These are my final two blog entries for Hurricane Ike through day 8. As most of life has gotten back to normal on this side of town, writing about those few things that haven't will only be unnecessary repetitive reports on the same minor details. Unless something breaks in a big way for the regional recovery issues, I'm going back to my usual political posts as those have been sorely neglected lately. There's likely folks involved first-hand in the more harder hit areas that should be reporting on their situations -- not someone like me, 50 miles and a world away.
My thoughts go out to all the folks in coastal Texas and southwestern Louisiana that have been seriously impacted by Ike. My hopes also go out for a speedy return to regularity.
Day 7
Each day brings the region a little closer to recovery, and one baby step closer to the ultimate goal of the long trip to normalcy. On my part, I actually feel a little guilty. We’ve had electricity for three days now, but 1.18 million – over half – are still without. I revisited my friends, Karen and Bunny, who I walked over to visit on Saturday night when I was bored. When I drove up, I noticed everyone was outside – they’d never gotten their power restored. I felt so bad for them.
The night I was at their place, they’d decided to reserve a room in a hotel to at least enjoy a couple days of air conditioning and get a shower. It turns out the hotel they’d reserved at also had no electricity or water. They’d been homebound since the storm.
On the subject of hotels, as FEMA has already announced that displaced residents whose homes were destroyed will receive housing vouchers, FEMA and the State of Texas put out a website showing hotels that will accept FEMA vouchers. You have to be careful when going through it though. It reportedly lists Galveston hotels among those that will accept FEMA vouchers.
You can’t get into Galveston! Strict restrictions on who can come onto Galveston island ... only essential personnel.
Last night, the TV news highlighted a sensational story headline: are utility crews being redirected to wealthy neighborhoods and leaving poor neighborhoods in the dark? This was the case in Cypress (northwest outskirts of Houston). Utility crews from out-of-state were in the neighborhood, reconnecting customers to electricity. Then suddenly, with five more blocks left, the crews climbed back down from the poles, packed up and left.
They were reassigned to Bellaire (a high dollar inner-city suburb of Houston). Residents in Cypress were in disbelief, one lady said she cried. Electric service is the latest field to see classism’s ugly head rear.
The intrepid news crews called Reliant Energy, confirmed the story and caught up with the utility crews that were reassigned from Cypress. They found them in River Oaks – Houston’s version of Beverly Hills! When they caught up with the electrical crew, the utility workers said they were aggravated that they couldn’t finish their assignment and upset with having to re-deploy for no good reason. Six days without power was apparently more than River Oaks could handle – even though I’d wager there were few homes there without generators. Meanwhile, many in Cypress still use water wells, and their pumps don’t work without electricity. Apparently they can wait.
All I can say is whomever made that decision better not deploy a crew in an African-American neighborhood and pull them off to go hook up West University Place or other tony districts. That would not be taken kindly. Regardless of the neighborhood’s ethnic make up, or economic power, everyone should be treated equally. The process should be continuing as stated – with no arbitrary "special consideration" doled out. If we’re all in this, we should be all in this together. It shouldn’t mean rich folks, first.
They’ve begun the early stages of recovery along the coast. Today deaths were confirmed from seven bodies in Galveston County yesterday: two from drowning, five from other causes. With the surge washing everyone in, then the outflow taking them back out to the gulf, it may be months before all bodies are recovered.
They had one story on news of a man living on Bolivar Peninsula who attempted to ride out the storm. When the surge washed away his home, he managed to grab hold of his patio table washing by, grabbed hold, and rode it like a boogie board across Galveston Bay. He had to fight debris, dodge a snake and fight off an alligator, but in the end drifted over to the east end of the bay, where the Coast Guard finally found him. He said he’s had it with living on the coast and plans to move.
On hurricane victim assistance, the state will not issue payment vouchers. Texas authorities were going to do food stamp distributions for many families who (like myself) ended up having to get rid of their refrigerated items. As a result, the first food stamp location opened up Thursday, but they processed their "allotted number of applications" and then turned the rest away. Word spread of this, and with the pressing need, today (Friday) they have opened up with a huge, blocks-long line in wait.
