HURRICANE SEASON 2008

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All that changed on Sept. 8, 1900.

Early that morning, winds gusting at an estimated 125 mph pushed a wall of water 15 feet high across the unprotected city. Houses were splintered, and the slate shingles flying from the roofs "became whirling scimitars . . . eviscerating men and horses," author Erik Larson wrote in the book "Isaac's Storm."

"I have passed through the most trying, horrible thing in my life," one survivor wrote to his wife. More than 6,000 people died — at least twice as many as perished during the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Between 1902 and 1904, a 17-foot-high seawall rose along the Gulf. When another catastrophic storm hit the city in 1915, fewer than a dozen people perished.

The city rebuilt behind its protective armor. But Galveston never regained its former prominence, its reputation that of a kind of low-rent Riviera.

From the '30s to the '50s, one writer observed, Galveston was "every bit as thoroughly controlled by the Mob as Atlantic City." Much of that alleged activity revolved around the famed Balinese Room, a nightclub and casino that hosted the likes of Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Jack Benny and the Marx Brothers.

The nightclub stood at the end of a 600-foot pier, just beyond the flood wall. As the stories go, by the time raiding police officers made it to the end, the doorman had tipped off the revelers, and roulette wheels were flipped over to reveal ordinary looking dining tables.

The Balinese Room didn't survive Ike.

A couple of years ago, the city hired a marketing firm to help improve Galveston's image. In interviews, tourists and even locals repeatedly cited "dirty beaches" and the town's "unclean feel."

The firm's report advised: "Flaunt the uniqueness of your island. Your beaches and island are not dirty — they are colored with stories, history and culture."

Ann Leocadi has fond memories of coming to Galveston as a child from Houston and staying at the old Jack Tar Motel, a working-class getaway on Seawall Boulevard, where her family enjoyed the swimming pool and beach, then ate at Gaido's, a popular seafood restaurant.

"Growing up, that's what I liked," says Leocadi, a prison social worker who now lives within sight of her old playground.

This March, the 15-story tower Emerald by the Sea — with green-tinted windows and unit prices ranging from $375,000 to $1.5 million — opened where Jack Tar once stood, and survived Ike almost unscathed.

Galveston was slow to follow its Gulf Coast neighbors in embracing the high-rise luxury condominium boom, but it's making up for lost time. "It's inevitable," Jim Gaines, research economist for the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University, told the local newspaper. "You can see it coming."

The well-off and the poor coexist in Galveston, which has a poverty rate of 22 percent, just behind that of New Orleans.

Last week on The Strand, a trendy boulevard of shops and restaurants a couple of blocks from the harbor, Isaac Bennett, an arthritic 69-year-old, peddled his bicycle past the brick and wrought-iron facades. He was towing a wagon crammed with a crushed aluminum tub and twisted aluminum chair frames.

"I do it every time they have a storm," he said, flashing a nearly toothless grin. He'd sell the load, he said, figuring it would fetch $18, maybe $20.

Shotgun shacks and million-dollar beach homes felt Ike's wrath.

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At Ashton Villa, an Italianate antebellum brick mansion with cast-iron balconies, 3 feet of water invaded. (In 1900, the surge was even worse, reaching the tenth step of the grand staircase.) By Thursday, fuzzy white mold had already begun sprouting on a Victorian settee that had floated to rest on its velvet back. Workers ripped up Oriental carpeting and scraped up the sodden padding to save the warping wooden floors.

"Heartbreaking," Denise Alexander said as she pushed aside her dust mask with a rubber-gloved hand. "There's not a lot else to say about it."

Murdoch's Bath House — which once housed a ballroom, bingo parlor, arcade and portrait studio — succumbed to the pounding surf.

"We lost a lot of things on this island," William Cottingham said in a choked voice as he stood on the seawall and peered at the tattered remains of the Balinese. "And I'm really sorry to say that it ain't going to be the same."

Residents have been told that it may be months before power and other services are restored, and Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas has asked those who stayed behind to leave the city. But she is eager for the world to know that Galveston's future is secure.

"The city of Galveston is not in ruins," she said. "It is recovering according to a well-established plan."

Some don't plan to be a part of that recovery. Click says two business owners have already told him they won't rebuild. But new blood will come in, the fourth-generation islander insists.

"We're not out. We're down," says Click. "And it'll be picked up and cleaned up and scraped off, and we'll rebuild something that's not exactly what it was, but something that might be better."

