The day after Hurricane Ike made U.S. landfall at Galveston, Texas, photographer Bryan Carlile was in a helicopter, working a service contract as a first responder. He took with him a native Texan’s good memories of the Gulf Coast but brought back images that tell the sobering story of this massive and historic storm. After Ike includes more than one hundred aerial photographs Carlile took of the hurricane’s grim aftermath accompanied by Carlile’s eyewitness captions. In some places, Carlile is able to show images from “before Ike” that bring home the magnitude of the changes wrought to both natural and human habitats. In a thoughtful, personal essay, Andrew Sansom, who was raised on the Texas coast, reflects on the realities of living in “Hurricane Alley.”

If Hurricane Ike had made landfall just fifty miles down the Texas coast, the devastation and death caused by what was already one of the most destructive hurricanes in US history would have quadrupled. Ike made everyone realize just how exposed and vulnerable the Houston-Galveston area is in the face of a major storm. What is done to address this vulnerability will shape the economic, social, and environmental landscape of the region for decades to come. In Lessons from Hurricane Ike, Philip Bedient and the research team at the Severe Storm Prediction, Education, and Evacuation from Disasters (SSPEED) Center at Rice University provide an overview of some of the research being done in the Houston-Galveston region in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. The center was formed shortly after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Its research examines everything from surge and inland flooding to bridge infrastructure. Lessons from Hurricane Ike gathers the work of some of the premier researchers in the fields of hurricane prediction and impact, summarizing it in accessible language accompanied by abundant illustrations—not just graphs and charts, but dramatic photos and informative maps. Orienting readers to the history and basic meteorology of severe storms along the coast, the book then revisits the impact of Hurricane Ike and discusses what scientists and engineers are studying as they look at flooding, storm surges, communications, emergency response, evacuation planning, transportation issues, coastal resiliency, and the future sustainability of the nation’s fourth largest metropolitan area.

If Hurricane Ike had made landfall just fifty miles down the Texas coast, the devastation and death caused by what was already one of the most destructive hurricanes in US history would have quadrupled. Ike made everyone realize just how exposed and vulnerable the Houston-Galveston area is in the face of a major storm. What is done to address this vulnerability will shape the economic, social, and environmental landscape of the region for decades to come. In Lessons from Hurricane Ike, Philip Bedient and the research team at the Severe Storm Prediction, Education, and Evacuation from Disasters (SSPEED) Center at Rice University provide an overview of some of the research being done in the Houston-Galveston region in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. The center was formed shortly after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. Its research examines everything from surge and inland flooding to bridge infrastructure. Lessons from Hurricane Ike gathers the work of some of the premier researchers in the fields of hurricane prediction and impact, summarizing it in accessible language accompanied by abundant illustrations—not just graphs and charts, but dramatic photos and informative maps. Orienting readers to the history and basic meteorology of severe storms along the coast, the book then revisits the impact of Hurricane Ike and discusses what scientists and engineers are studying as they look at flooding, storm surges, communications, emergency response, evacuation planning, transportation issues, coastal resiliency, and the future sustainability of the nation’s fourth largest metropolitan area.

Hurricane IKE wiped out the entire Bolivar Peninsula of Galveston County, Texas leaving a mere "bomb explosion" effect on the community. It took over two week before residents where allowed onto their ravished properties, to see the horrendous destruction. It was a nightmare to all that returned. There are stories of our residents that stayed during the storm thinking it was only a Category 2 Hurricane. This book is dedicated to the stories that we will never hear and to all of the survival stories that we are thankful that we do have. The residents of the Bolivar Peninsula, Texas went through a life time experience with Hurricane IKE. On September 13, 2008, Hurricane IKE ravished the entire Bolivar Peninsula, Texas. It left the peninsula bare as if a bomb had exploded. The entire Gulf of Mexico churned with winds reaching 275 miles from the eye. The gulf side of Florida witnessed miles of beaches as the ocean was entirely submerging the Bolivar Peninsula in Texas. The residents of the Peninsula have our own unique stories and memories to share through each of our individual eyes. We lived through the unbelievable, the unknowing, the destruction, the loss, the love, the spiritual and the comeback! These are our stories, as our entire lives changed within a blink of an eye!

In this superb biography of a complex marriage, Susan Eisenhower presents her grandmother as her grandfather saw her -- an heroic and irresistible figure in her own right.

www.after-ike.com On a sunny July morning in 1919, some 300 military personnel and 81 heavy vehicles assembled on the south side of the White House in Washington DC. The convoy was about to embark on a historic trip over the Lincoln Highway. Their destination was 3,200 miles away in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. There were no maps for the route out west, no service stations, and the convoy relied on the limited knowledge of a handful of earlier pioneers. The convoy was a huge national story, cheered on by millions of people who lined the route. Among the 300 members of the convoy was a 28-year-old lieutenant colonel named Dwight Eisenhower. Utilizing the convoy's official daily log and other secondary material, author Michael Owen drove the exact route of the convoy over what are now lonely backcountry roads or dusty tracks across open western landscapes. Owen relates the particulars of the convoy's historic trip and chronicles the myriad changes along the route over the years. After Ike is the story of a century-old trip that changed the United States and continues to impact us all. About the Author Michael S. Owen is a retired US Ambassador. During his 30 years as a Foreign Service Officer he worked in numerous countries across Africa and Asia. Now that he's back home, he's delighting in traveling around his own country and has driven over the Lincoln Highway several times. He has published several short stories in literary journals, but After Ike is his first full-length book. He lives in Reston, Virginia, with his wife, Annerieke, and their cat, Rusty.