OVERALL...IKE IS A LARGE CYCLONE...AS DATA FROM BOTH AIR FORCE AND
NOAA HURRICANE HUNTER AIRCRAFT INDICATE THAT THE EXTENT OF WINDS OF
HURRICANE AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE HAS INCREASED...ESPECIALLY NORTH
OF THE CIRCULATION CENTER.

More seriously: although New Orleans is uniquely vulnerable among U.S. cities to flooding caused by storm surge, the second most vunerable major metopolitan area for that is Houston.

Cubs general manager Jim Hendry said he had spoken Wednesday to Katy Feeney, Major League Baseball's senior vice president of scheduling, and she had no concrete plans for rescheduling games.

There has been no known talk about shifting the Saturday or Sunday games, though there is speculation Saturday's game would be postponed if the hurricane hits Houston, possibly forcing a doubleheader Sunday or single games Sunday and Monday, which is an off day for both teams.

Another possibility is playing the final two games in St. Louis because the Cardinals will be in Pittsburgh.

"I don't want to go," Ryan Theriot said. "I understand why the Astros want the games there. They're in the wild-card (race) and playing well. But (if) that storm does turn and they evacuate the city, then what do you do? Now we're stuck. You hop on a bus and go where?"

Some Cubs joked that the Astros should want to play at Wrigley Field this weekend because they swept the Cubs there last week.

First baseman Derrek Lee, a former Florida Marlin and a member of the 2004 Cubs team that skipped a trip to South Florida in a similar case, also had concerns -- and a solution.

"Let's go to a neutral site, play three and get it over with," he said. "Why risk it?"

But that was not among the scenarios being discussed Wednesday, according to one MLB source -- despite a rumor circulating at Busch Stadium that the teams might play this weekend in St. Louis, with the Cardinals headed to Pittsburgh after tonight's game.

For now, the discussions have focused more on using the four-day window (including a mutual day off Monday) to get in the three scheduled games while avoiding the worst weather, the source said. The Astros released a statement that included the possibility of moving Friday night's game to an afternoon start.

Assuming no damage to the stadium, why would they move the game anywhere? It's a rainout, not really anything unprecedented in baseball history. And if the stadium IS damaged significantly, then there's no real need to move a game up by 5 hours to get it in before the storm hits: There's plenty of bigger scheduling problems to follow. Shouldn't they be more focused on hurricane preparedness than baseball scheduling?

Due to the threat of Hurricane Ike, the Houston Astros have postponed games Friday and Saturday against the Chicago Cubs.

Hurricane Ike, approaching the Texas coastline with winds of 100 miles per hour, is expected to reach landfall early Saturday morning.

Astros owner Drayton McLane said a decision has yet to be reached on when the games will be rescheduled.

“We’re trying to be careful and mindful of our fans safety,” McLane said. “People in the greater Houston area and Harris County have been encouraged to stay home. School has been canceled and we just want to do the right thing.”

The decision was made after discussions with the Office of Emergency Management, Major League Baseball, the Chicago Cubs and the players’ union... The Cubs had hoped the potentially crucial series could be moved to a neutral site, and they made their displeasure clear to the Astros, the commissioner’s office, the union and to the media.
...
The Astros are still considering multiple possibilities to make up those games, but owner Drayton McLane would prefer to have those games at Minute Maid Park either Sunday and Monday or after Sept. 28, which is currently the date of the season finale.
...
“The first thing we heard was the Cubs wanted us to fly to Milwaukee to play,” said Astros infielder Mark Loretta, one of only two National League player representatives. “We didn’t think that was a very good idea to try to evacuate our families and take off and leave them behind and all that stuff. I think that was quickly nixed.

“Milwaukee came up for some reason. Of course, Milwaukee is kind of a Cubs home game.”

Both clubs are scheduled to be off Monday, so one game could possibly be made up before the Cubs fly to play the Brewers and the Astros fly to play the Florida Marlins. If the weather clears up, there’s a strong possibility the teams will play a split day-night doubleheader Sunday, according to a Cubs official and Astros players who have been briefed on the talks.

“Well, (a doubleheader Sunday is) what I think will probably happen,” Loretta said.

Baseball officials also were anticipating that Sunday’s series finale also might be postponed. One of the scenarios under consideration was to play a doubleheader Monday, and make up the third game on Sept. 29 if it’s needed to decide a playoff berth. The Cubs and Astros have no common off days after Monday.

It's possible they could play on Sunday, as the storm is forecast to move rapidly to the north east after landfall.

Hurricane Ike has forced the Texans’ home opener against the Baltimore Ravens to be moved to 7:30 p.m. Monday night at Reliant Stadium.
...
The NFL announced late this afternoon that, in conjunction with the Texans and Ravens, the game should be postponed for a day to help the city deal with the fallout from the hurricane that’s expected to make landfall early Saturday morning.

ol' Jungle Jim on the Weather Channel has been stationed in Galveston, so they're definitely ######. Wherever he takes root, large amounts of water usually follow.

