2011 Hurricane Season Starts Today

Today marks the start of the Atlantic, Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, and Central Pacific hurricane season.   From now until November 30 the local weathercasts include weather satellite imagery from the Caribbean, the Atlantic coast off western Africa and the mid Atlantic.   Our ears start perking up in H-town when the weatherman starts talking about tropical waves or depressions that we know all too well have the potential to turn into dangerous storms.     

We also start reviewing our family hurricane preparedness and evacuation plans and learning what the differences are between Category 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 storms are on the Saffir-Simpson scale

The list of hurricane names for the 2011 season has been released.    Since 1953 the National Hurricane Center has come up with six rotating lists of pre-approved names for tropical storms and hurricanes in English, French and Spanish for our sector of the planet.  The lists had only female names until 1979 when they were revised to add male names as well.  

Storms are also named chronologically.   The 'A' name on the list corresponds to the first storm of the hurricane season, and so on.  Names with 'Q' or 'U' aren't used, and when you run out of names as we did during the 2005 hurricane season when there were 27 tropical storms or hurricanes, the Greek alphabet is used.

Names on the rotating lists are retired when a deadly or costly hurricane makes landfall     This year's list was used during the extremely active 2005 hurricane season, so you'll note that the name Katrina was retired for obvious reasons.   Dennis, Rita, Stan, and Wilma were replaced as well

2011 Hurricane Names

Arlene, Bret, Cindy, Don, Emily, Franklin, Gert, Harvey, Irene, Jose, Katia, Lee, Maria, Nate, Ophelia, Philippe, Rina, Sean, Tammy, Vince, Whitney

Because of long memories about trans Katrina evacuees such as Sharlie Dominique being mistreated at area shelters,  last year the Houston TG Center compiled lists of people in the area willing to house trans people in the event of a hurricane evacuation either here or from other areas of the Gulf Coast.   

Will have to check with Cristan to see if that program is in effect for this season as well.

So for the next six months we'll be casting a very nervous eye toward the Gulf of Mexico hoping we don't get another Carla, Alicia or Ike type storm in the area.

It Hit 38 Degrees In Houston!

38 degrees Celsius that is.

That translates for you metrically challenged folks to 100 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale.

August tends to be the hottest month of a Houston summer, and the first two days of this one didn't deviate from the climate script. We cracked the 100 degree mark for the first time this summer on August 1 and 2.

If I have stuff to do, I try to take care of it in the AM before the heat of the day builds up.

Dealing with the heat, humidity and hurricane season is the regional price we pay for living in the Houston metro area and partaking of all the pluses of living here.

I'm only 30 minutes from the Gulf, have a wide array of cultural attractions and entertainment options to choose from, and an alleged major league professional baseball team that's officially in rebuilding mode.

Shouldn't be hating on the Astros that much. They have won six straight games since trading Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman for prospects.

The temperature is only supposed to hit 98 (36 Celsius) today, and cool down to 94 (34 Celsius) by Friday and this weekend's monthly TG Social and BBQ at the Houston TG center.

So I'm chilling under the air conditioning until it cools off later in the day, writing, and happily scarfing up Blue Bell homemade vanilla ice cream.

But only in pint size doses and not the half gallon I'm fiending for. I still have a 30 year class reunion in October I want to remain in diva mode for and a killer size 12 dress I want to rock at the formal dinner.

It's Hurricane Season

June 1 is not only the start of a new month, but for those of us living on the Atlantic and Gulf Coast it's hurricane season.

It reminds us that from now until November 30 we'll have to cast a wary eye on satellite images of clouds building up off the west African coast, the Caribbean or the western Atlantic for signs they are developing into tropical waves, tropical storms or hurricanes.

The 2010 NOAA predictions are for 14-23 named tropical storms to develop, 8-14 to become hurricanes with 74 mph winds, with 3-7 turning into major hurricanes of Category 3,4 or 5 level (winds of 114 MPH or higher).

We get refresher courses and news coverage on the differences between a Category 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 storm. We update our family evacuation plans in case we have to leave the area. We check generators, our emergency hurricane supplies and make sure those generators and flashlights have fresh batteries in them.

Hurricane Ike whacked Houston while I was gone, but ironically still came up to Louisville to affect me anyway.

At the same time, hurricane prediction numbers, while they are a concern, also depend on where they form as well. In 1983 we had only 4 named storms that made US landfall. One of them was Hurricane Alicia, the last Major hurricane to hit the Houston-Galveston area until Ike.

So yes, hurricanes just aren't a concern for those of us in the coastal zones. After they make landfall and begin breaking up they can dump massive amounts of rain in a very short time or create conditions for large tornado outbreaks depending on the type of storm.

So here's hoping that my first hurricane season since returning to the Gulf coast, despite the initial predictions from NOAA, is a relatively quiet one.

