ATL: IKE Discussion

[HURAKAN]

In Galveston, Ike’s Aftermath Is Very Trying
By IAN URBINA
GALVESTON, Tex. — For thousands of people stuck on an increasingly fetid Galveston Island, the aftermath of Hurricane Ike is proving to be far worse than the storm itself.

With no water or power, no working toilets, no food or phones, people faced growing public health concerns here on Sunday. More than 2,000 residents who had defied an evacuation order lined up to be taken off the island, and state officials tried to ensure that no one could return.

“The storm was easy,” said Brenda Shinette, 51, who rode out the hurricane in her home but went to a shelter Sunday hoping to be taken to the mainland. “It’s what came after that was terrible.”

She said the lack of toilets had become so bad in her neighborhood that she had been avoiding eating so she would not have to use the bathroom.

“We have no showers, and the food is spoiled,” Ms. Shinette said. “I feel like I want to pass out, but I can’t tell if it is from too much heat or too little food.”

Three people were found dead in Galveston on Sunday, including one person found in a submerged vehicle near the airport. Officials expressed fears that more would be found as new areas of flooding were searched, particularly on the west end of the island, where there was “horrendous” devastation, said the city manager, Steve LeBlanc.

“We had been taking rescue calls” from the west end, Mr. LeBlanc said at a news conference, “but we have lost all communication with them. We know there were people out there. What happened to them, I’m not sure.”

The authorities said it might be a month before water and power were restored on the island. Only emergency personnel were being allowed onto the island, they said.

“We want our citizens to stay where they are,” said Galveston’s mayor, Lyda Ann Thomas. “Do not come back to Galveston. You cannot live here right now.”

Ms. Thomas added: “Galveston has been hit hard. We have no power. We have no gas. We have no communications. We’re not sure when any of that will be up and running.”

The air has become offensive to smell and was swarming with mosquitoes. Sewage has begun to back up onto waterlogged streets. The lack of running water was becoming a health hazard. Without the water, people could not flush toilets or properly wash their hands.

Small packs of stray dogs roamed the streets. Helicopters buzzed overhead on search and rescue missions. Debris from ruined buildings lined the broad boulevard along the Gulf of Mexico. A line of about 60 cars snaked around piles of wood, slabs of concrete and fallen awnings, their drivers waiting for the Coast Guard to give out food, water and tarps.

Along the road to the island’s flooded west end, longhorn steers grazed in the median strip near scattered recreational boats and a shiny late-model Corvette with water inside. Refrigerators and trash bins lay in the front yards of several homes, and some of the area’s most expensive houses lay in rubble.

In Jamaica Beach, just west of Galveston, six houses were destroyed and most of the others damaged, said a police official, Steve Hubbell. He warned residents that snakes were slithering through debris and that nails in the roadway were flattening many tires. As rain started again on Sunday, many people in Galveston reached their limit and headed to the shelter at Ball High School. The state sent dozens of buses to ferry residents to San Antonio.

“I will go anywhere but here,” Shannika Jones said as she stood at the shelter with her sons, one a year old and the other 6 months, in a line to board a bus. “My babies are getting sick.” Behind her were two rows of chairs filled with elderly people, some of them with open wounds.

“Next time they should warn people about this, not the storm itself,” Ms. Jones said.

Despite the fraying nerves, life remained orderly. Officials said the Police Department had responded to a handful of calls about looting but had found no evidence of it. Residents on the streets appeared exhausted but were mostly civil to one another and to those here to help and protect them.

Scores of state and federal emergency workers are here. Few, however, seem to have answers, and even fewer have the basics they need to do their jobs.

“Without water, electricity or fuel, we are pretty handicapped,” said one police officer, who asked not to be identified. “Things are calm with residents still, but I think before long that could change.”

The city had only four working ambulances; one became so overworked that it caught fire and was taken out of service. More ambulances were being sent in by the state and federal authorities.

“Problem is, we can’t treat cabin fever,” said Dave Smith, a paramedic who drove one of the remaining three ambulances and who was responding to many of the several hundred 911 calls coming in each day.

