Hurricane Ike Approaches

Things are getting crazy and Ike is still a couple of hours from actually coming ashore on Galveston Island.

On the light side, it's been rather amusing watching Geraldo Rivera get slammed around as he continues to insist on doing his live reports from outdoor Galveston. He's been bowled over twice today and come up sputtering both times, funny stuff. I always wonder why those guys really think that anyone is impressed by their willingness to stand up to hurricane winds and rain. Don't they realize that some random piece of storm debris has a pretty good chance of taking their heads off their shoulders at those wind speeds.

On the dark side, they are saying that something over 20,000 people actually ignored the order to evacuate Galveston and many thousands more (maybe 90,000) decided to ride the storm out in the communities on the Houston side of the bay. One official actually asked those who stayed behind in Galveston to do us all a favor by inking their social security numbers on their arms so that their bodies could more easily be identified after the storm. That kind of morbidly, sarcastic "humor" might be prophetic. I hope not.