Texas’ Dept. of Health & Human Services (HHS) websites showed they would raise the level of income in order to assist those moderately above the official wage level cutoff receive food stamps. Folks who stood in line all night then had HHS personnel distribute spreadsheets that showed the usual wage level cutoff (about $700/mo lower). Needless to say, the contradictory information between the web and what HHS was allowing caused quite a stir. There were folks who drove there from all around the area and some waited from the night before. One interviewed lady drove down (about 25 miles each way) and waited all night only to receive $14 per month assistance.
Apparently there’s some problems with the temporary FEMA application process as well, which was set up by Cong. Lampson to expedite the process. Those who applied are not receiving assistance. I’m unclear what the problem is with these applications. However, the news also noted FEMA was setting up their own location across the street from Cong. Lampson’s stop-gap site at the American Legion location across from Ellington Field. Why FEMA finds it necessary to open what appears to be a competing site when the one across the way already exists and was created to facilitate getting residents assistance is also unknown.
My personal opinion is that FEMA feels they’re not being assisted but being "shown up" by a congressman who just happens to be of the opposite political persuasion of the President. Gee, politics showing up during a disaster recovery process? I guess someone doesn’t want another black eye a la Katrina and Rita! Maybe something politically triumphant they can stand upon, like Giuliani atop the rubble of the Twin Towers post-9/11.
Well, at least they’re trying to be Johnny-on-the-spot. A week later. No hurry. We’re patient. We’ll wait for ya.... Heckuva job!
Day 8
It really is starting to feel more like normal. Even the weather is getting back to normal patterns: warm, but now with humidity back along with the stillness. It makes work chopping down branches and debris and hauling them to the street even more physically taxing.
Not only is there the heavy sweat to now contend with, we’ve also seen the return of something else we’re well acquainted with here: mosquitoes. They began coming in with the humidity last night, but I notice quite a number of them out back while I was toiling. During the heat of the day, they’re not too bad. But once the sun goes behind the fence and shade moves in, the swarms come out.
With so many other priorities around the region, spraying for bugs isn’t one of them. Making my situation worse is the fact that I have a bayou right out back. If that’s not great breeding ground, then just beyond my dead end is open fields and a series of large detention ponds (for those unfamiliar, in the flatlands, we have essentially pits dug into the ground to trap heavy rain runoff, or in my case, connected to the bayous or creeks to catch heavy waterflow into them and keep from overtaxing – flooding – the waterways leading to the ship channel. We have to have them because we’re flat, and the floods will otherwise just sit for long periods of time in wherever they would flood prior to the ponds system being built (like roads, or out of bayous’ banks).
All the detention ponds have a little water sitting in them, stagnating and waiting until the sun evaporates it. Meanwhile, they’re virtual mosquito metropolises.
Another part, not so enjoyable, is smelling the musky murk emanating from the bayou. With windows open, the smell permeates the house. It’s like living in a storm sewer pipe. It makes me wonder how people on the coast are living with the smell, much less the mosquito swarms. It’s going to be a while before either floods or our bloodsucking friends leave.
Just driving around tonight, it appears most every store is now open. With the exception of a few smaller storefront still struggling, all the major businesses have opened for business.
Businesses way outpaced the other infrastructure in getting back to normal. Driving down the street, you still see patches without streetlights. Store signs are occasionally there, but many are not or are darkened. Some of them appear not to be open, such as Starbucks with their intimate lighting inside ... until you realize the parking lot is full of cars. There’s just no sign to display who it is.
Stop lights are also lagging behind business. We’re getting more of them back, but that’s only about half. The rest vary from blinking red lights, to darkened, to no lights at all – just wires, or dangling fixtures. Even some of the stop light street signs are dangling from the wires. A mile or so away, one stoplight installed on a pole had the pole itself blow completely 90 degrees – not even showing over the street it covers, but parallel to the curb right next to the other stop light.
With more stop lights coming on line, there’s a new problem. We’ve all become so used to all stop lights being treated as four-way stops that we now automatically presume that at every stop-lighted intersection. I did it too, and nearly got hit by the second car who tried to drive through the intersection. Only when the driver honked at me and gestured toward the stoplight did I realize it was functioning.
I can imagine the opposite happening soon as well: once everyone becomes used to most intersections having working lights, then blow through one which is out and supposed to be a 4-way stop.
Even complaining about this makes me feel selfish. People on the opposite side of town, and more so on the coast, would give anything just to have this quasi-normal routine back now. It’s going to be months before these folks even reach our level of routine.