Note: page down on the article after you click through.

Who cares if it’s on purpose, and staged, the wave makes all the difference! Don’t get me wrong, it’s foolish on the guys part, and he may be an attention whore, but cool looking none the less.

With Ike hitting the U.S. late Friday night / Early Saturday morning, the news and picture of the aftermath are now coming out.

Initial news reports are indicating the economic damange, mainly due to the fact that oil infrastructure seemed to have been missed, is much less than had been expected.   The major problem facing the areas hit by the storm is the lack of power, roughly 2.6 million customers in Texas and Louisiana are out of power.

Interested in some pictures of the aftermath?  Chron.com has a nice wrap up.

This is worth reading – Melissa Clouthier was Live Blogging her Hurricane experience.

If you are interested in the Hurricane and the impact to oil, check out The Oil Drum. They have data showing what Oil rigs are out of order due to the storm.  Outstanding write-up, great read and a new add to my “must read” list.

If you’ve ever wanted to feel small, just take a look at this:

Hurricane Ike over Cuba

This is a picture that NASA took as Ike passed over Cuba. Now realize that the storm has doubled in size since this picture was taken. Amazing. Simply amazing.

The storm looks to be on track to his Houston at some point this evening. With nearly a million people moving out of Ike’s path, gas prices on the rise due refinery shut downs, and 15 foot storm surge expected, this will be a wild weekend for some in Texas.

Here is the current model…

Others talking about the storm:

Hurricane Ike Resources
Jonny Torres – Ike video coming ashore
Diary of a Mad Poker Player – Hurricane Ike
Symonsez – Hurricane Ike Not Intense But Has Serious Muscle

As I had mentioned previously, the storm track for Ike seems to change by the hour.  Models have the system moving back toward Houston about 24 hours after it looked as if Ike was going to the US/Mexican border and a Hurricane warning is extended almost to New Orleans.

The evacuation orders in Texas are also starting, and Houston is starting to feel the worry that a storm of this size can bring.  What really surprises me is, with nearly 96% of oil production off line in the Gulf, the price of oil continues to decline.  That says a lot, I believe…

More to come.

I’m not a meteorologist, nor do I play one on TV, but I am really surprised at how quickly hurricane Ike’s projected path changed in a matter of hours. In the last two days the storm went from hitting New Orleans to just about hitting the US / Mexican border. The surprise, for me, is the path changed significantly from this morning – in a matter of 4 hours.

When I first logged on all models were showing Houston was still the target of the storm but come lunch time it’s Corpus Christi. That’s a big difference in a short period of time which says to me one shouldn’t underestimate where this guy is going.

Think about it – the models are changing so quickly, so dramatically, anything could happen in a matter of hours. While targets have it trending west and south into less populated areas, the Gulf should still fear a turn to the north.

Never underestimate Mother Nature.

Here is the current storm path:

First the good news – models suggest New Orleans looks to miss the brunt of Hurricane Ike.

The bad new – compare the storm track above with the Gulf Coast Oil platforms and you’ll see the production area is on the east side of the storm, not a good area to be. I’m surprised oil prices managed to stay below $110 with the storm on the way. Maybe the oil bubble is over, maybe the market really doesn’t think this will hurt production…

The really bad news – Houston could be the new target of the storm.

Hurricane Gustav is almost in the center of the Gulf as a category 3 storm.  While it lost some of it kick over night, forecasters are predicting Gustav will grow to a Category 4.

As noted previously, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has ordered the evacuation of the city and the U.S. government has declared a state of emergency.  In addition, the Texas Governor activated 5,000 members of the National Guard in preparation for a potential disaster and mandatory evacuation for Jefferson and Orange counties are taking place.

From an economic perspective be prepared for gas prices to rise significantly over the next one to three weeks.  This is due to a shutdown or roughly 77% of oil output and 37% of natural gas production in the Gulf.

More to come…