I'm heading to school but I just heard on the news that an 8.3 mag earthquake has hit just south of American Samoa. Reportedly Pago Pago has been hit by a tsunami as well. Water from the initial wave reached 100 + yds inland.No word on the Kindom of Samoa, but Tsunami warnings/watches are being issued for Hawaii and Auckland.

No further info.

UPDATE: Eni Faleomavaega, American Samoa's Congressional delegate reports that the harbor is full of cars via FNC. Still no reports from the Kingdom of Samoa.

UPDATE2: It's bad. Video at the link.

In American Samoa whole villages are reported wiped out. The Tsunami appears to have been around 30 feet high. The ranger station was hit. The 3 coasties at MSD Pago Pago have their hands full if they are still alive.The little info coming from the Kingdom of Samoa seems to be via the New Zealand consolate. It is bad as well. Only a few deaths at least 70 dead confirmed so far but from what I just heard on the radio lots are still missing.

Note that a huge percentage of the US fish catch actually comes through Tutuila.

UPDATE3: Video of damage on the southwest coast of Tutuila.

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As we happily reported here, Ubu Roi survived hurricane Ike unscathed.
However, many did not.  Over at Houblog he points out that literally hundreds are still missing.

The most disturbing bit is this piece by a commenter,
 

This is third hand but I am told of a coast guard member that is saying that they are pulling bodies out of the bay on a daily basis and is suprised that it is not being reported in the media. I am also being told that many people on the Bolivar peninsula were overtaken by events. That Thursday evening many people got home form work and started packing up to leave Friday morning, but TXDOT stopped the ferry early Friday morning and that within an hour or so of the ferry stopping, the road through High Island flooded from the storm surge in seargent leaving them no way off the peninsula. I too am questioning the official body count.

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Ubu Roi has power and internet again. He has a post up on the aftermath. It looks like the surge WAS as bad as expected but was to the northwest...

Across the bay to the north, the Bolivar Peninsula, Crystal Beach, and High Island…. everythings gone. Not damaged, gone. There were once dozens of beach houses on stilts there, and the area had several canals dug so that even houses 3 and 4 rows back from the beach could have docks for their boats. The occasional lonely piling is still sticking up, plus one very incongruous house that somehow survived. Other than that, water and the occasional bit of greenery. It appears that a historic “iron lighthouse” is gone; the media chopper couldn’t find it.

...there were a bunch of reports of a few thousands using their fireplaces when their power went out... AND THEN ABANDONING THEIR HOMES WITH THE FIRES STILL GOING. Loads of houses have burnt down. Good job, guys. *shakes head* I am so ashamed. It's called flashlights. It ain't like you people are going to freeze to death here in Texas...
So then, much to everyone's chagrin (they can't claim to be surprised) the storm moved up into Houston and took out a lot of the downtown area. Unbelievable flooding and blown glass and debris. There was a snippet rolling by on the ticker that said 'Houston's Tallest Building Loses Nearly All Windows' or some sensational bullshit like that. It's true- all the glass is on the street ....It's intense.
Also, there were notices of Boil Alerts in Houston in order to keep contamination down. That, and there was another alert that popped up later (so as not to appear related, methinks) that there had been a chlorine leak. GOODY.

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Ubu's last post was shortly before 01:00 local.
Weather Nerd# says the surge was less than expected which is hopeful but reports from the area# are grim. I hope the tide gauges didnd give false readings due to the storm.


Via Colleen Doran comes a list of vetted charities active in the area.

The worst is over at least.

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Ubu Roi is unable to leave Houston due to family obligations. He is live blogging the calamity (with occasional pictures) as long as his connection lasts from his primary blog, Houblog.



UPDATE:  Horrible news...Ubu reports that  40% of Galveston has refused to evacuate...
...dear God.
Galveston was utterly destroyed in the 1900 storm. That island is going to be under water and buffeted by Hurricane force winds for hours. Thousandd may be dead in a matter of hours.

Weather Nerd is right, this storm was seriously under-hyped.


UPDATE 2:
Reports are that the storm surge will reach 31 feet at high tide...Galveston's seawall is 20 feet high. There are reports of fires throughout the county as transformers explode...
Ubu reports that the Galveston seawall is over topping at 11:40 local
Very nearly everyone on the island could be dead by morning.

