My wife and I were in Houston again last week. Over the weekend, we drove to Galveston, continuing a chain of visits from both before and after Hurricane Ike. [See prior posts here and here]. The Gulf Coast was in the Houston news last week because of former President George H.W. Bush's Saturday visit to Gilchrist on the Bolivar Peninsula, ground zero for Hurricane Ike and across the channel from Galveston.
Seven months after Hurricane Ike struck, a visitor would notice little, if any, lingering Hurricane Ike-related damage in Houston. Galveston is a different story. Although restaurants and shops are open in the historic district along the Strand, many buildings remain dilapidated and uninhabited. Apparently, several days of flood and a night of hurricane force winds caused serious damage to most trees, which have no leaves and give the appearance of a cold day in winter. Many beach front homes appear unharmed, but they resemble a ghost town, as they are empty with boarded doors and windows, probably damaged internally from the storm surge. Galveston Island State Park, which lost an administrative building to the hurricane on the beach side of the highway, is reopened on the marsh side. Bird life through the marsh seems relatively normal, as we saw great white egrets, lesser terns, and two pink Roseate Spoonbills flying overhead.
Along Interstate 45 to Galveston are billboards where law firms unabashedly advertise their ability to assist hurricane victims in recovering insurance proceeds. But with many areas still devastated seven months after Hurricane Ike, one must assume many Galveston residents never had the insurance coverage they needed.
