the PAYC Mainsheet for about 2 1/2 years now & enjoy doing it ...we just hope that we retain enough membership after this storm to maintain our yacht club & make it worthwhile to publish again! As for Bud Byram ...is he the same Bud that used to teach A/C & refrig back at PNG High School way back when?? Just curious ...hope you guys fared better after IKE ....

[MoonSail]

When you see Bob next, tell him Chris & Barb from MoonSail say Hi. As for Bud, he was a commercial pilot, now retired, so I don't know about the teaching part. We are currently cruising - left Kemah in June 2005 and are now in the Caribbean in Grenada. So, we watched Ike from afar, thinking about all our friends there.

[John Shasteen]

Yep - the insurance brokers don't call it hurricance alley for nothing. Back in the '79 storm Claudette, we were moored on Clear Lake at Oddo's, now called Blue Dolphin the boat rode up as high as she could on the 12 foot storm tide, then filled up and sunk in her slip. When the insurance company got done with her, she was as good as new - diesel pickled and restored, transmission serviced, new electronics and cushions, and laundered sails.
In Alicia in '83, still at Oddo's, a Tayana 37 broke loose and slammed into two other boats that all came to rest against Paloma and she was the first boat that didn't move - ouch!
Fortunately we had misses in Katrina, Rita, Ike and a few others because we were down in Puerto Isabella for all the hurricanes after Alicia and now in Corpus Christi for Ike