August 18th, 1983 was...

[Johnny]

when Hurricane Alicia made landfall on the West end of Galveston Island. As most of us know, she was the last major hurricane the upper Texas coast has seen. It's been a long time hasn't it? I was only 7 years old but I remember it like it was yesterday. I lived in Bellaire in Southwest Houston at the time. I guess my most vivid memory was watching the power lines spark up like fireworks in the night air. Of course watching the trees bend was a sight to see. I don't think we got power restored for a week and half. Oh the memories. Here's a short recap on Hurricane Alicia. Who else rode out Alicia?




Alicia, in August 1983, was the first hurricane to make landfall on the U.S. mainland since Hurricane Allen hit South Texas on Aug. 9, 1980.

After forming just south of Louisiana on the Aug. 15, 1983, Alicia drifted westward and intensified quickly into a Category 3 hurricane before making landfall on the west end of Galveston Island in the early morning hours of Aug. 18.

The highest winds recorded on land were 96 mph sustained, and gusts were up to 127 mph. The lowest barometric pressure recorded on land was 28.55" at the Alvin weather service office. Rainfall amounts exceeded 5 inches in most places, and the east side of Houston received almost 11 inches. The highest storm surge was a 12' reading at Seabrook on Galveston Bay. On the gulf side of Galveston Island, tides were 7.5', and on the bay they were 8'. Baytown, on the north shore of Galveston Bay, recorded a 10.7' tide which put water on the rooftops in the Brownwood subdivision. Severe freshwater flooding was minimized by Alicia's fast movement inland, and most damage was the result of wind and storm surge or a combination of the two.

Twenty-three tornadoes were reported during Alicia. 14 occurred between Galveston and Houston as the storm made landfall, and the other 9 touched down the next day between Houston and Tyler. All but 2 of these were small, with winds between 40-72 mph. The strongest tornado occurred near Tyler, in Northeast Texas, with winds in the 113-157 mph range.




http://www.usatoday.com/weather/hurican ... alicia.htm


A good read........


http://www.jimzura.com/Update901/PhotoA ... esPage.htm

[Roxy]

I did. I was only 5 or 6 at the time and I thought it was the most exciting thing. My dad made eggs on the coleman stove and our dog ran away after the storm because the fences were down. Strange what you remember at such a young age.

I do remember the boats all over the place...I live in SE Houston, Clear Lake area....


I vaguely remember the story of the huge tree that feel down, smooshing someones new Corvette inside their garage...

[Patrick99]

Good looking storm - nice S-shape on the sat pic!

[corpusbreeze]

My family and I just moved to Baytown two months before from Corpus. I was fifteen. We lived on a second story apartment and all night our roof was being torn off piece by piece. Hurricanes at night are the worst.

[Guest]

the tree smooshing someone sounds funny, just like the idiot that died because he went outside to smoke a cigarette in Charley. He got smooshed too by a tree!

[OtherHD]

the tree smooshing someone sounds funny, just like the idiot that died because he went outside to smoke a cigarette in Charley. He got smooshed too by a tree!

Yes, I hear the man's wife is just rolling on the floor laughing right now.

[USAwx1]

the tree smooshing someone sounds funny, just like the idiot that died because he went outside to smoke a cigarette in Charley. He got smooshed too by a tree!

Personally I don't find ANY humor in someone being Killed by a falling tree.

[Guest]

its not really humorous, just that some of the tings people do are very stupid.

[USAwx1]

well Don't glorify it.

[Galvestongirl]

I also rode out alicia...I was 18 and remeber my little chevy chevette being picked up by the wind and put back down...only by a couple of inches, but it was on a continuious basis....man that was a scarey night.

[crazy4disney]

I sure remember it... I was home in SW Houston from college for the summer, and that was one scary night. I remember every time the lightning flashed, you could see huge branches, lawn chairs, all sorts of stuff, flying past. We were without power for a week and a half as well -- my family had to go stay with my grandparents, and I went back to school. I also remember much of downtown being closed because of all the broken glass that had come raining down! Scary time...
So what did I do? Moved even closer to the coast, like any insane weather nut would.