Houston Trans Community Preparing For Hurricane Season

The start of hurricane season is fast approaching, and with memories fresh in our minds about how several trans Katrina evacuees were mistreated in area shelters in 2005, the Houston TG Center is getting prepared to avoid a repeat of that scenario.

Because some of our community members are estranged or separated from our families, it impacts our abilities to expeditiously react to an oncoming storm or to recover from and rebuild our lives after it has made landfall.

The Houston TG Center is compiling a list of people willing to house trans evacuees in their homes in the vent of an evacuation.

If you need more info, follow this link to the TG Center blog.

Back To Back Houston Snow?- Get Outta Here!

Wow, what's going on weather wise back home? Last year I posted about Houston getting early snow in December.

In 2004 they got whacked with a Christmas Eve snowstorm that dropped significant amounts of snow all along the Gulf Coast from northeastern Mexico to as far east as New Orleans. It gave my hometown its first White Christmas in its history.

Today H-Town is expecting 1-3 inches, and the ironic thing is that Hobby Airport, which is on the south side of town near where I grew up may get more accumulated snow than IAH, which is on the far north side of town.

It is not only the earliest date we've ever had snow in Houston history, it's the first time ever its occurred in back to back years.

They are already releasing the kids out of school in the area according to reports on The Weather Channel.

I know my niece is loving it ;)

Katrina Plus Four

Today is the fourth anniversary of the devastating landfall of Hurricane Katrina in the New Orleans area.

I spent two years living on the West Bank and was there when Hurricane Betsy whacked the city in 1965. I still have friends and my godsister in the area.

I still find it amazing that four years later the GOP and assorted conservaidiots are still trying to have it both ways in the wake of this disaster. Eben on his way back to Texas in the waning days of his presidency Junior was trying to rewrite history and claim their response was timely.

The only timely response that came from the Bush misadministration was how many no bid contracts they could shovel at their cronies and how they could do a 'heck of a job' using this disaster for GOP political purposes.

On one hand they whine it wasn't their fault that Junior's goverment massively failed the citizens of New Orleans, it was Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin

The evidence says otherwise. Gov Blanco and Mayor Nagin did everything possible on their ends to prepare for the disaster.

It's all on you conservaboys and girls who hate government and routinely spout that 'government can't do anything right' conservaabull.

Maybe you should truthfully restate your pet phrase. It's CONSERVATIVE run governments that can't do anything right.

We still have New Orleans residents living in FEMA trailers while others were part of the largest relocation of African descended people since the Great Migration.

The area is still slowly recovering from the storm, but for many people it will never be the same as it was pre-Katrina.

Say a prayer today for the people that didn't survive the storm, and for the people in the area who are still struggling to rebuild their lives in the aftermath.

Louisville Smacked By Record Rain

Know some of you have heard the reports on the Weather Channel about the record rain that's caused some serious flooding in town. We got whacked by a record six inches of rain in one hour earlier this morning as a nasty thunderstorm passed through the area.

While we have a respite from it now, we have another severe thunderstorm headed this way.

The creek that parallels I-64 left its banks up the road from me at Grinstead and Lexington Rd. There was some minor flooding in the basement of our house, but it's been taken care of and contained.

Downtown got the worst of it, but no part of town escaped the rain. The Downtown library branch got hit hard and has two feet of water in it. Some of the hospitals in the downtown area experienced flooding and had to evacuate patients.

Parts of the University of Louisville campus and Churchill Downs are flooded. I-65 at Arthur St, where the freeway dips slightly near the Fairgrounds curve before it climbs to the elevated section that runs through the Old Louisville neighborhood south of downtown to the Kennedy Bridge over the Ohio River was closed for several hours.

Keeping my fingers crossed and tuned in to the local news stations as we get ready for Round Two. Will keep y'all posted as long as my connection to The Net stays up.

Ice Ice Baby

As if it weren't bad enough we had the snow here, we're now dealing with a nasty ice storm as well.

We've had rain falling with temps at the freezing mark for almost 24 hours and it's already starting to cause problems with our local power grid. According to the roomies, we briefly lost power in the crib, so I have to reset the clocks in my room.

It could be worse. We have sections of town, and southern Kentucky dealing with no power at all as I type this.

The city crews have been on the job. They've gone through almost 500 tons of salt so far and have done a bang up job keeping the roads clear.

I also live in a section of town that has lots of trees. Pretty to look at, but not when they're coated with ice and we just had the remnants of Ike blow through here a few months ago. Whatever branches on those trees that were weakened by Ike's 70 mph winds back in September but didn't fall will probably snap under the weight of a few inches of ice.

Oops, right on cue just heard a large branch snap on my next door neighbor's tree.

Hmm, may need ice skates to get to work tomorrow.

