Who doesn’t get evacuated?
Posted by Texas Betsy in News, Politics, Relaxed Politics, US News, US PoliticsDoes this look familiar? Similar problems in New Orleans during Katrina. DAMN the person who is condemning these prisoners to death.
Despite evacuation order, 1,000 remain in Galveston jail
GALVESTON — About 1,000 prisoners and a full jail staff remained in the Galveston County Jail on Galveston Island this morning, even as the island began to be battered by the onslaught of Hurricane Ike.
The reason for not evacuating the prisoners is a security issue and cannot be discussed, sheriff’s spokesman Maj. Ray Tuttoilmondo said.
“The prisoners and their safety and well-being are paramount and it will be handled,” Tuttoilmondo said.
Any decision to move the prisoners would be kept secret for security reasons, as happened before Hurricane Rita in 2005, he said.
“We did this during Rita and no one knew until it was absolutely done,” Tuttoilmondo said.
The prisoners were in the jail as of 10 a.m. today, leaving little time to transfer them to the mainland. Hurricane-force winds are expected to strike the island later today, making exit across the causeway to the mainland difficult.
Tuttoilmondo declined to say how many deputies were at the jail, but said a full jail staff and relief shifts remained on duty at the lockup at 57th Street and Broadway.
He also declined to discuss measures the Sheriff’s Office would take to make sure the prisoners and jail staff remained safe if a storm surge floods the jail.
The structure was specially designed to withstand hurricanes, Tuttoilmondo noted.
Forecasters have warned that a storm surge of as much as 20 feet is possible. That height would put storm water 3 feet over the top of the Galveston sea wall.
City Manager Steve LeBlanc said a 20-foot surge would leave the entire island under water except for a strip of land behind the sea wall.
Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas ordered a mandatory evacuation of Galveston on Thursday.
Tropical Storm Ike projected storm surge
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Let’s pray that there really is a plan and they will be gone shortly.
am back! will keep on Ike all day and evening except for scheduled guest posts.
Ike update from NOAA:
It is difficult to pay attention to much of anything else with the incredible monster bearing down on TX. Tx Bumz, be safe! (That’s an order, dammit!).
Looks to me like the other current disaster (the McCain campaign) is in serious trouble. I mean when a Gooper loses Howie Kurtz, pack it in.
I’m not seeing anyone pretending the Gibson / Palin interview was at all reassuring (in fact some wingnuts are attacking Charlie Gibson for being mean and partisan).
Back to crossing my fingers for TX Bumz…
Anyone know which areas near Houston are going to be hit? We have a prisoner in Denton we’re worried about.
Bwahahahaha!
McCain selects Palin for them, and they still manange to end up in a fight!
looks like the ship channel. but isn’t denton north of dallas? my mom used to teach there…?
Hey y’all!! Our power went out this morning about 6ish, and finally came back up at noon. A couple bands of rain have come through, nothing major. It is very freaking windy though. So far no trees on my house, fingers crossed!!
Damn, even we evac’d jails during Katrina and subsequent storms. Maybe those in charge are taking a page from the Bush playbook and implementing that famous compassionate conservatism we’ve heard so much about.
I tried to comment on the last thread but the comment box was missing. It was in previous posts, and this one, obviously. Strange!!
My mistake. She is in the Henley Unit in Dayton, TX .
i ran into this as well. i think it was caused by the big shared items post at the top. 2.6.2 may have a few bugs to be ironed out…
Muffin, your prisoner should be fine. Dayton is well inland. Here’s the google map entry for the facility:
http://maps.google.com/maps?rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS291&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=map+of+7581+Highway+321,+Dayton,+Texas+77535&um=1&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&resnum=1&ct=image
actually she’s right in the middle of one of the worst areas.
http://www1.weatherforyou.com/cgi-bin/hw3/hw3.cgi?forecast=pass&pass=warningmap&dpp=0&state=tx
how? i have a chart but no map. can you give a linky?
refresh spooky
the area is in a hurricane warning all right, but far enough inland to be safe from storm surge IMHO. and jails normally can withstand hurricane winds.
