Several blog readers have asked for a comparison of the effects of Hurricane Ike compared to the famous Galveston Hurricane of 1900, the deadliest natural disaster to ever affect the United States, killing at least 8,000 people. I talked a little about this yesterday in the "NWS Predicts Certain Death" entry, but I wanted to expand on that this morning.

Before I go on though, I again want to register my disappointment (disgust?) with the lack of national media coverage (I am told the local Houston stations are doing a better job). We are less than a day from a major hurricane landfall near a major city (Houston) in an area that has historical significance (Galveston). Yet there are only casual mentions of the storm on most major cable news outlets this morning (CNN is doing the best). The Weather Channel has someone ON Galveston Island, which, to me, is reckless when the NWS is warning of imminent death there. They probably realized that their coverage during Gustav was boring because they didn't get anywhere near landfall. I've got news for them, being in a different location won't help.

Anyway, I'm not overhyping the storm potential, and saying that Ike is going to cause Katrina-like damage or kill a large number of people (that's not even possible due to modern evacuation procedures), but all in all, it seems like the media aren't taking this storm as seriously as Gustav, even though it is projected to come inland at a higher strength (Gustav was a 2 at landfall, both NHC & AccuWeather expect Ike to be a 3). into a largely populated area that has a history of storm-surge and flooding problems. Houston decided not to evacuate this time, I don't even know what to think about that, but I'll be watching the rainfall totals increase on the excellent Harris County Rain Gauge map, as I have been doing since Allison in 2001.

MORE ABOUT THE 1900 STORM (MY BLOG | WIKIPEDIA)

Here's where the storm is set to hit, as of this writing:

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And here again is that map showing where the 1900 storm hit:

So right off the bat, I can tell you that it's going to be a very similar situation, but a weaker storm (1900 was a Cat 4).

JB actually is giving a "rating" to the type of damage likely to occur with Ike (I'm assuming here that the 1900 storm scored near a perfect "100":

Again, I don't think the media will be as "disappointed" with the lack of wind damage from Ike, because his hurricane-force winds will be felt over a much wider area, but unfortunately that also means that residents on the Texas and Louisiana coasts won't be as prepared as they should be.

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