Tom Skilling

LIFE THREATENING INUNDATION LIKELY!

ALL NEIGHBORHOODS...AND POSSIBLY ENTIRE COASTAL COMMUNITIES...
WILL BE INUNDATED DURING THE PERIOD OF PEAK STORM TIDE. PERSONS
NOT HEEDING EVACUATION ORDERS IN SINGLE FAMILY ONE OR TWO STORY
HOMES WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH. MANY RESIDENCES OF AVERAGE
CONSTRUCTION DIRECTLY ON THE COAST WILL BE DESTROYED. WIDESPREAD
AND DEVASTATING PERSONAL PROPERTY DAMAGE IS LIKELY ELSEWHERE.
VEHICLES LEFT BEHIND WILL LIKELY BE SWEPT AWAY. NUMEROUS ROADS
WILL BE SWAMPED...SOME MAY BE WASHED AWAY BY THE WATER. ENTIRE
FLOOD PRONE COASTAL COMMUNITIES WILL BE CUTOFF. WATER LEVELS MAY
EXCEED 9 FEET FOR MORE THAN A MILE INLAND. COASTAL RESIDENTS IN
MULTI-STORY FACILITIES RISK BEING CUTOFF. CONDITIONS WILL BE
WORSENED BY BATTERING WAVES. SUCH WAVES WILL EXACERBATE PROPERTY
DAMAGE...WITH MASSIVE DESTRUCTION OF HOMES...INCLUDING THOSE OF
BLOCK CONSTRUCTION. DAMAGE FROM BEACH EROSION COULD TAKE YEARS TO
REPAIR.

Ideally MLB already would have shifted the game to a neutral site, such as Tampa Bay or Atlanta, but Commissioner Bud Selig has been influenced by Drayton McLane's insistence on stubbornly hoping for the best. It's also possible that Houston players would have used their union powers to block a schedule change that would have forced them to leave town while their families dealt with the storm and its aftermath.
...
Hendry doesn't like the wait but understands it.

"We'd like to (have the series moved, not delayed)," he said. "But you can't expect Astros' players to leave their families. Those concerns come ahead of these games."

The Astros... engaged the emergency clamps to re-enforce the retractable-roof at Minute Maid Park. Crews also boarded windows at Union Station and placed sand bags in areas susceptible to flooding.

“The big thing is tying down the roof,” Astros spokesman Jay Lucas said.

The glass wall along left-center field is rated to keep out debris striking it at up to 118 miles per hour, Astros vice president of building operations Bobby Forrest said.

Oliver Luck, who was actively involved in the building of the three pro sports venues as head of the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority, said some modifications were made to Toyota Center in the wake of Tropical Storm Allison in 2001.

Storm systems throughout the country wreaked havoc on the baseball schedule, postponing six games Friday night and creating a weekend full of doubleheaders.

Hurricane Ike, a colossal storm nearly as big as Texas itself, began battering the Gulf Coast on Friday, a day after officials postponed the first two games of the weekend series in Houston between the Astros and Cubs.

Meanwhile, rainy weather throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic led to the postponement of games all the way from Baltimore to New York. Another storm wiped out the White Sox-Tigers game in Chicago.

It was the most major league postponements in one day since six games were wiped out on April 15, 2007. Prior to that, there hadn’t been that many since April 12, 1997, when eight games were postponed, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

As Hurricane Ike pushed a swelling surge onto Galveston Island tonight, many Galveston residents who ignored a mandatory evacuation order phoned for rescues to no avail because emergency workers were called off the streets, officials said.
...
Galveston ordered an 8 p.m. curfew because 40 percent of the city's 58,000 residents ignored calls to evacuate.
...
Earlier today, [City Manager Steve] LeBlanc expressed dismay that so much of the city's population remained behind to ride out the storm. "It's unfortunate that the warning we sent out — the mayor's mandatory evacuation — was not heeded," he said.

By comparison, nearly 100 percent of Galveston left the island during Hurricane Rita, just three years ago.

Police Chief Randy Smith said authorities believe some people remain in the city. Officers [Friday] planned a door-to-door search for holdouts. By early afternoon, authorities said only one resident was known to remain on the island.

Smith said his officers waded through torso-deep water this morning to urge one resident, vacationer Bob Taylor of Fort Worth, to flee his home. Taylor rebuffed the rescue attempt.

But, about 11 a.m., after repeated urgings from his wife, Taylor changed his mind.

Smith said Taylor escaped his home in a canoe, then was taken to a safe location by officers.

According to the local Houston reporter on FOX, Texas law dictates that you can't force someone to leave during a mandatory evacuation? WTF? What's the point, then?