@Al the Spook at 1:27 pm – Might be mac specific? No problems with a comment box in previous post that I can see??
@Al the Spook at 1:47 pm – WIth the Galveston jail, I think the issue is more the water than the wind at this point
Muffin, Dayton is close to where Mr. Gnome’s sister and family live. They evacuated to Dallas. That whole area of SE Texas is very flat and very wet on good days. Rice is a big crop. I wouldn’t worry too much – prisons are built pretty solidly. Flooding is going to be the main problem, but it rains so hard there so often that I am sure there are good moats, pumps and all the other things they need to keep the inmates and their keepers safe.
PC running Vista with IE here. Didn’t think to flip to FF to see if the problem appeared there.
programming note: as traffic is low, am shifting ct’s post to tomorrow and keeping this thread up as the hurricane approaches. if we get more comments will start new Ike thread.
anyone in the area who needs to get a message out feel free to comment and we’ll see it gets where it needs to go.
@Al the Spook at 2:23 pm – Sure, just bump me for some old hurricane…! :p
sorry ’bout that
CT, if you’d like, I can set you up on a concurrent thread today. Otherwise, tell me what time over the weekend is convenient for you.
@muffin betsy at 3:07 pm – It doesn’t matter to me! You might just want to dump that one entirely for one of my newer posts that I’m already working on!
If ya haven’t been to CT’s site lately, his newest and best is up right here at the beach house.
http://www.relaxedpolitics.com/?p=2678
Supporting evidence that Palin was fully aware that Wasilla charged victims of sexual assault: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-alperinsheriff/sarah-palin-instituted-ra_b_125833.html
And that the change occurred on her watch. Previously victims were not charged.
Hmmm, would his name be Arabic for “Scalia”?
from CNN:
updated 34 minutes ago
Texas braces for Ike, deadly storm surge
Oh, that is excellent. The story had already reached the MSM, Sarah had categorically denied it, and now the doc dump lights her pants on fire. And the underlying subject (sexual assaults) is sure to give it lots of coverage.
Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm, I love the smell of Repiglicans self-destructing.
I’m lying down for a nap. New post scheduled to pop at 5 central.
We have subpoenas (or their authorization) in Alaska, including one for Todd.
hey all. back finally. had to relocate. will be online at least an hour or so.
Ike arrives…
Ike coverage at MSNBC:
Ike’s potential impact
The Department of Homeland Security provided this assessment of the potential impact of Hurricane Ike to NBC News on Friday:
Storm surge
• 572,000 people within storm surge area
• 6 drinking water plants affected by storm surge
• 34 wastewater treatment facilities affected by storm surge
• 54 police stations, 89 fire stations and 32 ambulance services affected by storm surge
• 10 hospitals with more than 10 beds affected by storm surge
• 47 nursing homes affected by storm surge
• 7 wire centers affected by storm surge
• 140 electric power substations affected by storm surge
• 48 non-nuclear generating units affected by surge
• 10 industrial plants including oil refineries and chemical plants are co-located with 41 generators affected by storm surge
Power failures
• 5.2 million customers may lose power in Texas
• 99 drinking water plants in outage area (only 14 plants serve more than 50,000)
• More than 1,500 wastewater treatment facilities are in outage area
• 799 police stations, 1,973 fire stations and 641 ambulance services within outage area
• 256 hospitals with more than 50 beds within outage area
• 1,263 Nursing Homes within electric power outage area
Petroleum, natural gas
• 95 percent of Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas production suspended
• 1.25 million barrels per day of oil production (6 percent) of U.S. petroleum demand
• 6.9 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas production (11 percent of U.S. daily average natural gas demand)
y’all coming upstairs??
http://www.relaxedpolitics.com/?p=2687