Good morning everyone. I’m going to try and keep this brief since I have to go to work in a bit. However, I was woken up this morning to the sound of my television, which I kept on. It was tuned to the Weather Channel, and I was watching Mike Bettes try and battle the elements as Hurricane Ike was crashing ashore near Galveston Island.

TWC and CNN have blanketed the Southeast Texas area with reporters to cover the storm like both always do. Jim Cantore was on Galveston Island along with Stephanie Abrams, and Cantore was in amazement over the power and fury of Ike’s western eyewall, which appeared to be much stronger in force than the eastern side. Debris was flying everywhere, and even almost got a piece of the longtime TWC reporter, who was in studio when Hurricane Andrew came ashore in August 1992.

Despite the fact that Ike didn’t exactly get up to major hurricane status (technically just one mile per hour away), it still has created a great deal of havoc in terms of just the wind alone. Watching the palm trees swaying violently on television even in the middle of the night told me that this was a very bad storm, and could have been a lot worse had it strengthened as many forecasters indicated earlier this week. Well before landfall, there had already been a great deal of flooding on Galveston Island and nearby beaches along the Upper Texas Coast. Meanwhile, the Southwestern Bayou of Louisiana including Cameron and Lake Charles, which were hit hard by the surge produced by Hurricane Rita in September 2005 were hit even harder this time.