Wind. Surge. A New Scale?

I think a new hurricane scale is a great idea. I've talked to long time residents of Galveston who were very specific about how Ike as a Cat 2 did not worry them, because they did just fine staying put through Alicia which was a Cat 3.

Besides the fact that the current scale does not account for storm surge for large hurricanes in shallow waters, it also puzzled me that after Ike passed, the damage on the "dirty" side of the storm wasn't any greater than the damage on my side of the storm - the western side. It looked identical in Clear Lake as it did in Fort Bend. Maybe it was supposed to? I assumed that by the time the winds circled around over here, they would be less forceful and there would be less damage.

I think the winds were Cat 1 by the time they reached my house, and if that is true, I'm not sure I want to be in my home if a Cat 3 or 4 goes up the same route.

I just think something needs to change in the warnings when something that monstrous in size - even if windspeeds are not extraordinarily high - hits close to home.

I was fortunate to only lose a tree (which did not fall on my house) and a back fence. Well, and I also ended up with a little PIDS (Post Ike Distress Syndrome). And I'm not going through that again without a contraption to make coffee the next morning without electricity.