And now, Ike

At the Chevron Food Mart on Interstate Highway 10 East in Anahuac, four game wardens, 11 DPS troopers and a Texas Ranger converge for lunch. The manager of the Blimpie’s sandwich shop here is family, and it’s a popular mid-day stop for law enforcement officers.

Overhead, gray clouds scud by, occasionally spitting rain into a freshening breeze. The weather at this moment is unremarkable; it could be any day of the year. It is, quite literally, the calm before the storm.

On Galveston Island, waves are topping the seawall. At Sabine Pass about two hours ago, a dozen residents in a mandatory evacuation area called from a rooftop. Game wardens responded, but were blocked by high water. Winds gusting to 40mph ruled-out an airboat rescue. There may be absolutely nothing rescuers can do for those folks who waited to long to get out.

God help them.

About 60 miles offshore, a heavily-laden tanker lies helpless in the storm’s path. A Coast Guard representative said this morning it’s not certain the crew will be rescued.

The Coast Guard is evacuating residents of Bolivar Peninsula by helicopter today. Most of the people who did not evacuate yesterday or the day before woke up this morning and (wisely) second-guessed their earlier decision. The road out through High Island is impassable, and the Bolivar ferries are no longer running.

Hurricane Ike is still 165 miles southeast of Galveston, moving west-northwest at 12mph. It’s a huge storm, with hurricane-force winds extending well over 100 miles from the center and tropical storm force winds forecast for more than half the Texas coast.

With such a huge wind field, a major concern is the storm surge. Wind pushes water into a big hump that travels ahead of the storm across the ocean. Low pressure allows that water to rise higher. A waxing moon, nearly full, pulls tides higher still.

The National Weather Service is predicting all of Galveston Island will be under water by late tonight. In Port Arthur, on Sabine Lake, bay waters will overtop the seawall and cover the city to depths of three to six feet.

South of Houston, water is creeping up over the access roads on Interstate Highway 45, the Gulf Freeway. My friend Brandon, in Fort Worth, has friends in Clearlake who declined to leave even though they are in a mandatory evacuation zone. If they leave right now, they may yet make it out.

Earlier today, U.S. Rep. John Culverson said in a KTRH radio interview (listen online to the non-stop storm coverage) that the Department of Homeland Security chief of staff told him that anyone remaining on Galveston Island this evening faces “certain death.”

That’s strong language, and probably overblown, but certainly indicates the seriousness with which authorities are viewing this hurricane.

Listening-in to the twice-daily emergency management conference calls, I can tell you that I feel better knowing that Jack Colley is coordinating this effort for the State of Texas. It appears to me, now, that across-the-board, state and local agencies have prepared thoroughly and thoughtfully for this storm.

On IH-10 heading east this morning, we passed long convoys of more than 20 ambulances speeding to safety with critically ill hospital patients. It’s an effort that has been underway for several days now.

The focus – at Colley’s direction – has been on evacuating people who, for whatever reason, cannot evacuate themselves.

I’ll spend tonight at the Chambers County Sheriff’s Office in Anahuac. My guess is that there are more people in this area who should have left but did not. My guess is that the game wardens with whom I am embedded will be called to help them. My guess is they’ll go, because that’s what they do. It’s what they’ve always done, since 1895.

[TPWD photo by Earl Nottingham; Game wardens near Sabine Pass, Sept. 10, 2008]