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Ike is a true catastrophe. The hurricane has killed over 60 people in the Caribbean and devastated the Turks and Caicos Islands, reportedly destroying 80% of the buildings in the British territory. The thing has been hammering Cuba from both sides and despite crossing that islands high mountains seems has only weakened a bit. soon, after another gut punch to the Crocodile island, it is going to saunter into the Gulf of Mexico, most likely regain strength and bring despair to the USA or USM. If you are in that cone start reading your calamity kit.
(Hang on Ubu)


Excellent weatherblogging and first hand reporting at Stormcarib.
Charities that are active in the area.
( I have no info on these though I assume the BRC is legit)
British Red Cross
Oxfam America
The Order of Malta (Which handles AmeriCares Caribbean Charities)

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The Gulf of Mexico is HOT right now. This could be bad.


More at Weather Nerd.

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The quake hit Iwate prefecture last night.

More here and here.

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Via USGS the epicenter is here..it's in the mountains 200 miles northeast of Niigata which was so badly damaged last year.

UPDATE: Not as bad as I had feared, 2 dead and a few dozen injured.
See here and here.

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God loves Virginia, we get to have ALL the weather.


Picture taken by my sister of the obnoxious thing as it swept across Portsmouth.

Amazingly, despite the fact that it hit the hospital in Suffolk, destroyed over a hundred homes, a strip mall, damaged the container terminals, the navy base and crossed the bay to wreak damage on the eastern shore....nobody was killed.

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The arcane obtuse and unfathomable machinations that led to the current subprime lending debacle....Completely explained.

Nicely done.

HT: The Volokh Conspiracy

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This is awful!

  The cyclone that hit Bangladesh now appears to have killed at least 2000 people and the death toll is climbing rapidly.

   Via Instapundit is comes this link of charities involved in he relief effort.

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 Via Drudge: CBS News is reporting that at least one of the horrific fires devastating Southern California was deliberately set.

In possibly related news an arrest has been made for a brush arson in San Bernadino.

4 dead

24 firefighters and 21 civilians wounded

640 square miles charred and a million people displaced.

Throw the book at them!

Here is what the fires look like from 708 km up....

Pic via NASA's Earth Observatory Page.

UPDATE: Big roundup of links here (via Instapundit)

Ron Coleman recommends this site.

Update 2: Via Pete in the comments, it appears at this time that the fellow who was arrested was arrested for starting a fire unconnected  to the big ones..Stephen is right, several of these fires were natural or accidental, the area is a tinderbox eg. no thermite required.

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 The Gulf of Mexico is very very hot right now.

 If this thing keeps on this course it could well hit quite hard where it hurts.

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AOL reports "strong"

Mag 6.5
Tsunami has hit....
Damage...
Rail Lines shut down...

OK the tsunami was 20 inches high....damage appears to be light.

whew!

Some bullet train lines are shut down as a precaution...3 or so houses collapsed.

Well this looks to be not nearly as serious as it could have been.

UPDATE 11:45 July 17: Between the aftershocks and  nuclear leaks, things seem rather more serious than initially reported. As I type this 9 people are confirmed dead. It does not seem to be anything like the Kobe quake or the Great Kanto quake of  1923.

As an aside, the majority of radiation leaks seem at this point to have involved waste storage drums tipping over. One of the lessons learned is likely to be storage drum holders. 

More disturbing to this layman is the fact that the company reps are saying that a 6.8 earthquake is beyond what the plant was designed to survive. If so then the plants performance is a credit to its designers and builders, however, given that historic times (indeed the last 80 years) have seen earthquakes in Japan registering  as high as 8.4, the fact that a nuke plant not rated at 6.8 was built seems worrisome to me. The strongest earthquakes ever recorded, 9.2& 9.5 in Alaska and Chile respectively occurred quite recently in areas tectonically similar to Japan and indeed, very broadly speaking they are part of the same tectonic system (the ring of fire) .

I'd think that safety in a 9.0 magnitude would be a minimum. This is expensive to be sure, but less so than a cracked pressurized water reactor in a populated area.


More on the earthquake here, here, here, and here.

***************************************
Dispatch from the ministry of the obvious......
As I type this (11:45 AM July17) the BBC picture collage ends with this line...
"Nevertheless, some are clearly trying to make the best of a difficult situation."
Ya think?

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