After the 1900 storm, wealthy families like the Moody mercantile clan poured large sums into rebuilding the city. Leocadi expects the same to happen this time.

"There's money here — monied people enough," she said as she stood with her video camera and watched a bizarre sight — Navy landing craft depositing amphibious trucks on the beach across from her home. "They'll make it come back."

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Newcomers, too, will help keep the city alive.

Sitting in line at a mobile Federal Emergency Management Agency aid station, Melinda Frazee savored her first cigarette in days. The 51-year-old maintenance engineer grew up in western Kansas, where she says "nothing ever happened." It had been a lifelong dream to live near a beach. A year and a half ago, she and her son rolled into Galveston, and drove to the seawall. They got out and took a walk on the dunes.

"My son looked at me and he said, `I've never seen you smile so big in your life, Mama,'" she recalled as she sat with a dirty rag around her neck. "He said, `Is this it? Is this where we're going to stay? I said, `This is it! This is the place.' ...

"Nasty, filthy, trashy little tourist town. And I love it."

Already, Galvestonians are putting on a brave face.

On Thursday, rows and rows of tables covered in gleaming white linen tablecloths and napkins appeared in front of Gaido's restaurant, which first opened on Murdoch's pier in 1911.

National Guard troops, electrical workers and other first responders filed in for plates of Gulf shrimp and red potatoes boiled over propane flames as the Beach Boys played over the loudspeakers. Big black letters on the marquee declared: "We Will Return/So Also This Island."

"We realized that if we made it really nice and it became a bright spot in everybody's miserable week, then it gives you a sense of normalcy," says Mary Kaye Gaido, the restaurant's wine buyer. "Somebody said to me today, `It was so great to hear music. We haven't heard music in five days.'"

Taking a page out of the New Orleans restaurant industry's post-Katrina playbook, Gaido's hopes to reopen soon in a smaller location with a limited menu.

"We're here for the long haul," Gaido says.

Galveston goes on.

Tilman Fertitta, who owns five beachfront restaurants and three hotels in Galveston and an entertainment complex in suburban Houston that was submerged, vowed that spring would bring resurrection to the island.

"Anybody can come to Mardi Gras in February, and I will guarantee they will be able to say Galveston is back. That's a guarantee," he says.

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                                   Galveston area remains dangerous in Ike's wake






By ANGELA K. BROWN and
CAIN BURDEAU,
Associated Press Writers
Mon Sep 22, 2008
 
ANAHUAC, Texas - Businesses were beginning to reopen, cell phone service was improving and power was coming back, but leaders warned that Galveston remains dangerous more than a week after Hurricane Ike's devastating assault.
 
Fuel and other essentials remained scarce and police will indefinitely enforce a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew once the island reopens Wednesday.

And it could be weeks or more before basic services are restored in all areas. Still, the island is far from deserted — at least 15,000 people ignored mandatory evacuation orders before and after the storm, and many of them were still there Sunday.

Wearing jeans and rubber boots, clutching Bibles and weeping between hymns, residents of the storm-shattered Texas coast comforted each other at makeshift church services.

About 50 people came together on a basketball court outside the Oak Island Baptist Church, just south of Interstate 10 about a mile from the tip of Trinity Bay. They sat on folding chairs or simply stood, forced outdoors by the 1-inch layer of mud left inside the single-story red brick building by floodwaters that tossed pews like matchsticks.

A demolished mobile home was still lodged among trees, many of them snapped by the storm's 110-mph winds that somehow left the church's trio of 20-foot white crosses still standing. Across the street, piles of debris had sprouted, proof of the labor undertaken since the storm blew through last weekend, and of the work yet to come.

"I know it's hard. Looking around, it's tough," the Rev. Eddie Shauberger told the congregants. "But there is a God, and he has a plan for our lives."

Similar services were being held on Galveston Island and throughout the Houston area, where power had been restored to enough residents that schools planned to hold classes Monday for the first time since the storm.

In Galveston, Bobby and Pamela Quiroga sought succor at a Mass set up in the historic Hotel Galvez. They went to their Roman Catholic church a week ago, the day after storm arrived, but it was closed.

"It's just good to be around people," Bobby Quiroga said. He added, letting his voice trail off, "When you feel a wave shake your house ...."

The newly married 42-year-olds were still trying to gather their senses eight days after watching their homes and businesses flooded by Ike's 12-foot surge.

