Hurricane Ike

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Hurricane Ike's path during landfall.

Hurricane Ike made landfall on Galveston Island, Texas at approximately 2:00 AM on September 13th, 2008, causing wide-spread damage in the Houston, Texas area. Although it was only a category 2 storm at landfall, it was a very large storm, and the third costliest in U.S. history. About 2 million people lost electricity in the Houston area, and massive power outages occurred as far inland as Tennessee and Ohio. Many Texas communities in the Galveston Bay area, including Galveston, Jamaica Beach, Crystal Beach, Surfside, Gilchrist, Winnie, and others suffered severe damage due to both wind damage and storm surge.

A formal After-Action Report was published in March 2009, reviewing emergency management. [1]

What went well

Staff were highly motivated, elected officials cooperated well with staff, county departments recognized the role of the emergency management office and the Citizens Corps was effective. Agencies at Federal, regional and local levels cooperated very well on HazMat response in a large port and industrial area; this is Emergency Support Function 10 in the National Incident Management System (NIMS]] [2]

County areas for improvement

Planning

Joint Information Center

Public outreach

Finance and administration

Logistics

Operations

Non-county areas for improvement

References

  1. Beck Disaster Recovery, Inc. on behalf of Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management (March 2009), Hurricane Ike After Action Report, Harris County, Texas
  2. AAR, p. 9-12