A LINE IN THE VANISHED SAND Galveston Planning Commissioner Chula Ross Sanchez, surveying damaged properties on the island 3 months after after Hurricane Ike: “The General Land Office (GLO) has drawn a new line in the sand four-and-half feet above sea level. People can stabilize their properties on the beach but we cannot issue new construction certificates in that zone. The line is normally based on vegetation but the storm wiped that out and the new line is based on mean sea levels. Drawing that line, many houses have ended up on public property.” [OffCite]
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Tag: Disaster Aftermath
An awful stench has been wafting through the homes of Golden Glade Estates, just west of Hobby Airport and south of Sims Bayou. There’s also been backyard flooding after every rain, a constant din from trucks, and generator-powered lighting beaming into local Living Rooms during the night. The cause? Huge piles of wood debris, brought into the southeast Houston neighborhood after Hurricane Ike:
Their problems started when Federal Emergency Management Agency contractors began trucking in hundreds of semi truckloads of pungent smelling, steaming mulch. Local 2 Investigates cameras and Sky 2 helicopter footage show some mounds stacked taller than nearby homes, covering acres of land less than 100 yards from some homes.
It took almost 3 years, but the Pecan Shadows Apartments have finally sold, says Globe St.‘s Amy Wolff Sorter:
[Hendricks & Partners senior advisor Jeff] Eisenhardt, who represented the Santa Clarita, CA seller, says before the current buyer, another interested tax credit buyer had the complex at 480 W. Parker Rd. tied up in escrow for close to a year.
“Then they got a new CEO who decided he didn’t want to buy and rehab buildings, so they had to walk away from a ton of earnest money,” Eisenhardt comments. Shortly afterward, a second buyer signed a contract, went hard with the earnest money, then dropped out of the deal days before it was due to close.
“This is the third or fourth time this had been under contract,” Eisenhardt acknowledges. “Since day one, we had a lot of activity on this, but just bad luck with buyers.”
The 137-unit complex sits on more than 5 acres next to a forlorn-looking Family Dollar shopping center off I-45. One of apartments’ 12 buildings lost a roof to Hurricane Ike.
A partnership led by Houston investor Doug McGregor paid $4.5 million for the apartments and plans to spend another half-million on interior upgrades, Sorter reports.
- Final Asset Sells From 428-Unit Portfolio [Globe St.]
Photo of Pecan Shadow Apartments: Rentsmart
TRAILERS AND MOBILE HOMES SCATTER IN BAYTOWN “In addition to the 871 uninhabitable apartment units left behind by Ike, the city also listed 123 single-family homes as uninhabitable and 60, from the Lakewood, Southwest Addition and Roseland, as destroyed. To assist these citizens while they try to rebuild, Baytown City Council wasted no time in passing an ordinance allowing mobile homes on uninhabitable property until the homeowners can make repairs and move back in. Those utilizing this program can only do so for six months, with two opportunities for renewal – not to exceed 18 months. However, the city has said they won’t evict citizens making progress. ‘We have six people who are living in trailers on their private property for now,’ [planning and development director Kelly] Carpenter said. [FEMA’s Ericka] Lopez said 12 households on private sites in Baytown have requested manufactured housing from FEMA so far.” [The Baytown Sun]
Sure, we’ve all heard about the damage to Galveston — from news reports and the sad tales of returning residents. But how’s the place looking to tourists? Lou Minatti took his kids for a visit over the weekend:
The island is in sad shape. But there were some bright spots. The Moody Gardens Aquarium is open, and since there are so few tourists they have greatly reduced the entrance fee. (The Rain Forest Pyramid is closed until further notice.) The kids did get to see a beautiful shrimp trawler up close. They were fascinated.
What struck me most was the fact that all of the trees are dead. All of the beautiful live oaks, planted soon after the 1900 hurricane, are no more. They were killed by the flood of salt water. The only trees to survive are the palms and Norfolk Island pines. My best guess is that every deciduous tree more than 5 blocks from the seawall is dead.
Tired of looking at the same old images of Hurricane Ike devastation? Now, thanks to the amazing aerial camerawork of Dallas’s Hawkeye Media, you can conduct your own Bolivar Peninsula post-disaster flyover, focusing only on the destruction you want to see — from the comfort of your own broadband internet connection.
Hawkeye’s interface allows you to navigate through the company’s panoramic overhead views of wasted homes and newly desolate landscapes, zooming in and out as fast as your middle finger can scroll.
- Bolivar Peninsula [Hawkeye Media, via SciGuy, via Hair Balls]
Photo of Nelson Lane, Crystal Beach: Hawkeye Media
Snapstream CEO Rakesh Agrawal finds the rooftop sign above Frank’s Grill on Telephone Road is still canine-consonant-challenged, a few weeks after Ike.
- Frank’s Grill got Scooby-ified by Ike [Natuba, via Swamplot comments]
Photo: Rakesh Agrawal
FEMA-approved colors liven up this property-damage-assessment map for 24,000 structures in Galveston.
