When it comes to storm surge, ABC13 Chief Forecaster David Tillman said the amount of damage would depend on the exact location of that hypothetical storm's landfall.
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"Let's take Hurricane Ike," Tillman said. "The eye of the system went right over the heart of Galveston Bay. It came in just east of Galveston Island."
He said storm-surge damage would have been dramatically different had Ike hit about 20 miles to the west.
"The ship channel and all of those communities on the west coast of Galveston Bay would have had major issues with high water from Hurricane Ike had it come in a little bit further west," Tillman said of the 2008 storm.
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Tillman said the same would be true if a storm like Ian hit the area along a more westward landfall than Ike.
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In fact, experts say Galveston will become more susceptible to storm-surge damage in the future due to a variety of factors. Tillman said houses that didn't take on water during Ike won't be so fortunate over the next 30 years.
"(It's due to) sea-level rise and sublimation, which is the sinking of the ground there by the coast," Tillman said.
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