The most serious calls are from people suffering from seizures, chest pains or dehydration, Mr. Smith said, or from elderly people who are running low on medicines or who have fallen down and are trapped. But most of the calls are from people desperate to get to the hospital because they think it will have electricity, water and food, he said. Those callers are disappointed to learn that the island’s main hospital, the University of Texas Medical Branch, is accepting only the most serious cases.

As the floodwaters receded, they left an inch-thick layer of slippery sludge coating the roads. Water still stands in the bottom floors of most houses. A few hotels have diesel generators supplying electricity and are enveloped in exhaust fumes.

“You don’t want to come back to this,” said Mr. LeBlanc, the city manager. “Not now.”

Thayer Evans contributed reporting.

[jinftl]

Maybe the inaccessibility of the worst hit areas has been a challenge to getting news coverage as extensive in the hours prior to the storm....which could change in the next few days?

As the eye was preparing to move on-shore, the news networks on cable really kept on the developing story for most of the night....the predictions just kept getting worse....culminating with the prediction (by the Governor of TX i think) that this could be an $81 billion dollar storm. And it certainly could have been...and who knows what the tally will end up being....but when, in addition to the clearly awful surge damage, the news has also been reporting that this was 'not the worst case scenario it could have been' headline, that brings the story out of the sensational-level of the pre-landfall hours.

If you are going through it, it is your worst case scenario.....no diminishing that. But you know how the media works....today's winds in the unexpected midwest will become a story now to compete with ike in texas as well. TWC already made comment several times 'some winds today were not that far from highest gusts in parts of inland houston'.

I have to think the lack of cable network coverage is due to it being the weekend, and the networks being unwilling to pay to have the job done. I can't think of any other reason, as the scope of this thing is immense, and has only gotten more millions involved as Ike zooms up the Midwest.

Just flat out mystifying, but then look at how many of us are online here. Not too many. Methinks "only category 2" might be at play throughout as well.

[wxman57]

Ahhh, my FIRST day off in 21 days! I'm spending it at the office because my home has no power and I have to be here for the early shift tomorrow. Got my generator working. It was a door prize I won at the local hurricane conference 3 years ago. Worked great, but the tank holds only about 1 gallon. That means I was filling it up every 3 hours overnight. Time for a new generator that will run all night. I'm letting my neighbor use "half" of it to power their fridge and a fan.

We got power restored to our office at 11:10 this morning. We found out that our operations AC wasn't hooked up properly to the generator. Made for some warm forecasting. But we didn't have a single break in service through the storm.

[CrazyC83]

Should we extend the check-in policy to cover the extraordinary wind event today?

[jinftl]

Are there more people out of power outside of Texas than in Texas after today's events?

Update from Duke Energy: 658,000 in the dark

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... GECAROUSEL

Also the Louisville area has over 300,000 without power, according to LG&E: http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbc ... 1/80914005

[CrazyC83]

Are there more people out of power outside of Texas than in Texas after today's events?

Update from Duke Energy: 658,000 in the dark

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... GECAROUSEL

Also the Louisville area has over 300,000 without power, according to LG&E: http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbc ... 1/80914005

I don't think so, but it may get close if things continue at the current rate. AFAIK, there are about 2.3 million customers in the dark in Texas. Ike today is worse than Gustav was though when it comes to power...

[Pebbles]

OMG.. tears.. yes.. tears are flowing from a report on KHOU right now! People.. everyday people gathering together. Brought food for first responders. There was such a huge response they got too much food, and so now everyone is working together, after asking the media where to bring food and supplies to others in need. These aren't emergency people. Just everyday folk (who are trying to recover themselves) helping each other out. This is how it should be in this country!

[lantanatx]

I'm not sure how Texas law currently reads, but at one time buildings had to be behind the vegetation line. There are many homes on the west end that survived intact but are now beyond the vegetation line. I wonder it they will be required to be demolished now. I know a University of Houston chemistry professor who lost a home this way during Alicia.

Yes, if the coastline changes they can forced to remove their homes.

