Galveston Island

Katrina who? Let's talk Ike. Why is it that we still hear about hurricane Katrina, but not Ike? Ike didn't just devastate Galveston Island as though once the storm passed everything was back to normal, it's still devastating. We went to Galveston a couple weekends ago and couldn't believe 5.5 months after the storm the island was still destroyed. I thought there would be a little damage still visible, but for the most part the island would be back to normal. Boy was I wrong! If I lived there I would be feeling hopeless about the clean up. Yes, there is still clean up to be done. There were big piles of debris between groups of homes. We saw several homes on the beach without stairs, with new stairs, and one with a ladder leading up to the home.

Check out this home. Where's the roof?

I'm sure this person would like their stairs, wall, roof and furniture back. How about the truck parked out front? Where's the owner?
This is the end of a long fishing pier. There wasn't anything left of the pier itself. There was a truck on the front portion of the pier that is now stuck on the beams just like the one you see here. Only a crane could remove it.

The Flagship Hotel. The first hotel built over water in the US is now out of commission. As we were driving by we could see curtains flying in the wind.

Here's the entrance to the hotel. There was a car stuck on the other side.I remember going to the beach and looking through the souvenir shops. Sadly they are gone. When we drove to where they had been this is what greeted us.

We drove through this neighborhood while heading to the beach. It was a small subdivision with street after street looking something like this. Notice the stairs are still standing on the first one, but the house is gone.
Could this be the house from the previous picture? Do you think anyone is home? We saw this house out in a field.
This was the sight that greeted us as we drove into Galveston. There were sail boats down streets, on the side of the road and like this one in a business parking lot. If you notice behind this boat is a main road. It's almost leaning on the roof of a picnicking area. We didn't walk to the table because we couldn't tell if the roof of the place had been braced with a couple 4x4's onto the picnic table or if that was how they originally made it.

I spoke with a lady at Whataburger about all the damage and she said their biggest problem was not being allowed back to their homes in enough time to save anything. Like the house with the missing roof and wall. If the owners could have come back right after the storm they might of been able to save their furniture or some of it. While driving along the seawall we stopped the car to see if there really wasn't a beach. The rumors we heard were true; water was lapping against rocks. We couldn't see the sand there at all. Further down where the old shops used to be had sand. The island was doing a big push to have suitable places for youth to go for spring break. They are even working on Sundays to rebuild the beaches. I feel sorry for all who live there that have lost so much, everything in some cases, and are trying to rebuild their lives; they have a long way to go.