HOUSTON – For days, Dr. Neil Frank was in the 11 News Weather Center tracking Hurricane Ike.

Three weeks after the storm, Dr. Frank got a bird's eye view of the devastation that stretched from Surfside to Gilchrist.

“This was a classic example of the weak side versus the strong side of the storm,” said Dr. Frank.

The supposed weak side of the storm left its calling card on Galveston Island.

Several homes were wiped out there.

For comparison, Dr. Frank showed off aerial pictures he had taken of homes on Pirates Beach in 2006.

AP photo

A beachfront home stands among the debris in Gilchrist.

One image was of a home with an orange roof, which sat next to two other homes.

In the post-Ike photos, there was nothing there.

On the Bolivar Peninsula, Doc witnessed beachfront neighborhoods that suddenly looked like the moon. He believes that hundreds of homes were destroyed in that area alone.

Dr. Frank also got pictures from the U.S. Geodetic Survey.

They show a Bolivar Subdivision three days before the storm and right after it. 

“On the dirty side, lets compare the damage. You can see that whole coastal area is gone,” he said.

Dr. Frank has spent 50 years forecasting storms and says Ike’s size surprised him.

He said the storm, which was the size of Texas, reminded us all that you could build for wind, but not for a tidal surge of water.