The red areas are “unsafe; leaning; structurally unsound; completely destroyed; collapsed or structure missing.”
Yellow means “general interior flooding; wind damage; or significantly damaged, but repairable.”
And green means go! “No damage or only minor damage; or missing siding; shingles; handrails; breakaway walls.”
The gray areas? “Flood zone.”
More colorful maps of other Hurricane-Ike-hit areas of the city are available on the City of Galveston website.
- Damage Assessment Map for Areas 61st Street East, 61st Street West to Jamaica Beach, and Jamaica Beach West to San Luis Pass as of 10/15/08 [City of Galveston, via Hair Balls]
- City Releases Damage Assessment Map & Issues Guidance for Property Owners [City of Galveston]
GOT MULCH? What to do with the 5.6 million cubic yards of wood waste left after Hurricane Ike? The city doesn’t know either — so it’s sponsoring an ideas competition: “The contest will pay $10,000, $5,000 and $2,500 for the top three ideas for how to best use the heaps of debris, which city officials have said would be enough to fill up the Astrodome nearly four times over. . . . So far, the city has given about 700,000 cubic yards of wood waste to two companies that will turn it into mulch and compost for resale. But the sheer volume of debris far outstrips local market demand for recycling it. . . . ‘We don’t want to have to fill up our precious landfill sites with a bunch of wooded waste, so we’re going to try to recycle all of it,’ [Mayor] White said. ‘It will probably be the single biggest recycling project that there is in the country this year.'” [Houston Chronicle; competition site]
A few fun — and not-so-fun — sights around town: First, Houston visitor Mike Smith’s photo shows some of the few letters left after Ike’s attack.
More hurricane photo souvenirs below!
HOUSTON STREETSIDE LUMBER YARDS Hurricane Ike means . . . free wood! For the taking! To woodworker Jim Fuller, southwest Houston is in bloom: “’I’m harvesting right now,’ he says. ‘I’ve got six or seven different types of wood – live oak, white oak, some kind of cedar, a stewartia. I got a huge piece of sweetgum – it was about 36 inches around and it was kind of hollow in the middle so I was able to saw it into planks right there. I also got a big magnolia, and that’s something you don’t see very often.'” [Hair Balls]
Last week Hair Balls blogger Dusti Rhodes reported that most Houston-area haunted-house attractions were faring pretty well after Hurricane Ike — and managed to elicit this gem from the owner of haunted-house chain Phobia:
Our customer base is still screwed over. We bet they’ll be happy to hear that the fake houses in the area have their power back.
Now from Crosby comes a different kind of Hurricane Ike haunted house horror story: A warehouse attached to auto accessories shop B&M Accessories received so much damage from the storm that the owners decided to scrap their plans to expand their store into it. Instead, they’re turning the entire building into . . . yes, a haunted house:
“When we first came and walked through, my son said it looked like a haunted house in here,†[co-owner Billy] Maness said.
Though the power was out around much of the community, two light bulbs flicked on at the mention of Halloween.
After some discussion it was decided: the eerie warehouse was to become Crosby’s House of Terror, a 9,000-square foot maze of Halloween fun and fear.
While others are mourning the loss of their homes and businesses, the duo turned their misfortune around, giving the entire community something to scream about. Since Sunday, they’ve been hard at work, not cleaning up, but ramping up the Halloween spirit unleashed by Hurricane Ike.
The Halloween attraction will open to the public on October 3. Less than a year ago, the building at 117 Ulrich Ln., off FM 2100 in Crosby, was Shooters Bar. Before that, it was called the Chicken Coop.
After the jump: design touches from Hurricane Ike!
MIDSUMMER BOOKS: 8 FEET IS ENOUGH This fall was the final season for Midsummer Books, near the Strand in Galveston: “‘All those shops and restaurants on Strand, Mechanic and Postoffice were hit bad, and Midsummer Books got 8 ft of muddy water which soaked and ruined everything, books, furniture, computer equipment, etc.,’ owner Tim Thompson says by e-mail. ‘Luckily I have flood insurance so I will most likely get compensated for the loss. However, this is one of those times in life where tough decisions have to be made and for a variety of reasons I have decided not to ressurect Midsummer Books,’ he says.” [Hair Balls]
Fun pix from around town: Part of a convoy of about 40 tree trucks headed down the Eastex Freeway last weekend, looking for a little bit of work.
More photos:
IKE’S TOXIC IMPRINT “So far, regulatory officials have identified 228 sites potentially poisoned with gasoline, industrial chemicals, feces and other contaminants from Greater Houston to Lake Charles, La. But none of the reported spills is considered major, authorities said. Cmdr. Virginia Kammer, who leads the U.S. Coast Guard’s cleanup efforts along the Texas coastline, said the largest spill was about 3,000 barrels, and the responsible facility moved quickly to get the problem under control.” What about the region’s 28 Superfund sites? No word yet, but the EPA has “started to investigate.” [Houston Chronicle]