"Fourteen steps, and we watched the water come up all the way up — even to the floor. Surreal," Quiroga said, his wife leaning on his shoulder.

She dabbed her swollen eyes with a hand towel and vowed never to live on the island again.

"When I fall asleep," she said, "I see the water rising."

Observances in the hardest-hit spots weren't overflowing with residents. Most of Galveston won't reopen until Wednesday.

But island leaders emphasized that Galveston would remain dangerous and parents were warned their children could be exposed to infections from storm debris and other hazards. Planes continued spraying the island to control mosquitoes. Officials urged those returning to wear masks to protect from mold and to properly dispose of spoiled food to stave off vermin.

Teams of cadaver dogs were still working their way through rubble and debris on Bolivar Peninsula, which suffered even heavier damage than Galveston. Evacuees from the peninsula will board dump trucks and other heavy vehicles this week to examine their homes, since the main road is impassible in many spots.

Authorities had blamed the storm for 26 deaths in Texas and 61 total in the U.S., including a utility contractor from Florida who was electrocuted Friday while trying to restore power in Louisville, Ky.

Power had been restored to most of the customers in Texas whose electricity was cut by Ike, though the state said about 875,000 remained in the dark Sunday.

Whether the power was coming through the wall or from a generator, people throughout the region watched the Houston Texans try to win one for the wretched back home.

Maine Williams, a 49-year-old cotton warehouse worker, tuned in the football game with friends in Galveston on a portable TV they set up in an alley. The humidity, mosquitoes and flood muck that covered the neighborhood was made bearable thanks to the grilled hamburger meat, pig tails, cabbage and potatoes, along with the camaraderie and cold beer.

"It's like normal," Williams said, adding that he really wanted was to see his girlfriend and family who evacuated before the storm on buses.

"We're worried about our people," he said. "We want them to come home."

As for the game, which the Texans lost on the road to the Tennessee Titans, Williams wasn't too concerned with the outcome: "I'm a Dallas Cowboys man!"

___




Cain Burdeau reported from Galveston.

Associated Press writer Paul J. Weber in Houston

contributed to this report.

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                                 Legal and illegal, Latinos labor to rebuild Texas






By MONICA RHOR and
PETER PRENGAMAN
Sept. 22, 2008
 
PASADENA, Texas - All along the Texas coast, Latino immigrants are hauling away fallen trees, slashing through storm-tangled brush, patching punctured roofs.
 
On working-class corners, on ladders in front of Victorian houses, in the yards of ornate mansions, crews of men in dusty jeans, sturdy workboots and baseball caps are nearly as omnipresent in the post-Hurricane Ike landscape as blue tarps on rooftops.

These workers, who get picked up off the street by homeowners looking for quick, cheap labor, are helping to rebuild the devastated cities of southeast Texas.

Many of them are here illegally. Others are legal residents in need of income after their regular jobs were disrupted by the hurricane.

Ike brought a wide swath of destruction, and with it the prospect of more work, higher wages and a respite from the ever-present threat of deportation. In recent months, many day laborers say, jobs in the Houston area had started to dry up, and police and immigration officials had been cracking down.

"There's more work now," Teodoro Alvarado, 20, said Friday in Spanish as he stood on a corner in the gritty Houston suburb of Pasadena where day laborers regularly wait for work. "And I hope more work comes."

There's reason to believe it will: After Hurricane Katrina, thousands of Latino immigrants streamed to New Orleans for jobs in construction, carpentry and cleanup.

Since Ike struck Sept. 13, Gerardo Hernandez has been getting jobs lifting trees off driveways and houses, but he usually works as a roofer. A drive through the quaint bayside community of Kemah, where the hurricane lifted the roofs off dozens of boardwalk restaurants and private homes, made him confident there'd be need for his services.

"In the weeks that come, as people get insurance money, I think there will be more work," Hernandez, a Mexican immigrant who has been in this country four years, said in Spanish.

Along with the promise of fresh jobs, there are fears of abuse and exploitation of workers, and rumors that immigration officials will be poised at job sites to arrest the undocumented. After Katrina, many Latino workers in New Orleans reported cases of unsafe working conditions and employers who cheated them out of money earned.

"These people are going to be getting work, but they will also be the most exploited," said Annica Gorham, director of the Houston Interfaith Worker Justice Center, which helps day laborers who have been cheated of wages, injured on the job or working in unsafe conditions. "Day laborers are some of the most vulnerable workers here and across the county."

