Southeast Texas is in the midst of a massive recovery operation in the aftermath of Ike. People will learn many lessons from this storm. Some of those lessons will be right, and some will be wrong:

Lesson No. 1: Now we finally realize how bad a hurricane can be. FALSE.

Ike was "only" a Category 2 hurricane. Hurricanes can get much, much worse. The 1900 Galveston hurricane, for example, was a Category 4. Cat 4 storms are unusual, but inevitable.

Consider the wind damage in your area, and then consider what would have happened had the winds been three times more powerful. That's the difference between a Cat 2 and a Cat 4.

The damaging power of the wind increases much faster than the wind itself. Even worse, the damage is not proportional to the wind power, but goes up almost exponentially as the force of the wind increases.

Say you lost a patch of roof with Ike. If the power of the wind had been three times as strong, you wouldn't have lost three patches of roof, you would have lost the whole thing, and probably more besides.

To imagine the storm surge from a Cat 4, take the elevation of the land around your house and subtract it from 25 feet. If you've got something left, that's how far under water you'd be. If the land slopes toward the Gulf of Mexico, add 10 feet of waves to that. If the land is on a barrier island, imagine that all that water is moving like a river.

Ike came close to delivering a Category 4 type surge to Houston, but the biggest surge from Ike missed Harris and Galveston Counties.

Lesson No. 2: No home can survive the full wrath of a hurricane. TRUE.

In before-and-after pictures of the Bolivar Peninsula, it is easy to tell the newer homes from the older homes. Many times, the new homes survived while the old homes were washed away. Clearly, if you want to build a home to survive the passage of a hurricane, you can do so.

But what's the point if the roads all get washed away, the power is cut off and the mold has a three-week head start?

Not only does the house need to be resilient, but so does the community. Until we have hurricane-resistant electricity and water supplies, the strongest house in the world won't survive the aftermath of a hurricane.

Lesson No. 3: We can't wait until a strike is imminent before evacuating. TRUE.

You can pay the price of living in a hurricane surge zone for 20 years in two ways: by evacuating five times, or by staying put five times.

If you stay, four of those times the storm will miss you and you'll save a pile of money and hassle. The fifth time will be either the worst night of your life or the last night of your life.

Those are the choices. You can't evacuate only when necessary, because you don't know when it'll be necessary until it's too late.

Surge forecasting needs to be better, too, so that people can make informed choices before evacuating. The range of uncertainty presently attached to surge forecasts, such as "18-22 feet," is misleading. It incorporates the errors in the surge model, but doesn't incorporate the errors in the hurricane forecast.

Even so, people are going to hear "storm surge could be as high as 22 feet." In reality, it could be even higher, but it will probably be lower. Meteorologists are desperately grappling with the issue of how to properly convey the uncertainty of forecasts to the public in a way that's easy to understand.

Also, a single peak number isn't enough. People need to know how rapidly the water will rise, and when evacuation will become impossible. Not enough people on Bolivar Peninsula knew that the escape routes would be blocked by Friday morning.

Lesson No. 4: We still don't have an acceptable evacuation plan. TRUE.

Actually, the evacuation itself went fairly well. But not enough people evacuated, and those who did are suffering more hardship in the aftermath than those who didn't evacuate.

It seems that we are actively discouraging people from evacuating by keeping them away from their homes while those who didn't evacuate get to stay there, at least temporarily.

People will likely conclude that they can protect their homes much better during and after a hurricane by staying rather than leaving.

The evacuation plan must make it more desirable to leave than to stay, by catering to the needs of those who do leave.

Many of those who did not evacuate could not afford to evacuate. Let's face it: It's much cheaper to stay put than to leave. We need to establish a viable option for them. This won't be easy, but it's necessary.

Lesson No. 5: Next time, we'll evacuate sooner. FALSE.

After Rita and Ike, it's easy to think that the next hurricane will be identified as a threat long before landfall. We could see Ike coming from 1,000 miles away.

Maybe not next time. The odds are that the next major hurricane to strike Texas will form right here in the Gulf of Mexico. Forget the 120-hour plan; we'll be lucky if we have 72 hours of warning.

Also, if you've got a plan for what to do if it's a Cat 2, or a Cat 3, or a Cat 4, be prepared for the actual hurricane to be one or two categories different (either up or down) from what's being forecasted three days in advance.

My guess is that you won't be able to evacuate sooner, because the next storm might not even exist three days before it makes landfall.

Lesson No. 6: Ike gives us valuable experience with hurricanes. FALSE.

How many times have you heard a statement like this: "I was here for (Carla, Alicia, etc.) and it wasn't so bad." Next year, many people will be thinking, "My home survived Ike, so now I know my home is OK in a hurricane."

Ike was a big storm. A lot of neighborhoods experienced Cat 1 strength winds, but only a few neighborhoods experienced Cat 2 winds.

If you didn't get directly nailed by the eyewall, don't be thinking that your home can survive any Category 2 storm just because it survived this one.

Your home may be OK for a Cat 2 moving up the western shore of Galveston Bay. The next storm will follow a different path, and it may be stronger, too, so be aware that such a storm is outside your realm of experience.

It's a good thing that Category 4 storms are rare. It's also a good thing that Houston hasn't taken a direct hit from a Cat 4 since 1900. But it's also a bad thing.

It has been said that the Army trains to fight the last war, not the next one. So, too, with hurricanes. The Houston area may be well prepared the next time an Ike is bearing down on the coast.

Unfortunately, the name "Ike" is being retired. The next storm will be different.

Nielsen-Gammon is Texas state climatologist and a professor of meteorology at Texas A&M. He can be e-mailed at n-g@tamu.edu.

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