Hate The Snow, Hate Winter Period

When I was growing up in Houston, falling snow was a cause for civic celebration. Living here in Louisville, I've leaned to despise snow if it falls in amounts of more than three inches.

As many of you know who watch the Weather Channel, we got whacked by a nasty winter storm last night and Round Two is hitting us later this evening. The kids are enjoying another day off from school, most businesses are closed and there aren't many cars on the roads either. I've got to trudge off to work later and hopefully I'll be back in the house before the next wave hits.

The worst snow we've gotten since I moved here was the 10 inches we got whacked with last March that I fortunately missed because I was rolling up I-65 with Dawn to Chicago for a fencing tournament. We also received 9 inches of snow from that 2004 Christmas eve storm that dropped snow along the Gulf Coast from the Texas-Mexico border to New Orleans and points north.

It's times like these I really miss home and walking around in 70-90 degree weather in January with shorts on. But cold weather has its purposes in the great scheme of things, and as long as it means I won't be swatting at hordes of mosquitoes this spring and summer, then I'll deal with it.

Houston Snow Day

For most cities, snowfall is a ho hum event that as the amounts of it increase, bring increased vitriol for it. But in my hometown, it's a big deal since we don't get it that often.



The only time during my childhood we got any significant snowfall was the four inches we received in January 1973 that earned us a snow day off. Me and my friends happily spent that day making snowmen and ambushing each other with snowball fights.

But twice in one decade is definitely a rarity. Just a few years ago on Christmas Eve 2004 a massive snowstorm dumped snow over a region stretching from Brownsville, TX along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast to New Orleans in addition to Houston. That was the first White Christmas in Houston's 140 plus year history

Yesterday's snowfall tied a record for the earliest ever recorded for the Bayou City. According to National Weather Service records dating back to 1894 the earliest snowfall on record for my hometown is December 10, 1944.

Miss Me?

Hallelujah! I've got four days off from work, I've got power, and my cable and Internet service are back on and functioning.

So did you miss me loyal TransGriot readers?

Seriously, thanks for all the love, well wishes and prayers you have and continue to send mine, my roomies, and my family's way as we cope with the aftermath of Hurricane Ike.

Just finished talking to my sister in Houston who gave me the latest updates on what's happening in the hometown. I'm also planning to catch up with various peeps back home and see how they're faring like my homegirls Vanessa and Crys.

As I stated in the Whacked By Ike post, I was blessed, but some people are dealing with serious situations up to and including burying loved ones. There are many people who still don't have power. Others who are on government assistance bought their frozen foods for the month only to lose it when the power went down.

You unfortunately have some criminals taking advantage of the situation in blacked out areas of town to rob peeps while others are doing it in broad daylight.

They're called gas station owners.

But while it's a pain in the butt, I have to admit that having everything off for two days allowed me to do as Dr. King would call it, some uninterrupted 'hard, solid thinking' about various issues. It allowed me time to brainstorm and work out the backstory and character sketches for a couple of novel manuscripts and short stories I'm working on. I did some reading during the daylight hours and on my breaks at work, and got to know our neighbors on either side of the house a little better.

Once I sort through my e-mail backlog I'll start getting back to people about the various issues I was juggling prior to the power outage. I still haven't forgotten about Nikki being dissed by our local media.

Latoya, haven't forgotten about the posts I was working on for Racialicious either.


While I was at the library Tuesday enduring a 45 minute wait to get on the computer I'd reserved, I spied the James Carville and Paul Begala book Take It Back on the shelf. I started flipping through it while I was waiting for the kid who was on the computer perusing right-wing websites to get off of it. You know that book went home with me when I was done.

I also sprayed and disinfected the computer to eliminate the right-wing stench before I started compiling my post.

Life is slowly returning back to normal, such as that is. While browsing Borders the other day on my lunch break (I work downtown) perused a few titles that I'll pick up when I get paid.

I also checked out some of the Ryder Cup hoopla that was going on at Fourth Street Live and bumped into a few members of the European Ryder Cup team enjoying a beer on the patio of the Hard Rock Cafe. The Ryder Cup is gearing up to start at Valhalla tomorrow. U of L played and beat K-State last night at The Pizza Palace (aka Papa John's Cardinal Stadium).

Best of all for you peeps who love this blog so much (and I thank you for stopping by TransGriot on the regular and all the link love you lavish on me) you'll start seeing my commentary soon on the various issues of the day.

Whacked By Ike

This post is coming to you live from the Louisville Public Library. As you may have heard by now many of us in Da Ville, including the TransGriot haven't had power in our homes since Sunday.

The branch library here in my Crescent Hill hood just got its power back yesterday afternoon while I was at work.

Anyway, outside of waiting for the power to be hooked up at the crib, doing okay.

Saturday afternoon I did get in contact with my mom and sis in H-town and got the 411 on how they and my family members were doing. Outside of some minor damage to their various houses and dealing with no electricity, they were all doing okay. I advised Mom that we were going to get hit by the remnants of Ike during our phone conversation.

