It was a dark and stormy night
No, really, it was. Three years ago, on the 7th anniversary of 9/11, my family was among millions of others preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Ike.
Our lives had been changed three years before that with the devastation wrought on new orleans by Hurricane Katrina. Then, with our house in Katy filled with family members who had evacuated new orleans, we all evacuated when hurricane Rita came rolling in a few weeks later.
Perhaps because of our experience with Rita, perhaps because our kids were older, we decided to stay put and wait out Hurricane Ike. We're a long way from the evacuation zones and in no danger of any tidal surge being some 60 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico. Our biggest concern was loss of power.
A sleepless night
Through the night of September 12, 2008 and into the daylight hours of the morning of September 13, 2008, our family huddled in one room of our home. We were glued to the news reports on the TV, the flooding from the advance surge, the fires burning in evacuated properties. We watched through the evening and into the night till around 2:00 am when the power started flicking off and on faster than the cable box could reboot. At that point we switched to the radio on to track the progress of the storm. While the winds howled around us, we thought about what was happening in galveston and along the coast.
When day broke, we were fine – a small tree blown over in the front yard, quickly righted, was the only damage we sustained. Some streets a few blocks away were without power, but in our neighborhood, that was it. Our greatest inconvenience was the cancellation of school for the following week, not because the schools were damaged but because the meal suppliers in Houston couldn't supply school meals.
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Down in galveston and along the Bolivar Peninsular, however, it was a very different story. There was tremendous damage there with the communities of Crystal Beach and Gilchrist being literally swept off the map. The surge at Gilchrist and Crystal Beach was estimated to have risen over eight feet above the land. Although most of the structures were built on stilts, many were not strong enough to resist the combined assault of the winds and the sea.
The aftermath
When the wind had died down and helicopters were allowed to fly once more, the images of galveston, Crystal Beach and Gilchrist were post apocalyptical in their nature. The Big Picture at boston.com has a gallery of 28 images taken in the aftermath of the storm.
The scene revisited
Back at the start of this year I decided to take a drive out to high island then work my way south west along the coast, through Gilchrist, Crystal Beach, take the Bolivar Ferry and continue through Galveston down to Surfside to see how the area was coming back.
I was quite surprised at the amount of reconstruction that had occurred in the prior two years. Lots of brightly colored houses on stilts were reclaiming the land. Here and there along the way were dotted poignant reminders of the damage wrought by the storm. But overall, the scene was one of resurgence, of communities springing back to life.
Production Data
Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II (B&H)
Lens: Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS USM AF Lens (B&H)
Processing: Lightroom 3 (B&H)
