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This is just a tiny piece of what happened in Crystal Beach, Texas during Hurricane Ike. Even though it has been many months since the storm came ashore, the destruction is still evident. In this shot alone, a pre-storm panorama would have included dozens of beach houses. The puddle of water just in front of the collapsed house WAS a road called Blue Water Drive, but the beach has encroached an additional 20 or so feet on that section of the penninsula. Google maps has good pre-storm imagery of the shooting location at http://tinyurl.com/bolivar-pano. On the map and facing north, the collapsed house is third from the right of the intersection of O'Neill Rd and Blue Water Dr.
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The people that own this property, Allen and Mikey Isbell, are ministering to this congregation of people and are having Sunday Church Services in their greenhouse or sun-room as seen in this 360-degree panorama. A panorama of their actual church building has been seen in an earlier panorama: http://gigapan.org/gigapans/31296/ This congregation of people are waiting for the construction and repair of their building (Ike caused major interior damage) to be complete before they return, and each Sunday until then are meeting in the Isbell's greenhouse as explained in this newspaper articles from September and November, 2008: http://tinyurl.com/5ferpn and http://tinyurl.com/mkc4hk Over my lifetime, I have attended a few churches and have listened to a fair number of sermons, and I must honestly say that this service was sort of unique to me as I have never been among a group of people that have been through so much pain and agony as what these have been through this past year and still are excited about the work and the path that is set before them as they continue to help those that are in need in the city of Galveston, Texas. I was uplifted by Allen's sermon and was touched by their overwhelming friendliness and acceptance of me, a visitor, into their meeting place and would return more often if it were not for the long distance that separates Galveston from Houston. They have invited me back for their first church service in their renovated church building to take another GigaPan and I look forward to that occasion, whenever it may be. Note: This panorama can be seen in Google Earth as a beautiful 360-degree curved panorama on a curved surface by clicking the link, View in Google Earth. This hand-held panorama was taken with a Nikon D-70 using a Nikkor 28-80 f/3.3-5.6 G lens and was stitched using the GigaPan Stitcher software. Additional information can be seen in Stitcher Notes. |
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Galveston is coming back from the devastation incurred due to Hurricane Ike. Buildings, once thought to be destroyed by some, are now being rebuilt.
Of some concern are the trees that line Broadway Avenue and one can see from this panorama that they are not healthy. If you go to Google Earth and view Galveston before they change the view from January, 2008, you will readily see how glorious Galveston once looked. In a few more days, the one year anniversary of Ike will be remembered, but for many, if not all on the Island, that particular Hurricane will never be forgotten. Additional information can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Ike This panorama was taken with a Nikon D70 camera using a Nikkor 28-80 lens. The time of day was about 3PM and there had been recent rainfall. |
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Galveston is coming back from the devastation incurred due to Hurricane Ike. Buildings, once thought to be destroyed by some, are now being rebuilt. Of some concern are the trees that line Broadway Avenue and one can see from this panorama that they are not healthy. If you go to Google Earth and view Galveston before they change the view from January, 2008, you will readily see how glorious Galveston once looked. In a few more days, the one year anniversary of Ike will be remembered, but for many, if not all on the Island, that Hurricane will always be remembered. Additional information can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Ike This panorama was taken with a Nikon D70 camera using a Nikkor 28-80 lens. The time of day was about 3PM and there had been recent rainfall. |
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Just d/l the most recent Stitcher for my Mac, 0.4.3509 and it now can stitch this set without dark bands between the photos. Thanks to the Gigapan programming team for the improvement.
These electrical trucks all ended up on a cafeteria parking lot, which was packed with them. I did not get electricity back until a few days later, but when I saw these dudes, I was most happy. Hand-held with my Leica D-Lux 3 |
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Gigapan from the roof of my apartment, taken the day after Hurricane Ike hit. It was still sprinkling a little. Luckily, we never lost power. |
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Crystal Beach is (was?) a town on Bolivar Peninsula, east of Galveston, Texas. Bolivar Peninsula was among the areas that suffered the hardest hit by Hurricane Ike, a storm that made landfall on September 13, 2008, at Galveston, as a category 2 hurricane. Few of the houses in this area survived the more than 12 feet high storm surge. This 360 panorama was taken 9 weeks after Ike's devastation; best viewed in Google Earth. |
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The Flagship Hotel is located midway down a 1,000 foot pier that extends into the Gulf of Mexico. Damage from the storm is evident in the panorama. A large piece of the building is missing from the (camera position) upper left narrow side. Also, both entrance ramps to the pier are damaged. One is completely collapsed and the other is partially down. Vehicles MAY have access to the pier on the partial side as there are two cars parked in the panorama, but these may have been abandoned there since Ike made landfall. Although the hotel website lists a mid-January opening date, this seems unlikely, as major structural work remains to be done. The google map pre-storm location can be seen at http://tinyurl.com/flagship-pano while the Flagship's website is at http://www.flagshiphotel.com/. |
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Typical Street Having Minor Damage... some had aggravation and some had no visible problems as evidenced by the home immediately across from the camera.
No flooding here, but a block away, major flooding... two blocks away, traffic lights on the ground and a gas station with a waiting line two hours+ long, but Houston is recovering; not so with Galveston... not many panos there only ruined homes and lots and lots of sand and trash. Here, as you can see, some homes escaped damage more so than others. If I had done a 360-pano, you would have seen lots of tree limbs stacked up at the curb for later pickup as in LATER. The wind was blowing so hard about 2 or 3 Saturday morning, at one point, I believed I was losing the roof to my home, but come Saturday afternoon when it was safe to go outside for a few moments, all I saw missing were a few shingles. Companion to: http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=9420 |
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Hand-held ... lots of shadows, but clearly one can see trash that may be on the curb for several weeks. I do not know where the city will take it. Can you imagine a city of the size of greater Houston and all the debris from Ike and the size of landfill required to accommodate the trash? My opinion is that all the leaves will get blown away somewhere else in the neighborhood to once again be picked up and and then put into plastic bags.
Companion to: http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=9133 |