Year after Hurricane Ike, damage remains

GALVESTON, Texas | Hurricane Ike was the perfect, bad-timing storm. When it blew hell on this Gulf of Mexico county on Sept. 13, 2008, its 20-foot storm surge ripping away whole beach communities, the ravages came at a time when the nation’s attention was focused on an impinging economic meltdown and a hard-fought presidential election.

In the aftermath of the third costliest storm in hurricane history, there was little celebrity outpouring — no heart-shaking movie star produced telethons. There was only brief wall-to-wall media coverage — with many in the nation and networks feeling a here-we-go-again post-Hurricane Katrina fatigue.

While federal and state supporters rallied to offer assistance and Ike rescue volunteers did heroic work on a massive cleanup, which continues, one year later the Galveston area and Gulf Coast struggles to rebound, worn thin by the weight of the recovery and displacement, but also buoyed by the chance to create new development projects and modernize its plan for future growth.

“It was phenomenally devastating in all senses of the storm, but how can you complain about a storm when the entire nation is about to go into the Next Depression,” remembers community organizer Erin Toberman, 38, a Washington, D.C., native, who leads Help4Galveston, a nonprofit that brings community groups together for storm relief efforts.

“Our needs were overshadowed by the greater financial concerns of the U.S. banking system and then this historic presidential election. We were kind of a blip on the radar for a minute and the amount of damage and destruction here got completely lost.”

“This wasn’t like Katrina,” adds Mrs. Toberman, a Tiki Island resident. “Bill Clinton and President [George H.W.] Bush, who raised money for hurricane relief efforts, have barely been able to scrape together $2.9 million for Hurricane Ike recovery funds. You didn’t see a lot private money coming into the community … but the need is still great. You have a lot of homeowners here and small businesses, a lot of people who live below the poverty line, who are really struggling hard to recover.”

But they are making do and forging ahead with a weeklong Ike anniversary commemoration that kicked off with a torch relay Tuesday night. Residents attended a host of reflection and renewal events, including a block party, free symphony concert, art and historic tours, and a showing of a Hurricane Ike documentary. A communitywide sunrise service was to be held Sunday, the same date that the massive Category 2 storm blew in.

Hope — along with a lot of hard work — also continues, even as the emotional wounds remain, residents say. Tourists have returned this summer, riding over the island’s causeway to glistening, peaceful waters where they vacation under lollipop-striped umbrellas as the 100-plus-degree heat blazes down on Galveston’s famed shores.

Sand, sucked into the sea by the powerful waves and wind of Ike, was brought back in to re-landscape parts of the 10-mile beachfront, protected by a seawall erected after the nation’s worst hurricane in 1900, when an estimated 6,000 people died.

A plan is also under consideration to erect a 55-mile, 17-foot-high “Ike Dike” that would protect the Texas Gulf coastline from any future storm destruction, although officials acknowledge that it would take years and millions to make it a reality, even as hurricane season continues and another threat could be months or even weeks away.

In Galveston, just a block behind the mostly rebuilt resort and restaurant facade on the oceanfront tourist area — only three city hotels did not reopen — the scars of Hurricane Ike remain visible. A condo complex lies rotting, an abandoned skeleton of devastation. Streets away, piles of jagged plywood are stacked alongside unoccupied homes. Roofs still bear the protective blue tarps as residents, weary of a scam, await coveted — and honest — contractors.

Residences across blocks and blocks, particularly in the area’s poorest sections, carry the ragtag look that says they need help. Some homes have the obligatory FEMA trailers alongside where locals are living until their houses can be made habitable.

On 39th Street in Galveston, Lane Rosentreter, 21, wiped sweat off his brow as he finished up a sweltering July day of painting an elderly couple’s home along with members of a Catholic student volunteer group from Camp Shine. They worked in teams this summer, spending a week helping city residents who need assistance. They are not professionals, but their presence was welcomed and showed that someone cares.

“We just want to give them some hope,” said Mr. Rosentreter, of Carlinville, Ill., who is a history major at Illinois College. He worked at a soup kitchen last summer, but it was torn away in the storm. He returned to Galveston this summer “to do unto others,” he said.

“To have someone here — it means a lot to them,” he said. “We’ve had people stop by and say, ‘Please come to our street.’ It’s not about us. Yeah, it’s hot out here, but sometimes you’ve got to get uncomfortable for God.”

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