Will "Ike" be retired?

[Bart_Comstock]

http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=91414&videoChannel=1

The Laura Recovery Center - a missing persons organization - reports 374 missing people in Texas due to Ike.

 

[Gregg Gallina]

Sorry, I am late to this party...

WMO is the official designator of retirement...however any participating member of the WMO in Region IV (Atl and Caribbean) can request a name to be retired for ANY reason... and though this thread was chalk full of US impacts, it will most likely be Cuba that requests the name to be retire, all parties nearly always agree...and so goes Ike. It is my feeling that Gustav will go bye bye as well due to impacts on Cuba as well. Bertha though an interesting and record breaking duration will most likely be used again unless Bermuda makes a big push.

As for follow up names, we are getting very thin in the Male "I" category, but there are a few more English names to fit such as Iago or Igor, etc. Along with every letter, a dialect/historical language group is used. So what will be difficult is finding a German or Dutch male name to fit the 'G' names....I can only think of Gunter but we will see if they follow this other lesser known tradition.

Names have disappeared for other reasons beside affect, take Adolf and Israel taken off the EPAC list a few years back, due to political reasons.

Frankly, I kinda like the way the WPAC counties name their storms... using objects, animals, or flowers, etc. Wouldn't you like to see Hurricane Elephant?

Gregg

 

[Darren Stephens]

About 200 people are still missing...article link below:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081004/ap_on_re_us/ike_lives_lost

 

[Mark Sudduth]

How did "certain death" miss the mark? If all of the people who lived along the Bolivar Peninsula stayed, all of them, then "certain death" would have been spot on the money. That statement hopefully saved thousands of lives. I am going back to Texas the week of Oct. 13 for some follow up work and will visit the Bolivar area. I'll post some pics when I get back and show up close and personal why that phrase did not miss the mark.

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

How did "certain death" miss the mark? If all of the people who lived along the Bolivar Peninsula stayed, all of them, then "certain death" would have been spot on the money. That statement hopefully saved thousands of lives. I am going back to Texas the week of Oct. 13 for some follow up work and will visit the Bolivar area. I'll post some pics when I get back and show up close and personal why that phrase did not miss the mark.

It's better to be safe than sorry. I agree that some of this "scary" wording may scare the public, but it has it's reason ... Complacency is what is the big killer element. "Oh my ... It really is that bad? I should have left" ... is not something to ponder when seeing water spilling over your door frame.

Ike will definitely be retired. And it's ironic since it was 6 years since TS / Hurricane Isidore back in 2002, which was also retired, and Ike's name replaced it!

Hurricane names are repeated every 6 years, but a name is retired, and a new one used for it to prevent confusion, mental anguish ("Katrina" is almost a curse word these days), and after losses in life / property, or both.

The category and scale of a tropical cyclone does NOT matter, just the damage done in general ... Even tropical storms had their names retired (Tropical storm Noel in 2007, for example, was retired).

 

[rdale]

How did "certain death" miss the mark?

Because 150,000 people stayed in the evacuation area, and were told they would "certainly" die. Yet over 99.9% of them lived, at least as far as I've seen (I assume if the death toll exceeded 100,000 we would know by now.)

So what happens the next time NWS says "evacuate or you will certainly die"? I say it's better to tell people what conditions they'll face, what it will look like after the disaster is over, remind them of Katrina, etc. - not "you will die if you don't leave."

Fool someone once... odds are it won't happen twice...

 

[Darren Stephens]

So........................when will we find out if IKE is retired or not?

 

[Chris Nuttall]

So........................when will we find out if IKE is retired or not?

Whenever the WMO RA IV Hurricane Committee has their next meeting to decide such things. Their next meeting has not yet been listed on the WMO's website, but their 2008 meeting was held in April.

 

[Paul Harrop]

Jason, I am part of "the media" and believe me, we gave Ike his due credit. I did not cover the storm from the impact zone, but rather from Oklahoma City. We had two big go-rounds with him. First, when bus loads of several thousand evacuees showed up at our doorstep, then a few days later when his remnants gave us widespread heavy rains and flooding in several areas. He was no Erin for us, but he still was a pain.

 

[Tim Samaras]

100s of Galveston residents still missing

All:

Just got back from Houston from unrelated business, and talking to the locals--official tallies of Galveston residents indicate that several hundred people are still missing--and the locals are upset as hell for the local/national 'coverup' of this fact. Perhaps I'm a bit tuned out on national news..but I was shocked to hear this figure....as it appears that media has walked away from this.

Officials still find occasional bodies washing up ashore once in a while..

Interesting, huh?

Perhaps the ST participants that are in the media should do some real fact checking (to be absolutely sure of my findings)..and start beating the drums to bring this to national attention.

The 'assumed' reason for the 'coverup (or other reason)' would be that if word did get out...it would kill the tourism in the area..

Tim

 

[Chad Cowan]

All:

Just got back from Houston from unrelated business, and talking to the locals--official tallies of Galveston residents indicate that several hundred people are still missing--and the locals are upset as hell for the local/national 'coverup' of this fact. Perhaps I'm a bit tuned out on national news..but I was shocked to hear this figure....as it appears that media has walked away from this.

Officials still find occasional bodies washing up ashore once in a while..

Interesting, huh?

Perhaps the ST participants that are in the media should do some real fact checking (to be absolutely sure of my findings)..and start beating the drums to bring this to national attention.

The 'assumed' reason for the 'coverup (or other reason)' would be that if word did get out...it would kill the tourism in the area..

Tim

I have also heard the number of 'missing' to be over 300 but I haven't heard any mention of it lately. Most, if not all, of these missing were washed into the gulf and will never be found. I for one will not be eating any gulf shrimp or crabs any time soon.

 

[rdale]

Looks like the official count is 1-2 dozen reported missing...

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6093089.html

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/n...ctim_found_in_chambers_county_11-03-2008.html

Non-official count is at 59.

http://www.lrcf.net/Ike/display.names.cgi