In Houston, as in dozens of other U.S. cities, several police departments in the area have started to turn over undocumented immigrants for deportation. There have also been highly publicized workplace raids by federal agents, including one in June where 160 workers at a cluttered rag factory were arrested.

But this city's immigrants, who help make up the country's second-largest population of day laborers after that of Los Angeles, also provide a ready-made work force for the massive cleanup and rebuilding efforts.

"There are plenty of people asking for help," said Marco Ramirez, 50, a contractor who normally has a five-man crew. Since Ike, Ramirez has had to hire extra workers and will likely need more. All, including Ramirez, are Latino immigrants.

"The immigrant people, the Latinos, are the ones who really do the job," said Ramirez, who spoke outside a sprawling home where his men were using chain saws and chains to cut through fallen trees and splintered branches. "We are going to put the city back together."

Even in Houston, a city long known as friendly toward undocumented immigrants, many people see the use of such workers as nothing more than a shortcut around the country's labor laws.

In the storm's aftermath, however, Mayor Bill White said homeowners need to find help where they can.

"I like to see people doing it, rather than letting debris pile up and people not getting roofs fixed," said White, who has a reputation for welcoming immigrants.

Early on most mornings last week, many of the more than two dozen spots in Houston where day laborers gather had been swept clean by contractors and homeowners looking for workers. Most are paid about $8 to $10 an hour to install wallboard, clear driveways and yards, or repair roofs. So far, workers said, wages had not increased much from pre-Ike rates.

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At a Home Depot in southeast Houston, where as many as 100 day laborers gathered well before dawn Friday to wait for work, dozens of men from Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador stood on the periphery of a parking lot.

Every few minutes, the drivers of cars, pickup trucks and SUVs would pull up and signal to the waiting men. It took mere seconds for the workers to converge on a vehicle, negotiate a price and jump inside.

The men left behind were both encouraged by the signs of burgeoning work and worried about the possibility of dishonest employers and immigration roundups.

"We're just looking for steady work to support our families," 45-year-old Antonio Velasquez, whose wife and nine children remain in El Salvador, said in Spanish.

When things are going well, Velasquez sends his family $500 a month. Lately, he barely has enough to cover his own expenses.

Velasquez protects himself from wage theft by only working for employers who pay at the end of the day.

"Un dia trabajado es un dia pagado," he said, quoting a refrain often used by day laborers: A day's pay for a day's work.

Stories of widespread employer abuse and wage theft following Katrina have left immigrants wary of accepting long-term jobs in other locations.

On Friday morning, the driver of a bus looking for a crew to work for a week in the Galveston area, saying the pay would come at week's end. He got few takers.

"They need us, but they also take advantage of us," said Alex Yovani, 26, a Honduran immigrant who also worked in Louisiana after Katrina. "Without us, how would they build Houston again? Without the work of our hands, there would be no way to move forward."

As Yovani spoke, homeowner Dale Emion eased his pickup close to the circle of men. It was immediately surrounded by over a dozen day laborers.

"I need two and will pay $7 an hour to clean up around my house," Emion said.

"You gonna give lunch?" asked one man in broken English.

Emion shook his head. No one got in the truck, but the men didn't walk away, either.

"OK. I'll pay $8," said Emion.

Two men got in the cab of the truck.

"I just need them to clean up my house," Emion said. "Where else am I going to find workers?"

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                                    More to come in busy Atlantic hurricane season







By Jim Loney
Fri Sep 19, 2008
 
MIAMI (Reuters) - The 10 tropical storms and hurricanes that ripped through the Atlantic and Caribbean during this busy hurricane season savaged Haiti, Cuba and the U.S. Gulf coast, and conditions are now ripe for more.
 
Residents of the Atlantic-Caribbean danger zone should not let down their guard, despite a brief lull in the action following Tropical Storm Josephine's demise two weeks ago and Hurricane Ike's strike on the Texas coast, experts said.

"Conditions are still favorable for hurricanes. People really need to stay on their toes," said Gerry Bell, the lead hurricane season forecaster for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Forecasters had predicted the season, which runs through November 30, could produce up to 18 cyclones, and the warm sea temperatures, low wind shear and other factors that contribute to the formation of hurricanes are still in place.

Water in the Caribbean and Atlantic is warmer than usual by 0.9 to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (0.5 to 1.5 degrees Celsius), Bell said. Hurricanes feed on warm sea water.