-gina-

[Rainband]

the tree smooshing someone sounds funny, just like the idiot that died because he went outside to smoke a cigarette in Charley. He got smooshed too by a tree!

not funny one bit

[Air Force Met]

Good looking storm - nice S-shape on the sat pic!

On a side note to this image...this is a good example of what we call foreshortening.

Foreshortening occurs because the satellite is at a different longitude than the cloud. If the cloud is west of the sat, then the cloud appears to be further west than it actually is. Same thing in the opposite direction.

This image is a Goes-5 image. Goes-5 was located near 75 longitude. The image apparently shows Alicia sitting on the Texas coast over Matagorda county. We know that Alicia was actually located over western Galveston Island. So...the image is foreshortened by about 30 miles or so.

Just something for people to remember when looking at satellite images...especially when the storm is significantly further west or east of the satellite's longitude. Of course, this also applies to any clouds. That's why it may look cloudy over Portland, OR on the Goes-12...but obs say its clear. Foreshortening.

Lessons over. Class is ajourned.

[Ixolib]

Good looking storm - nice S-shape on the sat pic!

On a side note to this image...this is a good example of what we call foreshortening.

Foreshortening occurs because the satellite is at a different longitude than the cloud. If the cloud is west of the sat, then the cloud appears to be further west than it actually is. Same thing in the opposite direction.

This image is a Goes-5 image. Goes-5 was located near 75 longitude. The image apparently shows Alicia sitting on the Texas coast over Matagorda county. We know that Alicia was actually located over western Galveston Island. So...the image is foreshortened by about 30 miles or so.

Just something for people to remember when looking at satellite images...especially when the storm is significantly further west or east of the satellite's longitude. Of course, this also applies to any clouds. That's why it may look cloudy over Portland, OR on the Goes-12...but obs say its clear. Foreshortening.

Lessons over. Class is ajourned.

And this, my friends, is why it's so interesting to view the posts on this board! If you can't learn something new every time you visit, well, there just may be no hope!! Thanks AF Met...

[amawea]

I lived in Baytown then, I was a young 31yrs old, lol. My Mom, Dad, and Brother still live their, and my wifes Brother lives in Kemah. We stayed in our house when it came in and it was pretty nerve racking at times. I worked, (and still do, but am manager in Arkansas), for the phone company down there and was supposed to try and come in around 4.am. Well the storm was at its worst around 1 to 2 am and when the time came Icouldn't get anywhere. Power lines, tress and power poles down everywhere. Besides, I had already made up my mind I wasn't leaving my wife there alone. The houses along the bay in what was called old Baytown were pretty much demolished by wind and high water. Those folks were bought out by the state for a couple of thousand dollars for what were some 80,000 dollar homes. Probably 150,000 now. They condemned it and no one was allowed to build back. I had been through a typhoon with 165mph sustained winds and gust to 210 when I was stationed in Guam in the Air Force so I didn't think it would get as bad as it did. Boy was I wrong, no power for 2 weeks. Hot sticky, and lots of mosquitos afterwards.
There's something about leaving in this type of storm though. I want to experience it as long as I am in no danger of flooding and have a reasonably well built house. I enjoy the weather bad, good, whatever. It's exciting. Had I thought Alicia would haave done what Charlie did we would have went farther north. Chances are taken sometimes and you don't know if you screwed up till it's too late.
Amawea

[JenBayles]

I rode out Alicia in West Houston. Was 17 at the time. The media was going nuts "You're all gonna die out there!... but it's probably not coming to Houston...." As I recall, much like Charley, the storm strengthened, turned and made a beeline for Galveston in the middle of the night and a lot of people got caught with their pants down. The worst part of it for me was the howling wind and the length of time it took for the whole works to blow over. That sound just drove me and my whole family nuts. Thankfully, we lived in a new development with the usual Houston sun-baked square lots so we didn't have much trouble with trees turning into projectiles.

The damage to downtown Houston was pretty bad. The windows in all those mirrored glass buildings couldn't hack the wind and the streets were turned into a sea of broken glass. For months plywood took the place of the windows until they could be replaced.

We were shocked when electricity was restored around 5:00 that afternoon, but our joy was shortlived. One last squall rolled through that evening and knocked it out for over a week.

