If you want a little shiver of eerieness, have a look at the Houston Transtar traffic cams. Looks like a scene from I Am Legend, with streets and freeways almost devoid of traffic, on what would otherwise be a normal Friday rush hour. On the I-45 Gulf, the feeders are pretty much under water from Bayou Vista to 61st, although the main lanes remain dry for now.
Holy %$#@ you guys have huge interchanges…
From NOAA:
135 miles south of Galveston (about 185 miles from here) and we’ve already got a few limbs down in central Houston. I think I’ll stay home tonight…, I’ll just have to skip all the hurricane parties.
hey, punha! i’m about 150 down the rio from you, and we only have a 20% chance of rain tomorrow. we’re gonna get more rain after ike passes by. those traffic cams are scary!
Tropical Update September 12, 4:30 PM EDT
Name: Hurricane Ike
Location: About 135 miles, 220 km, southeast of galveston Texas and about 240 miles, 385 km, East of Corpus Christi Texas.
Lat/Long: 27.7N, 93.5W
Max Winds: 105 mph
Category: 2
Heading: Northwest
Speed: 12 mph
Pressure: 28.20 inches
Galveston, Surfside and other places along the coast are flooding badly.
The sky is now gray and overcast and the wind is picking up at my house. We should have had a HouDope Hurricane Party!!
I remember reading on a web site dedicated to cataloguing Texas freeways (yep, there’s a web site for everything) that Houston has the largest number of multilevel freeway interchanges in the world. If I can dig up the link later I’ll post it.
How about a virtual one? 
I’m having my 5:00 cocktail. Still no rain or wind out here on the west side. I’m at Hwy 6 and Westheimer. Clouding up a bit.
I love the TranStar site! Thanks, El_Kabong. I’ve bookmarked it.
Heh.
Damn, that’s creepy. Houston looks like a ghost town.
I got an e-mail from my aunt in Conroe. She and my uncle are going to ride out the storm in their mobile home. I think it’s a bad idea, but she said all of her neighbors are staying. Plus, she informed me, she has a generator. I don’t think she understands how bad this could get.
Texas Dopers, please sign in when you can. I’ll be sending lots of good thoughts your way. Stay safe!
if you had family knowledge, read, or heard about the 1900 galveston hurricane, ike is it in living colour. at least in 2008 we have days of warning and time to get away.
it is amazing how close the 2 storms are. the track, the timing, the way the surge preceded the storm; near exact. ike is just a bit weaker.
when i was in galveston in 2000 they were very concerned about the building in the south of the island where there is no seawall protection. seeing the pictures of the water splashing over the seawall, you can imagine how flooded the south of the island is.
i am amazed that so many people thought they could ride it out in galveston. when the eyewall comes ashore, if you could look down from above, all you would see would be a handfull of buildings sticking out of the gulf.
My neighbor and I just went to pull a downed tree out of the street a couple of blocks from here. When we got there the block residents had moved it, but as I was watching another came down about two blocks up. We went and pulled that one off the street with his truck, and decided it was time to stop enjoying our neighborhood’s tree-lined avenues.
The storm is still several hours away.
Here’s what we are looking at right now:
http://radar.weather.gov/radar_lite.php?rid=hgx&product=N0Z&loop=yes
Tropical Update September 12, 6:55 PM EDT
Name: Hurricane Ike
Location: About 100 miles, 160 km, southeast of galveston Texas and about 105 miles 170 km, South of Beaumont Texas.
Lat/Long: 28.2N, 93.8W
Max Winds: 110 mph
Category: 2
Heading: Northwest
Speed: 13 mph
Pressure: 28.17 inches
Given that this is about an hour old, that means the eye should hit Galveston somewhere around 0100. Houston is 50 miles inland, so it should hit us around 0500, assuming the speed remains constant.
Getting a bit more breezy up here in the Land of Woods, but still not much of a blow as yet. Looking at radar, it may be a couple hours yet before the main event, and the worst looks to be the period between three and six in the morning. Scary winds in the dead of night. Lovely.
Adding to the general creepiness, just stopped by the Transtar site again, and you can actually catch the Gulf Freeway cams going out one by one, like a trail of bread crumbs leading towards Houston. Yeesh.
Here’s a really interesting page. Fox News in Tampa Bay has apparently pulled together a big number of various satellite and radar views.
http://media.myfoxtampabay.com/myfoxhurricane
And on the Transtar cameras, if you click Beltway 8 West, then find Beltway 8 and Westheimer, that is about 4 blocks from my house.
No heavy rains yet, but the winds have just kicked up a notch to gusts of 30-40 mph. Clear sky is still visible in spots to the west of my home, but the trees on the east side are bending over.
ETA - Parts of East Houston have flooding up to 4 feet deep, in advance of the rains starting.
rockingchair: Agree with you about the 1900 'cane. With this one, I’m concerned about the families with children who stayed. Reports right before sunset were that many people were being resuced from roofs. I’m afraid of what the night will bring. 
Surge from this thing is insane. Water levels are up as far east as Mobile. Parts of Highway 90 on the MS coast are under water. All that before landfall, too.
Right at sunset there was a truly striking violet aspect to the sky that I don’t recall ever seeing before. Wind kicking up noticeably, no rain as yet.
It appears some not entirely anticipated things may be happening:
The bayous in Houston are already filling up due to surge in the bay, and this is roughly at low tide and without the big rains having begun yet. By morning there’s a good chance of serious flooding in Houston proper, even if rain doesn’t reach Allison levels.
Someone on the telly just mentioned that perhaps as many as 20,000 people remained in Galveston, despite the evacuation order. Apparently it’s no longer possible to get over the causeway, so they’ve got what they’ve got. I’m not liking their chances.
Also, power’s apparently going out all over the city already, in areas with with sustained winds so far clocked around 40 MPH. I hesitate to think what it’ll be like when they get to 60. I’ll count it lucky if I’m still able to post by midnite.
I grew up by Humble, tho I’m currently exiled from my homeland. Loaded up the internet at work today and saw on CNN words like “certain death” “looking down the barrel of a gun”.
“That’s not good” I thought out loud.
Found this video from KHOU that was taken at some time around early afternoon. http://www.khou.com/video/topstories-index.html?nvid=281900 “Shit” moment kicks in ~4:15. And the storm was still maybe 10 hours away. Parts of it, like Surfside, are already gone.
I heard the authorities were telling people stuck in Galveston to write their SSN# on their arms and best wishes.
Not sure how bad the northeast part is going to get it, but most people I talked to aren’t very concerned. Yeah, I stocked up on water, got some cash, planning on going to sleep tonight, they hyped up Rita so much…
El_Kabong did it look like this?
Four Houston TV live feeds on one page here. KPRC, KHOU, KRIV, KTRK
When the sky went red overhead it wasn’t a “beautiful sunset” sort of thing, rather just a blanket red.
But that’s all over now. While we’ve had some rain, it’s been fairly light. The wind is becoming the story now. I was just out on my balcony and it has become too risky to be outside at all. Stuff’s starting to fly, and one of the willow trees leaned over to say, “Hello!”
Power will go before too much longer, I suspect.
Best wishes to all who are down there. Please let us know how you are doing / how you did when this thing is over and you get your power back (which I’m sure you will lose if you’re in the direct path).