Patches of cooler water, drawn from the depths by the passage of powerful hurricanes like Ike and Gustav, have appeared around Cuba and in the Gulf of Mexico, but they are not likely to have a big impact on future storms.

Wind shear, which is the difference in wind speeds at different levels of the atmosphere and which can disrupt nascent hurricanes, is relatively low.

El Nino, the eastern Pacific warm water phenomenon that can dampen Atlantic storm formation, has not developed. Neutral El Nino conditions are expected for the rest of the season, experts said.

"Through October 15th I would not let my guard down on the (U.S.) eastern seaboard at all," AccuWeather forecaster Joe Bastardi said, predicting another three to five storms.

"Between the 25th (of September) and 15th of October the Caribbean will light up, but first, something may form off the Carolinas," he said.

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TOUGH YEAR



Six consecutive Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes hit the United States from late July to mid-September, causing billions of dollars in damage. Four in a row swamped Haiti, killing hundreds of people.

Gustav and Ike crushed Cuba before heading off to the U.S. Gulf Coast, where they rampaged through oil and gas fields.

At this point, just after the statistical peak of the six-month season, there is no comparison to 2005, the all-time record-breaker with 28 storms, when forecasters ran out of storm names and had to resort to the Greek alphabet. That year spawned Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans.

On September 18 of 2005, Rita formed. It was the 17th storm of the season and eventually became a 180 mph (290 kph) monster, one of the strongest hurricanes in history.

But not even in 2005 did six storms in a row hit the United States.

In fact, the U.S. National Hurricane Center says that so far it has not found another year since records began in 1851 in which the United States was hit by six tropical cyclones in a row, but it was still digging through databases.

The tendency to target U.S. shores is partly due to the atmospheric conditions that steer hurricanes. In some years, many of the storms that charge across the ocean eventually curve harmlessly northward without reaching the United States.

"We've had an extensive area of high pressure in the middle and upper atmosphere that has helped to steer the hurricanes west at lower latitudes," Bell said. "They have not recurved into the Atlantic."



(Editing by Michael Christie and Ross Colvin)

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                                      Ike-battered Galveston allowing residents home






By JUAN A. LOZANO,
Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 33 minutes ago
SEPT. 24, 2008
 
GALVESTON, Texas - Many residents who fled this storm-ravaged island waited in their cars early Wednesday for permission to return and see for themselves what Hurricane Ike had done to their homes.
 
Even before dawn, Galveston-bound traffic was stacked up on Interstate 45 for 10 miles from the entrance to the only causeway to the island city left open after the hurricane.

Many Galveston residents haven't been back to their island community since fleeing Hurricane Ike more than 11 days ago. Island leaders were to allow them back Wednesday morning.

With the dreary picture city officials have painted about living conditions on the island since Ike's devastation, the question might be whether residents want to go home again and stay, once they get there?

"When you come back it's not going to be the same Galveston Island you left," said Galveston Mayor Pro Tem Danny Weber. "It's been damaged. It's been broken."

Hurricane Ike, a Category 2 storm, battered Galveston with 110 mph winds and a 12-foot storm surge, flooding homes and destroying businesses, more than a week ago. At least 61 deaths, including 26 in Texas were attributed to Ike.

About 45,000 of the city's 57,000 residents fled Galveston Island, about 50 miles southeast of Houston.

Residents of the island's west end, which was severely damaged by Ike, can visit their homes, but are not being allowed to stay in them.

Galveston still only has limited medical, power, water and sewer system capabilities.

Marty Bahamonde, with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, advised residents who planned to stay to be self sufficient and bring their own food, water and gasoline. There is also a nightly curfew from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.

"We do want to caution folks. There will be some struggles," Bahamonde said.

Mark Guidry, the head of the Galveston County Health District, warned incoming residents that health care services on the island are limited.

"There remains significant health and safety concerns on the island," he said.

City Manager Steve LeBlanc said more hotels in Galveston are reopening and will be available for residents who return and determine that their homes are uninhabitable.

But LeBlanc expects those rooms will be quickly snapped up. City officials are working on a plan to provide temporary shelters on the mainland for those who find homes they can't live in. But LeBlanc stressed the shelters would be available only for a short time.

City leaders also are looking at setting up a shuttle service to take residents from the temporary shelters to their houses during the day so they can make repairs and clean up.

While electricity and natural gas are being restored in Galveston, LeBlanc said those services in each home will have to be inspected by the city before being allowed to be turned on again.

