Ike’s powerful winds didn’t collapse the market on Wall Street – but with the “bailout” and Presidential election dominating the news, it’s difficult to find out exactly what it was that Ike did do and how things are going now.
SLABBED keeps an eye on Ike with these two recent stories updating damage reports – the first from the Insurance Journal with the latest on the cost.
…The storm is the most expensive in Texas history, with an estimated price tag of $11.4 billion so far. Insurance losses from Ike are expected to be at least $10 billion, said Mark Hanna, a spokesman for the Insurance Council of Texas…
And then there are the 37 found dead so far in Texas and hundreds still unaccounted for one month after Hurricane Ike barreled ashore on Galveston Island, leveling trees onto power lines and temporarily crippling the nation’s fourth-largest city and the center of the U.S. energy industry.
The monster storm – 600 miles wide when it hit land – was felt as far away as Illinois, killing another 35 people on its drive across the country. And the shutdown of Gulf refineries caused gasoline shortages in Atlanta and elsewhere in the Southeast.
Galveston County Judge Jim Yarbrough offered a refrain often repeated by officials when discussing recovery efforts from Ike, which blasted ashore Sept. 13.
“It’s a marathon. It’s not a sprint,” he said. “It’s going to take at least a couple of years before we fully recover. It’s going to be a long haul.”
As time passes, it will be possible to compare data on recovering from Katrina to like data from Ike and see which long haul was longer and why. Nowadays, however, we can only piece together stories – which brings us to the source of the data in the post headline and today’s Houston Chronicle.
Dawning with a tickle of breeze and a hint of fall, Monday was a glorious day for a walk on the beach. But on the one-month anniversary of Hurricane Ike’s brutal assault on the Texas coast, few in Southeast Texas were in the mood for seaside reverie.
In Ike’s wake, at least 36 are dead and 134 missing. Downtown Galveston, inundated by as much as 12 feet of storm-churned water, was a veritable ghost town of gutted storefronts and piled debris. At least 14,000 area utility customers remained without electricity.
Almost 700,000 households in the 29-county disaster zone sought state or federal emergency relief. The city of Houston racked up more than $87 million in Ike-related expenses. At Surfside Beach, 16 houses washed away or were wrecked; in Baytown, 60. Monday afternoon, an estimated 420 Galveston Island residents still lived in a Red Cross tent city.
Ike, which blasted into the Galveston area with 100-plus mph winds early on Sept. 13, was the worst storm to hit the Houston region in 25 years. And its impact long will be felt.
“This is not going to be a quick fix,” said Joyce Calver, vice president of the Historic Galveston Downtown Partnership, a merchants’ group. “That’s not just in terms of restoration of buildings and infrastructure, but in the emotional toll of business owners and residents and in the public’s perception of Galveston getting back on its feet. … We are going through a stage of grieving.”
Compounding the problem, she said, is the fact that some downtown businesses were not fully insured. Business owners, she said, thought their century-old buildings — many with entrances high above the ground — were floodproof.
Galveston Planning Director Wendy O’Donohoe on Monday said that roughly 20 percent of the city’s housing stock is so badly damaged that it’s uncertain whether it can be rebuilt. Many of the city’s 60,000 residents haven’t been able to return, and City Manager Steve LeBlanc noted that when schools reopened last week, only 60 percent of enrolled students showed up…
In Galveston on Monday, city, federal and utility company officials at a news conference said that, while recovery from the hurricane is going well, it is only starting.
“Galveston Island is rebuilding,” said Jeff Sjostrom, president of the Galveston Economic Development Partnership, noting that a three-bank consortium is offering low-interest, short-term loans. “Galveston Island is coming back.”
In Houston, where many rooftops sport blue government-issued tarps — the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers distributed more than 11,000 in the region — public works officials estimated $19 million was spent fixing sewage problems, traffic lights and other hurricane damage. About 80 percent of the city’s traffic signals were back in operation Monday, although those that weren’t may not be repaired before November.
Solid waste officials estimated they have made “first pass” collections of debris at 95 percent of the households they serve. The department has spent more than $34 million on Ike-related matters, primarily debris removal. Throughout devastated Southeast Texas, at least 6.7 million cubic yards of debris have been removed.
Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said he’s pleased with how well the county has recovered. “There’s no doubt things we can do better,” he added, noting that the county recently hired a consulting firm to study the county’s performance and suggest improvements.
Speaking of data, this mention of “consulting firms” reminds me to note that hurricanes lead to the financial ruin of some and wealth for others – there’s definitely money blowing in the wind and how much, who gets it, for what would really be interesting data IMO.
Ike is a little bit like Hurricane Hugo. Not as strong of winds when it reached the US (Hugo was a IV), but both were placed to do a lot of damage with their storm surge, and both went right over major population areas as they went inland.
Hugo is still something like number 6 on the damage list. But on the plus side, wind damage causes a lot of damage to insurance companies, but seems quicker to recover from. The biggest problem is getting the power back up. If I remember correctly, large chunks of Charlotte, NC (4-1/2 hours drive from landfall at Charleston, SC) had power outages of over a week.
One big advantage of Hugo is that the strong Northern Arc of the storm (in the Gulf it would be the Eastern Arc) with the biggest storm surges hit Myrtle Beach South Carolina in what was mostly the off season as Hugo was also a late season storm.
Myrtle Beach is much more built up today then at the time of Hugo, but after Hugo many people thought it would never come back.
It would appear the area is doing as well as can be expected. This was a massive storm. I know claims are still being reported as so many people were displaced. As for the waste of money. Hey, it is a fact of life if distribution is handled primarily by government entities.
Being far away I am not up on all the local anecdotal stories I am sure are out there. However, I have not seen news reports of the insurance industry not doing what it should be doing.
Sup, what waste of money? I reported cost of waste removal and mentioned there were people making money on the loss, the consultant for example.
I have to dig to find stories but, like you, I’m sure there are some out there. I keep thinking the wealth in this area versus the lack of same in the areas hardest hit by Katrina is a factor.
The stories I’ve seen thus far haven’t indicated the industry isn’t doing its job but it would be difficult for the industry not to given the limited coverage on property damaged/lost due to a hurricane. I have seen indications, however, the same coverage issues are surfacing in terms of wind/water claims but I doubt there will be the late adjusting of claims after the recent court decision in Louisiana per Sop’s last post.
Sorry Nowdy I didn’t separate your “waste” comment to what waste of money will work its way through the system, It is part of the system.
I saw it personally with Easter Flood in Jackson in 1979. I had Flood insurance and this apparently put us on the “mailing” list for other Federal programs. Some guy showed up from the SBA and said since I had a contents loss I was eligible for a grant of $3-4K IF I applied for an SBA loan for my contents at 2%. If you will recall interest rates in 1979 were above 15%. Couldn’t pass that deal up. Then someone shows up at my house and gives us Food Stamps. I did not apply for any of this I was solicited. Folks that was waste and it continues with these disasters.
That was the point of my post.
No problem, Sup. I will add that I don’t think offering anyone help after that flood was wrong as it hit areas where people would not be familiar with assistance programs but were no less deserving than those who would have known there was help available. We have so many who have spent what they’ve saved for retirement trying to recover from natural disasters – and some not all that natural because of manmade problems with flood control projects.