Beach erosion threatens coastal homes

State says houses block public access to beach and must go
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/100807dntexbeachhouses.36fff41.html
10:30 AM CDT on Monday, October 8, 2007
By KAREN BROOKS / The Dallas Morning News
kmbrooks@dallasnews.com

SURFSIDE BEACH, Texas – The houses' names are as romantic and breezy as their beachfront location: Sea View, Sandpiper, Villa del Sol.

Within days, a judge will tell the homeowners they have to remove their houses from where they've stood for decades because erosion has turned their front yards into a public beach that, state officials say, the houses are blocking.

The owners are digging in while they wait for appeals or a jury trial to uphold their six-year lawsuit and let them stay. Some of them are stubbornly roughing it in their dream homes – the water and sewer connections were long ago cut off by the city. The result is an emotional battle pitting a public interest against private property rights, the type of fight that has roiled other communities struggling with government seizures.

"It's just been a big fiasco mess," said Jim Pursley, 68, of Arlington, who has 10 years left on the mortgage for his beach house and stands to lose his retirement savings if the lawsuit fails. "It's a sick society when they try to steal your house from you that you've worked for all your life."

For now, the battle is confined to about one mile of sand in this tiny village of about 700, an hour south of Houston. But it could have implications across hundreds of miles of Texas coastline, from South Padre Island to Galveston Bay and beyond, where an estimated 55 million people visit the "Texas Riviera" every year and thousands of homes overlook more than 300 miles of Gulf Coast.

The rub for the homeowners is that the state isn't offering fair market value for the homes, which they say they are entitled to under laws protecting citizens from government land takeovers using "eminent domain."

General Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson is letting them apply for $50,000 in reimbursements for destroying or moving their homes – an amount he says is beyond fair.

He and the Texas attorney general argue that eminent-domain protections don't apply in these cases and that after years of leniency for the beach houses, it is past time for them to go.

"I want to make it clear: The government is not taking anyone's house. Mother Nature is," Mr. Patterson said.

"Working together, we can ensure a reasonable deal for the property owners and keep Texas beaches open to the public."

But for owners like Mr. Pursley, who bought the house on an airplane mechanic's salary in 1999 as an eventual retirement place, the situation is grim.

Buyers sign papers acknowledging that nature could one day turn their property into illegal obstacles to the sand and surf that are legally available to all Texans. But the idea that a law would allow his home and property to dissolve before his eyes was completely foreign to Mr. Pursley and his wife, Pat.

He said they signed the papers on "Golden Sands," their peach-colored beach house, "with our eyes closed."

"You just don't think of that when you find something this nice, and this close to the water," said Mr. Pursley, who still occasionally spends a week in the house, carrying water in buckets up the stairs on feet made painful by diabetes and watching the freighters from his living room window.

While the fight grinds through court, he's stuck with a mortgage payment, three insurance policies and taxes. Without utilities, he can't rent the place out. He had worked 42 years to save up the money for a down payment he estimates at about $50,000. He estimates that if the government weren't taking action, the house would be worth about $180,000.

But if the lawsuit fails, his only hope would be to sell the house to someone who could afford to put it on their land – probably at a big loss.

"I don't have any choice but to come here and enjoy it while I can," he said.

Open Beaches Act

At the heart of the fight is the 1959 Texas Open Beaches Act, which establishes a public easement on all beaches that must be accessible to the public.

The law says that if natural erosion moves that easement under or behind a home, and the home subsequently blocks access or becomes a public health threat, the home has to be removed – with no compensation to the owner.

The law protects beaches from being co-opted by hotels and homeowners who would buy up every inch of the state's 367 miles of Gulf Coast and turn places like Surfside Beach into private playgrounds.

Erosion in the wake of hurricanes, along with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' efforts to move rivers and dredge canals, caused the property owners' land to disappear beneath them.

More than 20 houses already have been removed, leaving just the handful of holdouts. Some were bought through Federal Emergency Management Agency programs right after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The state can't replenish the beaches until the houses are moved because working around the buildings is "just not practical," Mr. Patterson said. And because the houses are so close to the water at high tide, the state would have to put sand in the water, creating a new beach. State law prevents public funds from being spent for that.

