Its over a week and a half now since we faced Hurricane Ike. Well, for my readers from India….Hurricane is nothing but Cyclone, as its known in India.
So, how did it all go ?
It was a major storm, and the first and worst we ever faced. Hurricane Ike hit Galveston as a strong category 2 hurricane with wind speeds of up to 110 mph (~178 kmph!). Galveston is the coastal area which took the direct hit. Within Houston, which is around 55 miles away from Galveston, the wind speeds were around 90 to 100 mph. The Eye of the hurricane passed directly over Houston downtown (city center).
We live in the Houston Suburb called Katy which is on the west end of Houston. Luckily for us, we were on the clean side of the hurricane, but we did get winds of up to 80 to 85 mph! Its not just the wind, its wind and rain like you have never seen before. The sound of the wind is awful & scary!
I really appreciate the city of Houston for the way they handled this unfortunate event. They were very well prepared for this hurricane (after the lessons they learn’t from Rita and Katrina). They ordered evacuation of areas that were really needed (unlike whole of Houston during Rita — which lead to major problems on the evacuation routes). The city Mayor Bill White and Judge Ed Emmett did a commendable job. I can’t imagine our city corporators and politicians back in India doing such a amazing job.
Ike was a very big hurricane in terms of size (around 400 miles in diameter), with the eye being around 50 miles wide. Ike made landfall at Galveston Island at around 2.10 AM on 13th September (Saturday morning). And due to its size, we felt the winds pickup in Katy area around 6 hrs prior to landfall.
We lost power (in Katy) at around 2 AM on Saturday. And soon, we could feel the Hurricane force winds (winds over 74 mph). It was pretty scary. My main worry was if our window glasses & our roof could withstand the winds. Luckily they did. The wind and rain continued to pound till about 8 AM in the morning and then slowly died down. By noon, the weather was much better at least in our Area. The hurricane had moved north and was causing havoc there.
Prior to the Hurricane, the power company (CenterPoint energy) predicted that if Houston took a direct hit, it would take up to 4 weeks to restore power to everyone. And they were pretty accurate in predicting it. CenterPoint energy has 2.2 Million (22 lakhs) customers (connections) in Houston. At the High of the storm, almost all of its customers lost power. Around 100k customers were with power. Talk about Luck! As I write this, around 25% of Houston is still without power. Its the biggest power outage in the History of US. Well, for us, we got power back in the evening of 15th September (Monday). So we were without power for around 60 hours!
In India, power cuts and failures are pretty normal, and people are used to it. Life goes on smoothly without power. :) … But here in the US, there is too much dependency on electricity. I have never seen a major power failure in US. Tooooo many things are dependent on electricity here. So, without power for 60 hrs was a challenge!
To give you an Idea… no power means:
- No water (since the pumping stations don’t have electricity to pump water).
- No AC or Cooling - Immediately after the hurricane, it was typically hot and humid. The houses and other structures here are designed for Air-Conditioning — so not many windows to open !
- No cooking - since most homes have electric cooking range (and not gas). Even if its gas based, then the gas supply would be disrupted.
- No TV, No Internet - all down. The only means to get information is via a battery operated Radio, assuming you have stocked up enough batteries.
- The cellphones/laptop last as long as the battery in them last!
- No fuel - All the Gas stations (petrol pumps) work on electricity.
- No hot water to bath. (if you are lucky to have water supply)
- All the food in the fridge goes bad - (also means if you have stored medications like Insulin .. etc in the fridge, they are gone!)
- No way to wash cloths!
- Many people could not shave!!! (Thanks to the electric shavers!!!).
- No ironed cloths.
- None of the shops/supermarket open immediately. Even if they are open, they only accept CASH since the credit-card machines won’t work without power. ATMs won’t work without power - so you can’t withdraw cash!
- No water = toilet flush won’t work!
Luckily for us, we had water supply through out the event. So, a major relief. Also, I had fill up the fuel tank of my car before the hurricane, so we were able to drive around. And we had stocked enough drinking water and non-perishable food. Overall, we were pretty well prepared for the storm, thanks to the hurricane preparedness guidelines published by the government and various other agencies.
The only inconvenience for us was being without power for two and a half days. But that’s nothing compared to thousands of other people who are still without power or worse, without a home to stay :( and lost everything that they had.
We feel blessed!
Thanks to all the people who called us right after the storm to check if we were all right.
Overall damage : estimate at the lower end is around USD 27 billion.
Some photos of the aftermath (source : unknown; credits the people who clicked the snaps; I did not click them):
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September 24th, 2008 at 05:29pm
Back from Chennai trip. Glad to be back at home. Chennai sucks big time. Nothing about the whole trip was good, except for the company of people who were travelling along with on the train. i.e., some of my colleagues.