[Air Force Met]

Funny story here: I was 14 at the time and a weather nut (Hurricane Allen turned me into a weather weenie). My mom was in the hospital in downtown Houston and my dad and I were home. He went out an bought a radio, batteries, candles. Then, he shipped my aunt, cousin and I off to his grandmother's house near Madisonville. He stayed back to ride out the storm. We lived in a little town called Old Ocean then, which is in western Brazoria county.

Well...not wanting to be without the latest on the storm, I packed the radio and batteries up...not knowing he had bought them for HIS use during the storm.. Needless to say, he lost power and had to sit through the western edge of the eyewall without any knowledge of what was going on because I had the radio.

He laughs about it now...but he wasn't laughing when I got home. He said "What were you thinking? I had to sit here in a cat 3 hurricane...as it blew my shed to pieces...and had no clue what was going on. It was pitch dark...no light at all...and the worst sound you could imagine."

In Madisonville, we got gusts to 70 or so. Pretty cool experience...for me...not him.

[B-Bear]

I did. I was only 5 or 6 at the time and I thought it was the most exciting thing. My dad made eggs on the coleman stove and our dog ran away after the storm because the fences were down. Strange what you remember at such a young age.

I do remember the boats all over the place...I live in SE Houston, Clear Lake area....


I vaguely remember the story of the huge tree that feel down, smooshing someones new Corvette inside their garage...

Hey all. I'm new here, but have been lurking and reading for a while. This post drew me in because I had a rather personal experience with Alicia.

I was 17 years old and lived in Seabrook--the place with the 12' tidal surge. The pictures above are from the area I lived. The first picture above on the left (the sailboat) appears to be taken on NASA Rd. 1--about a half-mile West of the condo my family lived in. The middle picture appears to be around the Nasau Bay Hilton (white building in background)--which is about a half mile West of where the sailboat picture was taken. The third photo appears to be of the houses on Galveston Bay in Seabrook, just north of Kemah.

We lived in a condo right on Clear Lake. It was up on stilts and we lived on the 1st floor, which was about 10' about ground level. Our family went inland about 15 miles to a friend's home in Clear Lake to ride out the storm. After the storm passed we returned to our condo, and the devastation was just unbelievable. Our entrie condo had been under 2 feet of water, so we got the full 12' of surge where we lived. There was still about 4 foot of water under the condo the next day, and my father and I went wading through that water, past the half-dozen sailboats that had broken free from their moorings and were now beached against our condo, and the floating refrigerators and debris floating in the water. My father later expressed how stupid he fealt for having us wade around in that water, having no idea what kind of debris was underneath it. But our belongings were floating around in it and we spent several hours wading through that muck trying to gather what things we could.

Our condos suffered more damage than most, because they were also hit by a tornado. It was a mess. To make matters worse, the insurance company that had insured the property itself went bankrupt and montly dues for the residents consequently increased by around $300 per month for several years to offset the losses and pay for the necessary repairs.

I never was frightened. Just awestruck. It was an experience that sparked in me a fascination with weather, and particularly hurricanes. I have been through 2 other minor hurricanes besides that one, and a typhoon in the Pacific while I was stationed on a Guided Missile Destroyer, but nothing came close to what I experienced with Alicia. Her relatively minor winds speeds were deceiving--she still packed a hell of a punch and an impressive tidal surge.

I look forward to participating on the board. Please be patient with my questions--I'm a novice who's interested in learning.

[Roxy]

Hi Neighbor. Don't worry I am still learning too, but I get the feeling many here are quite patient.

What a story you shared! Alicia was a bear wasn't she? Our family was really lucky, we were only about 3 or 4 miles from the condo you are discussing. It's amazing how one area was under water and another had no water at all!

[B-Bear]

Hi Neighbor. Don't worry I am still learning too, but I get the feeling many here are quite patient.

What a story you shared! Alicia was a bear wasn't she? Our family was really lucky, we were only about 3 or 4 miles from the condo you are discussing. It's amazing how one area was under water and another had no water at all!

Yeah, we rode out the storm in a subdivision close to El Camino Real and Bay Area Blvd. No major problem there, other than the fact that the walls of the house were "breathing" during the storm and it appeared the fireplace might collapse. But the Seabrook area (perhaps 5-7 miles away) just got leveled.