If the state leaves the homes and doesn't replenish the beaches, Mayor Jim Bedward says, the gulf will eventually claim the row of houses behind Beach Drive, the road that runs in front of Mr. Pursley's house.

Mr. Bedward angrily dismissed some homeowners' suggestions that money-hungry politicians would use that land to make money on hotels or condos.

"That wasn't something that the city even entertained," he said. "No, absolutely not, that was never in our intentions at all."

The owners argue that because people can walk under or around the houses, which are built on stilts, they're not blocking access. That alone, they say, should render the Texas Open Beaches Act moot in this case.

Tom Hirtz, the Houston attorney representing the homeowners, said that in the past, when an easement moves onto private property, "people take the land as they find it" and don't move someone's home "just to make it more convenient for themselves."

"My observation is that people like to get in the shade of those houses when the sun is hot, and they get under them when it rains," he said.

City 'just being mean'

Meanwhile, city and state officials have forbidden the homeowners to maintain the bulkheads that hold back the tides or to do maintenance on their homes.

Water and sewerage were cut off after the pipes became exposed during a storm last fall. Homeowners say they've been fined after the city capped the sewer line and didn't tell them – causing inadvertent sewage dumping on the beach.

"They're playing dirty pool," said homeowner Reg Aplin. "They're just being mean about it."

Through all this, Mr. Pursley returns every couple of months to spend a solitary week in his house – his wife finds it too depressing. He borrows his neighbors' bathroom across the street, bathes in the sink, and watches the porpoises play in the surf a few hundred yards from his living room window.

Even with all the trouble, the beauty of it all hits him hard every time he visits.

"I just love it here," he said. "I have fished off my deck and caught fish without ever getting my feet wet. Some of them, the fingerlings, jump out of the water."

He added: "I thought you had to be a millionaire to live this close to the water. No, you don't."

[tolakram]

Cincinnati (CVG) report. I can't remember the last time we recorded
a pressure that low.

[HurricaneQueen]

Pebbles:

I saw that! Wasn't it wonderful to see the generosity of people in such dire times? I was in tears myself watching these everyday people chipping in with food and water (not to mention their own time and energy) to help others less fortunate. The response must have been overwhelming since they took the extras to other distribution sites around Houston.

Lynn

[fasterdisaster]

http://media.myfoxhouston.com/news/ikez ... index.html

[HURAKAN]

Ike says Bye!

[pawlee]

Pales in comparison to what folks in N and W IL are dealing with but I have some pics from this morning taken around Macon County IL on my blog.

http://pawleewurx.blogspot.com/

[CrazyC83]

Ike says Bye!

But not without a fight!

[Agua]

Greatest sympathy for all you SE Texas and LA folks.

[CrazyC83]

Beaver Falls, PA: 52 mph sustained winds

http://weather.noaa.gov/weather/current/KBVI.html

KBVI 142347Z 21045G55KT 10SM SCT030 BKN180 29/20 A2949 RMK PK WND 23068/29

[weunice]

This cold front is going to be great in terms of reducing at least a little of the misery folks in the Houston area are experiencing (especially those without generators). Gustav stalled north of us. It took three days before the heat and humidity moved out. Once it did, the nights were actually pleasant.

[Pebbles]

*sighs* The creek I was posting about a couple pages back that is like raging river now. Well there is now a search and rescue operation going on there (yes right down the street from my house). There is a dive team, tons of police and firemen. Looks like someone fell in.

[jinftl]

Forecast low of 60 in Houston on Monday night!!! That will make things at least better for sleeping if there is no power....open up the windows and feel the fresh air.

In weather timing is everything i guess....if the front was in the picture a week earlier....that may have been what pushed ike away from texas and off to the north-centreal or ne gulf.

This cold front is going to be great in terms of reducing at least a little of the misery folks in the Houston area are experiencing (especially those without generators). Gustav stalled north of us. It took three days before the heat and humidity moved out. Once it did, the nights were actually pleasant.

[O Town]

Pales in comparison to what folks in N and W IL are dealing with but I have some pics from this morning taken around Macon County IL on my blog.

http://pawleewurx.blogspot.com/