But Galveston is slowly coming back to life with some stores and restaurants reopening while there are other signs throughout southeast Texas of recovery.

CenterPoint Energy Inc. reported on Tuesday that 73 percent of its 2.26 million customers now had electricity. Entergy Texas reported that 89 percent of its nearly 393,000 customers affected by Hurricane Ike had power again.

On Tuesday, Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas and other city leaders were in Washington, D.C., to ask lawmakers for nearly $2.5 billion in emergency funds.

The city tried before to allow residents back. It announced Sept. 16 that people could briefly return under a "look and leave" plan, causing evacuees all over the state to pack up and head for the coast. But hours later, it abruptly halted the policy.

Galveston leaders remain optimistic their city would bounce back after Ike.

"This is our island. We are going to rebuild it and we are going to rebuild it bigger and better than it was," Weber said.

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                                     Deja vu is devastating for town hit by Rita, Ike






By MICHAEL GRACZYK,
Associated Press Writer
Tue Sep 23, 2008
 
SABINE PASS, Texas - Fred Forsythe finally is out of the FEMA trailer he's called home since Hurricane Rita ripped apart his own place three years ago.

But now his home is a tiny tent, where a nylon screen covered with a weather-tattered American flag helps him fend off hordes of mosquitoes.

Hurricane Ike's ferocious storm surge strew the remains of his government-issued trailer in the weeds and trees and impaled them on what used to be a fence across Gulfway Road, where the thousands of pieces of his former home mingle with the rubble of a neighbor's home.

The neighbor, Wesley Alphin, 48, is sharing the tent with him.

"Mosquitoes will kill you here if you don't know how to survive," said Forsythe, 48.

"Between the snakes and mosquitoes, we got mountain lions and bobcats that tall," he said, holding a chain saw in one hand and gesturing waist-high with the other. "Alligators come through my yard. We're survivors here. That's what we do."

He's not alone.

All along Gulfway, the two-lane blacktop that parallels the Gulf of Mexico through Sabine Pass at the extreme east tip of the Texas coast, many of the some 2,200 residents hadn't even recovered fully from Rita when Ike delivered a second dose of misery.

A FEMA spokesman in Washington said he didn't know how many Rita victims who had not yet repaired their lives were in Ike's path. But FEMA spokesman Richard Scorza in Austin estimated that only three so-called Rita trailers were still occupied.

Told of Forsythe's experience, Scorza said, "There may actually be two now," before suggesting FEMA might be able to help him.

Rita struck here as a Category 3 hurricane on Sept. 24, 2005, unleashing 120 mph winds that tore through East Texas and western parts of Louisiana.

Ike came ashore Sept. 13, some 70 miles to the west at Galveston as a Category 2 storm with winds of 110 mph, but no one in Sabine Pass sees Ike as a lesser storm.

"This was a whole lot worse," said Kristi Heid, 47, whose mud-caked home and its contents are across the street from the Sabine Pass school, where the home of the Sharks — as displayed on the school wall — now reads "HARKS."

"It's so frustrating," said Heid, who attended school there, taught there, and for the past four years has been principal to 300 kids from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. "What is the likelihood of doing this again in three years? It is a big downer."

The school was rebuilt and its elevation raised. This time it avoided catastrophe. An auditorium, however, built after Rita by the TV program "Extreme Home Makeover," will have to be rebuilt.

A purple football helmet from the school is among the rubble in the mud in front of Heid's home, where Rita three years ago delivered water to the entry but no serious damage.

"With this one, the back of the house is gone, the whole back of the house," she said. "It took the bricks, the plywood, the whole back."

After Rita, she and her husband applied for a government grant to raise their one-story ranch-style home so the structure, like the school, could avoid catastrophic damage.

"We were approved to raise our house," she said. "We were waiting for the recovery money."

So was Forsythe, who learned that three days before Ike, his application to rebuild had been approved.

"I love this place," he said. "Nobody bothers me. But now I may just turn this into a fish camp."

He said insurance on a rebuilt home likely would be too expensive for him.

"It's not worth paying that," he said.

Heid said one frustration now is that with Rita, the post-storm recovery efforts centered on their community because it was where the storm made landfall. "But with Ike, there's such widespread devastation, we haven't even received a disaster recovery center. FEMA's not even here."