Boy did we ever.

Sunday morning I was jarred out of bed by the rattling of the storm windows a little after 11 AM EDT. I found out later those winds were gusting at up to 80-90 MPH, and a few minutes later the power was out in the house.

When the storm died down two hours later, Dawn and I took a quick look around the hood to discover that several neighbors had trees toppled either onto their homes or onto power lines. Truckers having the misfortune of driving through the area on I-64 or I-65 had their trucks blown over, and fallen tree and broken power lines played havoc with travel throughout the city.

I was also fortunate I listened to my instincts and filled up the car Saturday, since finding a gas station around here with power and without long lines attached to it has been a Sarah Palin. We've also been fortunate that the last two nights not only have been cool, we've had a full moon to provide nocturnal illumination as well.

The prognosis for us getting power back has been a week to two weeks. Ironically LG&E sent some crews to Houston to help with power restoration efforts there, and those units had to be recalled due to the situation we have here in the Ohio Valley. The areas surrounding Louisville also got whacked pretty hard by a disintegrating Ike's winds as well, and the help we normally would have gotten from nearby power companies isn't forthcoming because they're dealing with their own drama.

Even though I'm mildly pissed I lost my half gallon of Blue Bell I just bought, I'm counting my abundant blessings. Besides, it's on sale this week anyway.

My childhood home once again survived a Category 3 hurricane with minimal damage. My family members are well and doing fine. The house up here had a piece of a shingle loosened and has no other damage. We're doing okay outside of waiting for power to be hooked back up.

So yeah, it could have been a lot worse, but I'm surviving and thriving.

Clocks ticking on my time for this computer, so gotta wrap it up and check my e-mail. Got a long line of peeps behind me waiting for this computer to pop open as well.

Ike's Targeting Houston

It's been 25 years since the last Category 3 or above storm blasted the Houston area. With memories of Hurricane Alicia fresh in my mind I've been concerned ever since Ike finished beating up on Cuba and reemerged in the Gulf of Mexico.

I checked in with my family and so far, they are okay, but I am a little worried. They were caught in the massive traffic jam on I-45 north trying to get to our relatives in Dallas during the botched 2005 Hurricane Rita evacuation, which brewed up as a Cat 5 storm only three weeks after Katrina waylaid New Orleans.

It took them 17 hours to drive the 100 miles north to Huntsville, a normally 2 hour trip on I-45 and rode the storm out there until it slid further east, weakened and made landfall along the Texas-Louisiana border. This time they're taking a wait and see attitude and staying put.

Most of my relatives live on the south and west sides of Houston, and they'll be first up to feel the effects of Ike's rain and wind bands as it draws inexorably closer to the area.

I knew it was a matter of time before Houston's luck ran out and with this storm, it looks like it's about to replicate the conditions of Alicia's San Luis Pass landfall. It's still over 300 miles away from Galveston as I write this, but its predicted 15-22 foot storm surge is already being felt along most of the Gulf Coast and New Orleans.

As a long time Gulf Coast resident until 2001, I and anyone who lives there takes hurricanes seriously. I've ridden out two Cat 3 storms, Betsy and Alicia. After Alicia's August 18, 1983 landfall, I noted the devastation it caused to many downtown skyscrapers thanks to loose roofing gravel and the varying levels of wind damage some neighborhoods took. I made it clear to friends and relatives that if a Cat 4 or 5 hurricane were approaching the area, I was boarding up the apartment windows and heading up I-45 north.

Those of us who grew up in the Houston area know all too well the story of the 1900 storm that almost obliterated Galveston when it made landfall on September 8.

It killed 6000 people in Galveston alone and still ranks as the worst natural disaster to ever strike the United States. It also altered the course of Texas history by putting Houston on the path to becoming the dominant city not only in the region but the state as well.

This storm is large, almost 700 miles across. It got weakened to a Cat 2 after traveling the length of Cuba, but could possibly be a low Category 3 storm by the time it makes landfall later tomorrow.

Even if Ike does make landfall further south along the Texas coast, Houston will get some of the effects before it moves further inland.

It's also going to affect you at the gas pump. Once again you have a hurricane traveling through an area where you have oil rigs drilling away. In addition to that problem, in the Houston-Galveston Southeast Texas area alone are 26 oil refineries. One fifth of the oil refining capacity in the United States is concentrated between Houston and New Orleans. If you do the drive along I-10 you will pass numerous refineries between Houston and Lake Charles.

You readers may not experience the winds or wrath of Ike, but you will feel it in your pocket at the gas pump.

Ironically after it makes landfall Ike's projected path takes it all the way up here to Kentucky. Even being 1000 miles away from the Gulf Coast doesn't keep me from experiencing tropical storms or their effects.