Hurricane Ike was the ninth named storm, fifth hurricane and third major hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season.It was a Cape Verde-type hurricane, as it started as a tropical disturbance off the coast of Africa near the end of August, then tracked south of Cape Verde and slowly developed. On September 1, it became a tropical storm west of the Cape Verde islands.
By the early morning hours of September 4, Ike was a Category 4 hurricane, hitting its peak intensity with maximum sustained winds of 145 mph (233 km/h) and a pressure of 935 mbar (27.61 inHg). That made it the most intense storm so far in the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season. At one point the diameter of Ike's tropical storm and hurricane force winds were 450 and 190 miles (720 and 305 km), respectively. The hurricane made its final landfall in Texas, United States as a Category 2 hurricane.
Ike has been blamed for 143 deaths, primarily in Haiti, which was already trying to recover after the impact of three prior 2008 systems, Fay, Gustav, and Hanna, and in the United States, with many of the deaths taking place well inland. Damages from Ike in US coastal areas are estimated at $27 billion (2008 USD), with additional damage of up to $4 billion in Cuba. If the estimates are accurate, Ike will be the fourth costliest Atlantic hurricane and third costliest U.S. hurricane of all time, behind both Hurricane Andrew of 1992 and Hurricane Katrina of 2005.
By the early morning hours of September 7, Ike had passed directly over the Turks and Caicos Islands with winds of 135 mph (217 km/h). Environmental conditions were supportive of intensification and Ike was forecast to intensity through landfall in Cuba.
It made landfall as a strong Category 3 hurricane in Holguín Province, Cuba on the evening of September 7, near Cabo Lucrecia on the northern coast. It passed across the central provinces of Holguin, Las Tunas, and Camagüey, emerging over the sea to the south of Cuba during September 8. It made landfall a second time in Pinar del Río before entering the Gulf of Mexico in the afternoon of September 9.
During the night of September 10, Ike exhibited a rapid drop in central pressure, falling from 963 mbar (28.44 inHg) to 944 mbar (27.88 inHg) as it passed over the Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico. However, this drop was not reflected by wind speed, which only increased from 85 mph (137 km/h) to 100 mph (161 km/h). Multiple wind maxima were noted by the National Hurricane Center, indicating the structure was absorbing and distributing energy over a large area, rather than concentrating it near the center.
Over the next two days, Ike maintained a steady course towards Galveston and Houston. It increased only slightly in intensity to 110 mph (177 km/h) - the high end of Category 2 - but exhibited an unusually large wind field. This caused a projected storm surge of a Category 4 height though the windspeeds were that of a Category 2. As it approached the Texas coast, the inner structure and eyewall became more organized.
Ike made U.S. landfall at Galveston, Texas, on September 13 at 2:10am CDT (07:10 UTC), as a Category 2 hurricane with winds of 110 mph (177 km/h) and a central pressure of 952 mbar (28.11 inHg). The 2:00 am NHC advisory cited tropical storm and hurricane force winds extending 275 miles (445 km) and 120 miles (190 km), respectively, from the center.
During the day of September 13, Ike began a slow turn to the north and then northeast. After losing strength to Tropical Storm force winds, it passed 100 miles to the east of Dallas, Texas; and west of Little Rock, Arkansas. It became a Tropical Depression and continued northeast, passing near St. Louis, Missouri. It brought heavy rainfall all along its path, but moved more quickly the farther north it went.
Early on September 14, Ike merged with a large cold front moving from west to east across the central United States, and became extratropical. This deep low pressure continued toward the north-east spreading heavy rains throughout the Midwest. It crossed into Canada on the night of the 14 to the 15th, giving strong winds and large amounts of rain in Southern Ontario, James Bay, and most regions of Quebec, before exiting in the Atlantic at the latitude of the Labrador Sea early on the 16th.
Texas
On the morning of September 13, 2008, the eye of Hurricane Ike approached the Texas coast near Galveston Bay, making landfall at 2:10 a.m. CDT over the east end of Galveston Island. People in low-lying areas who had not heeded evacuation orders, in single-family one- or two-story homes, were warned by the weather service that they may "face certain death" from the overnight storm surge.
In regional Texas towns, electrical power began failing before 8 p.m. CDT, leaving millions without power (estimates range from 2.8 million to 4.5 millioncustomers).
In Galveston, by 4 p.m. CDT (2100 UTC) on September 12, the rising storm surge began overtopping the 17-ft (5.2 m) Galveston Seawall, which faces the Gulf of Mexico;waves had been crashing along the seawall earlier, from 9 a.m. CDT. Although Seawall Boulevard is elevated above the shoreline, many areas of town slope down behind the seawall to the lower elevation of Galveston Island.
Even though there were advance evacuation plans, Mary Jo Naschke, spokesperson for the city of Galveston, estimated that (as of Friday morning) a quarter of the city's residents paid no attention to calls for them to evacuate, despite predictions that most of Galveston Island would suffer heavy flooding storm tide. By 6 p.m. Friday night, estimates varied as to how many of the 58,000 residents remained, but the figures of remaining residents were in the thousands. Widespread flooding included downtown Galveston: six ft (2 m) deep inside the Galveston County Courthouse, and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston was flooded.
In Houston, windows also broke in downtown buildings such as the 75-story JP Morgan Chase Tower, and Reliant Stadium was damaged. Also as a result of the high wind and eye wall that passed directly through the city, power outages were a major problem, as some residents went for weeks without electricity. Luckily, flooding wasn't a major problem for most of the city, as it normally is as a result of the geography. Due to the damage to the stadium, the Houston Texans' game with the Baltimore Ravens, originally scheduled for September 14, was pushed back to November 9. Hurricane Ike affected the Houston Astros' late dash for Major League Baseball's playoffs, postponing Friday, Saturday, and Sunday's games against the Chicago Cubs. Two of the games were moved to Milwaukee's Miller Park and were played Sunday September 14 and Monday September 15.The final game is tentatively scheduled for Monday September 29 in Houston. As of September 24th, parts of Houston are still without power, 12 days after the storm.
On Bolivar Peninsula, Texas dozens of people were rescued as flood waters exceeded 12 feet (3.7 m) above sea level in advance of the hurricane. The peninsula bore the brunt of Ike's right-front quadrant, historically the worst part of a hurricane, and experienced catastrophic damage with the worst being between Rollover Pass and Gilchrist, Texas - west of High Island. Media estimates of lost homes exceed 80% and could top 95%. A large number of people who did not evacuate in advance of the storm remain unaccounted for.
NASA's Johnson Space Center suffered minor roof damage to Mission Control and minor cosmetic damage to some of its other buildings. NASA's operations at Ellington Field also sustained roof and awning damage.
As a historical comparison, on September 8, 1900 the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 landed along a path similar to Ike's, bringing with it a storm surge that inundated most of Galveston Island, then Texas' largest city and a major U.S. port. As a result, much of the city was destroyed and at least 6,000 people were killed in a few hours. Engineers subsequently increased the average elevation of the island by 4 feet (1 m) and constructed a 17-foot (5 m) seawall to block incoming waves.
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