She put up a small tent in front of her house to provide some shade and it's become a gathering spot for folks like Debbie Cox, who lived with her husband, a game warden, at a state-provided house at Sea Rim State Park, west of town. The park has been shut since Rita damaged it and their home.

For a while, they lived in a camper and they'd finally been able to make some repairs, adding a porch and renovating a bathroom.

Now only the pilings remain. Everything else is gone.

"Thirty years of stuff," she said. "I'm just numb."

Heid's sister, Kellie Brown, is in a similar plight. Her house is gone, just a pile of debris.

"Second time around," she said. "When you think things can't get worse, they do."

She received 4 feet of water in her house from Rita. The repairs were almost finished.

"All I had left to do was baseboards and trimwork," she said. "Everything else had been done — three years after the fact.

"It took time, and that's the real depressing thing of it all. It's like ground zero, back to square one, all over again."

In the haste to flee the storm, she left her wedding ring on the table next to the bed. When she and her husband returned, they found the house had imploded from the storm surge.

A workman moving debris offered to use his truck to lift the roof so they could hunt for the ring.

He lifted the roof and told her husband to pull back some carpet.

"I started hollering: There it is! It was caked in mud and sheetrock but I cleaned it up and got it," she said, holding up her hand to display the ring.

She also retrieved a Virgin Mary statue, a gift from her mother. The white statue, about 3 feet tall, had been holding up the roof. The concrete base broke but Mary survived.

"I was blessed," she said. "I got my Mary and my ring. The rest can be replaced."

Mary now is propped up against a tree at Greenwich and South 13th Avenue, her palms open toward the Gulf, a few yards from the pile of debris that once was the home whose roof she'd supported.

"It's going to take some time," Brown's sister, Heid, said. "We're being tested again. You've got to have faith."

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                                     Gulf seafood industry crippled by Ike's damage






By PAUL J. WEBER,
Associated Press Writer
Thu Sep 25, 2008
 
SAN LEON, Texas - On the eve of October's peak seafood harvesting season, migrant fishermen are sweeping debris from gutted bay side homes instead of scooping shrimp and oysters from the lucrative Gulf floor. The $100 million fishing industry in Galveston Bay is virtually paralyzed.

ADVERTISEMENT
 
Gulf harvesters and state officials predict Hurricane Ike's impact will be felt from distributors to the dinner table.

"It's like a bomb went off," said Lisa Halili, owner of Prestige Oysters Inc., which is among the largest seafood harvesters in Texas and Louisiana. "This is going to be the biggest challenge the seafood industry in Texas ever had to deal with."

Some fear it will take as long as two years for the industry to recover.

"Certainly it's a disruption," said Lance Robinson, a coastal fisheries director with the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife. "For others it's devastating."

Galveston Bay fishermen haul about 9 million pounds of Gulf shrimp and 3 million pounds of oysters each year, Robinson said. About 60 percent of oysters sold in the eastern U.S. come from Texas and Louisiana, the bulk from Galveston Bay.

Louisiana landed more than 499,000 tons of fish worth $278 million last year, and Texas brought in nearly 42,500 tons worth $174.3 million.

Ike heavily affected fisheries throughout south Louisiana, killing fish in large areas, creating habitat loss across the Louisiana coastline. Boats were also lost.

Representatives of Louisiana's $2.6 billion seafood industry are asking the state's congressional delegation for federal relief. Early estimates indicate the industry sustained up to $300 million in economic losses due to Gustav and Ike.

Ike killed hundreds of acres of oyster reefs with waves of shocking saltwater, and suffocated others with grass Ike clawed from Bolivar Peninsula and washed into the Gulf.

Michael Ivic, who runs Misho's Oyster Company in San Leon with his father, is desperate to drive a boat out and pull up oysters. He figures he has two weeks to save whatever reefs remain.

But the bay remained closed after Ike struck, and Ivic doesn't even know which state agency to call to get the waters reopened to boats. Ivic said his company is a chief supplier to national restaurant chains Landry's and Joe's Crab Shack.

"We might lose them," said Ivic, 26.

Some fisherman who already tried salvaging whatever is left in the Gulf say don't bother. "Pictures and clothes down there," said Juaquin Patila, 24. "But there's no more reef."

Most fisherman make between $100 and $150 a day working in the marinas in San Leon, with hundreds of migrants with work visas arriving between the peak harvesting months of October and April. The trailers where they lived, and their jobs, are gone.

