Imagine a Category 4 storm that makes landfall 30 miles west of the spot where Hurricane Ike came ashore. According to models by Rice University's SSPEED Center (Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters), a storm like that would generate a 25-foot surge of water into the Houston Ship Channel. And that's not counting the waves crashing atop that wall of water.
Imagine our coast's barrier islands completely submerged, their expensive beach houses wiped away, the residents who didn't evacuate, drowned. Imagine that wall of water crossing the Ship Channel's Superfund sites, carrying toxic goo as far as water will spread on flat land. Imagine the large-scale debris borne by those waves slamming into thousands of chemical storage tanks, toppling some of them off their foundations. Imagine the heart of the U.S. petrochemical industry brought to a standstill for months. Imagine our whole region - including Texas' largest city - reeling from a blow we might never recover from.
It goes on to say that this storm will someday hit Houston and the city has done very little to prepare for it. All of this and more is what I had in SURGE 9 years ago. I truly hope the story that popped into my head 13 years ago will never come true, but I am so afraid that it will.
Stay tuned for future adventures.
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