The dire warnings are up that Ike, which is nothing less than a Texas-size hurricane, is now bearing down on Galveston. We hope it wil not be a catastrophic event when it reaches land and we hope and pray all our Penton Media colleagues based in the Houston area and their families and friends ride out the storm and/ or their evacuations entirely in safety.
According to the National Huricane Center, by this morning Ike was measuring more than 500 miles across and was rated a Category 2 Hurricane--meaning it was blowing 105 mph winds at its center as it headed across the Gulf to Galveston, where it is forecast to make landfall sometime between late today and dawn tomorrow.
Big red blob at lower left is Ike, literally the size of Texas itself
A mandatory evacuation has been ordered for Galveston and hurricane warnings are up for the 400-mile stretch of coastline from south of Corpus Christi to Morgan City, LA, reports The New York Times.
More then a million Texans have evacuated, according to ABCnews.com, but in Houston officials have not issued a mandatory evacuation order for the entire city. "The call was made in part due to the city's nightmare evacuation of 2005 as Hurricane Rita bore down on the coast," according to the online news report. "Traffic jams stretched hundreds of miles and people were stranded without food or gas for days on the impassable highways. More people died in the gridlock then in the storm itself. "
At this writing, there's certainly no telling what havoc Ike will wreak but we at FleetOwner online will do our level best to keep readers informed of the storm's impact on trucking.
I'd like to add that you may not be aware that you can now keep up with breaking Fleet Owner news posted online using Twitter (http://twitter.com/fleetowner).
If you‘re not familiar with Twitter, it‘s a micro-blogging site that both individuals and businesses are using to quickly dispense brief information about themselves or their organizations. Truck drivers are among those finding it useful because it lets them issue updates about their whereabouts and other info while on the road using just a cell phone or mobile device.
Twitter is another way you can let your fingers do the talking...
OK, let's all keep our fingers crossed and clutch our rabbit paws as we knock on wood that this storm loses lots of steam before it blasts ashore hours from now.
