Galveston man update

I've been trying all day to get hold of Mike Orlando on Galveston Island.

Monday, September 15th 2008, 10:27 pm

By: News 9

Monday 8:54p.m.

I've been trying all day to get hold of Mike Orlando on Galveston Island. He is the nice fellow who came up and started visiting with me while we were getting ready for our Noon live shot Friday. We ended up interviewing him live.

Mike has lived on Galveston for more than 20 years. His house is (was?) about five blocks from the beach. He's has his own construction company and cares for several properties on Galveston for out of town owners. Mike told me he'd been following Hurricane Ike's progress on stormpulse.com and was convinced the TV guys were overblowing the situation. He told me he was staying on the island was prepared for "some" flooding.

There were a lot of people on Galveston like Mike. They've probably gotten overconfident in their local knowledge after riding out a handful of hurricanes. This time the TV guys were partially right, and so was Mike. The storm surge at Galveston was about 75% of what they expected, but even at that it poured over the seawall and Mike didn't expect that.

I hope he's okay. I've left several messages for him. Now this evening his voicemail is full. I've been looking for satellite or aerial images that might show his house, but so far no luck. Hopefully, I'll have an update for you before too long.

KellyO