Wearing rubber fishing boots and a shirt stained by oyster meat, Martin Duran looked like he was headed to the docks just as he's done each day for 12 years in San Leon. Instead he was going to clean houses battered by the Ike, the only work he can find.

"I've got no job, no paycheck," said Duran, who has four kids. "I don't know what's going to happen here."

___

Associated Press writer

Alan Sayre in New Orleans contributed to this report.

___

On the Net:

http://www.louisianaseafood.com

[Bianca]

                                            Tropical Storm Kyle forms in Atlantic






Thu Sep 25, 2008
 
MIAMI (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Kyle, the 11th of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, formed on Thursday in the Atlantic Ocean, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
 
The storm was located about 645 miles south-southwest of Bermuda, the Miami-based hurricane center said.

The storm system drenched Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Hispaniola for days before moving north into the Atlantic. Authorities in Puerto Rico said at least four people were killed and scores of homes were flooded.

Kyle had sustained winds of 45 mph and was moving to the north at about 8 mph, the hurricane center said.

Forecasters warned people in Bermuda to closely monitor the progress of the storm. Computer models indicated it could reach hurricane strength within a couple of days.



(Reporting by Jim Loney,

editing by Tom Brown and Sandra Maler)

[Bianca]

                                     Tropical Storm Kyle steams north in the Atlantic






1 hour, 40 minutes ago
Sept. 26, 2008

MIAMI - Tropical Storm Kyle is rumbling over the open Atlantic south of Bermuda and could become a hurricane far out to sea as it heads north.
 
The National Hurricane Center says Kyle gained strength early Friday and now has top sustained winds near 60 mph.

Forecasters say the storm could become a hurricane by Saturday.

A tropical storm warning has been issued for Bermuda.

Kyle is centered about 475 miles south-southwest of Bermuda and moving north near 13 mph.

Kyle is the 11th named storm this season in the Atlantic.




(This version CORRECTS with NWS saying storm warning instead of watch for Bermuda.)

[Bianca]

                                     Tropical Storm Kyle nears hurricane force off U.S.





 
Sept. 27, 208
MIAMI
(Reuters) -

Tropical Storm Kyle strengthened to near hurricane force over the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday as it swirled on a path toward landfall between Maine and Canada's maritime provinces, U.S. forecasters said.

Kyle, which formed on Thursday, had sustained winds near 70 mph as it swirled over the Atlantic and could become a minimal Category 1 hurricane on the five-step hurricane intensity scale any time on Saturday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

It said a hurricane watch was in effect for the coast of Maine, from Stonington to Eastport, meaning that residents should brace for hurricane conditions there.

At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT), the 11th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season was located about 280 miles west of Bermuda and moving to the north-northwest at about 15 mph, the Miami-based hurricane center said.

On its current track, Kyle is expected to be centered near eastern New England or the Canadian maritime provinces by late on Sunday, the hurricane center said.

The storm is expected to make landfall anywhere from Maine to Nova Scotia early on Monday.

The disturbed weather system drenched Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Hispaniola earlier this week before moving north into the Atlantic. Authorities in Puerto Rico said at least four people were killed and scores of homes were flooded.

Kyle was the first tropical storm to form in the Atlantic-Caribbean region since Tropical Storm Josephine on September 2, a lengthy lull in what has been a busy and destructive hurricane season so far.

Forecasters have predicted the six-month season, which runs through November 30, could produce up to 18 cyclones and the warm sea temperatures and other factors that contribute to the formation of hurricanes are still in place.



(Reporting by Tom Brown, editing by Sandra Maler)

[Bianca]

                                            Why Hurricane Ike's "Certain Death" Warning Failed





Willie Drye
for National Geographic News
September 26, 2008

As residents of Galveston, Texas, were allowed to return to the devastated island this week, experts puzzled
over why tens of thousands of others had remained during Hurricane Ike—despite the National Weather Service's "certain death" warning.



Among the possible explanations:

memories of a chaotic 2005 evacuation, an anti-government attitude, and a
false sense of security fueled by TV news and the abundance of hurricane data on the Web.









Gentle waves lap the shore near beach houses (top) on Texas' Bolivar Peninsula on September 9, 2008, just a few days before Hurricane Ike rolled into Galveston Bay.

An aerial photo of the same shoreline taken by the U.S. Geological Survey on September 15 (bottom) illustrates the dramatic destruction the strong Category 2 storm wrought on the coastal community. Yellow arrows mark the same distinguishing features in both images.


Photographs courtesy USGS