We boarded the West Coast express from Mangalore on Saturday night at 9.15 PM. The train was pretty much on time, but towards the end, it got delayed by around 1.5 hrs, due to (heavy) rains in the Chennai area. Its actually not heavy rains. If one compares the rains that Mangalore receives, its just normal rains. The problem is, there is absolutely no drainage system in Chennai. So, even if it rains for a couple of hours, many of the roads and low lying areas get flooded. So, due to the (heavy) rains, lot of the low-lying areas were flooded, and lot of chaos across the Chennai city. Luckily, our train didn’t stop forever.
We reached Chennai Central, i.e., our final destination at around 4.45 PM. It was damn cloudy, and was raining outside. We were around four of us, and non of us knew Tamil. Not knowing Tamil is bad in Chennai. And little did we know that speaking Hindi is a big offense in Chennai!. Majority of the Tamil people in Chennai have some major ego issue when it comes to language. At least, that’s what I felt. For example, one of the auto Rickshaw drivers refused to take us just because we spoke Hindi!. He blankly said..”If you know Tamil, only then I will take you” !! He even began to curse us when one of my colleague told he knew Hindi. Come On man….. Give me a break.
If you ask anyone … “Anna Salai …Where..?”.. they might tell you were it is. But if you ask the same question in Hindi… “Anna Salai Kaha Hai”, they might curse you!…… I am not exaggerating here. This has been our experience.
Most of the Auto Rickshaw Drivers are major crooks. Even though there were around 100 auto rickshaws just outside the railway station, we couldn’t engage even one of them. Either they refused to take us (because we spoke Hindi), or they charged around 3 to 4 times more the actual cost. The meter is present, but its always tampered, or they take you to the destination after going round and round the city. Oh.. there is also supposed to be a “Pre-Paid” auto rickshaw counter. But no one was in the counter, and the rickshaw drivers seemed too happy about it. (not that it works great even it was open). Its always better you have a fair idea of how much its gonna cost you before you engage a Rickshaw. Its also better you fix the fare before you sit on the rickshaw. If you don’t do so, you will be ripped off.
We were put up in the New Woodlands Hotel. We got the standard rooms since the deluxe rooms were all full. The rooms look pretty old. Kind of stuffy too. Not at all worth the money that you pay for. The fittings in the toilets were kind of rusted…horrible. May be the deluxe rooms are better, but I would not recommend this hotel to anyone. The Hotel serves only vegetarian food. Since it was raining (heavily), and it was kind of flooded, we ordered for food in our room itself. And we did a big mistake. We ordered for North Indian food. The North Indian food was bad as it can get. It was clearly done by some South Indian cook. We had ordered for a Paneer dish, and what came was….something like big pieces of Paneer dipped in something that looks more like sambar along with other vegetables. Somehow we managed to eat it. No other go, and we were hungry too. BTW, Food in Chennai is quite expensive!
The next day. i.e., Monday, the condition was much better. It wasn’t raining. But it was cloudy. Our work took more time then expected. Reached the room back at around 3 PM. Then we went out in search for a good restaurant. Found one. But the food again was not as great., But again, Hunger took priority over taste. :).
At around 5 PM we went to Spencers Plaza for some small time shopping. We spent around 1.5 hrs at Spencers, and came back.
We took the Mangalore Mail train at around 8.15 PM. The return trip was pretty good. The train was almost always ahead of schedule, and reached Mangalore 15 mins earlier.
One thing that I noticed in Chennai was, almost every other person you take services from is there to rip you. May it be a Rickshaw Driver or a Taxi/Cab driver, or a waiter at hotel or the room service guys. Everyone wants you to pay at least 2 to 3 times the normal.
One more funny thing is…..Even though speaking Hindi is an offense in Chennai, some of the Hindi Television serials like Kaun Banega Crorepati 2 etc is beamed in Tamil. Some TV Channels were also beaming some English movies with Tamil voice overs. What an Irony!
Many of my Tamil speaking friends too agree with the above mentioned reality/facts! I don’t have anything personal against the Tamilians or the Tamil Language. Yes, is a beautiful language. But its time that people open up and accept other cultures and language too. Its very essential if you want to be a part of the global economy. I have traveled to many of the places in South India. And except for Chennai, I didn’t have any problems when it comes to communicating with people. May it be Hyderabad or Bangalore or Cochin. If you speak in English or Hindi, people understand what you are speaking and respond back and try to help you in the best possible way they can.
But that’s absolutely not the case in Chennai!
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November 8th, 2005 at 09:39pm
Scene: A flood affected area of Vadodara, Gujrat
Cast: Joint Commissioner of Police, K. Kumaraswamy, riding on the shoulders of a Constable to save his feet and trousers from Flood Water!!!
Source: The Indian Express, July 2, 2005.
Not sure about the validity of the source. Got this one as a mail forward. But, by all possibility, it could be true in a country like ours.
No wonder India is the way it is today. We have lot more to learn and improve.
Update : Harsh Says … “there is a report of correction to above from Indian Express of 15 July 2005. It says he was on work for last 17 hours at that time and is having a permanent injury in his leg from a bullet 10 years back”. Thanks Harsh for the update.
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July 13th, 2005 at 10:31pm