PRAY ‘NOTHING HAPPENS’: As storm looms, many remember Ike’s devastation in 2008
When Jack Moss was growing up in Jefferson County, his father refused to run from hurricanes. There could be howling winds, torrential rains and tornadoes, and his dad would insist they all stay put.
“One hurricane blew holes in the roof of our home when I was about 10, and we had water coming in. I made up my mind then that if I had a chance to leave during a hurricane, I would,” said Moss, who is 73 and retired from the Falcon Group, a real estate development company.
True to his pledge, Moss evacuated from his home along Galveston Bay to San Antonio before Hurricane Ike pounded the region in 2008, watching the news from Central Texas.
Moss returned home to find that his San Leon house and rental property next door had floated off of their foundations.
Now he lives in a home on stilts in League City — farther inland and in less danger — and on Monday was just backing up computers and pulling in anything that could blow away as Hurricane Laura powered toward the region.
For many Houston-area residents, Laura’s approach may
bring flashbacks of Hurricane Harvey, a dayslong storm in 2017 that inundated the area with rain and led to catastrophic flooding. But for longtime Bay-area residents such as Moss, the memories remain vivid of Hurricane Ike, a 2008 storm that unleashed a 22foot storm surge and 110 mph winds, causing so much damage in Galveston that it left the island nearly uninhabitable.
Hotels, restaurants and homes were all badly damaged, and places like the historic Balinese Room on a 600-foot pier were wiped out. In Seabrook, 76 percent of residential properties were damaged, with some homes on the water along Todville Road ripped apart or completely washed away.
Like Ike, Laura is expected to bring fierce winds and a lifethreatening storm surge. Forecasters expect it to make landfall somewhere between San Luis Pass, about 25 miles south of the Galveston Seawall, and Intracoastal, La.
Mandatory evacuation orders were issued Tuesday for the city of Galveston and the Bolivar Peninsula. The latter could get 4 to 8 feet of storm surge as winds push water away from inland areas.
Taking precautions
Moss and others in Clear Lake living on or near Galveston Bay have been watching the weather closely this week, relieved that Hurricane Marco weakened before making landfall near the mouth of the Mississippi River, but still worried about the growing strength of Laura.
Robert Donley, who works as a boat captain in the Port of Houston and has a side business conducting weddings at sea — MyWeddingOnTheWater.com — said Monday he minimizes damage to his boat during storms by taking every precaution.
Before Ike, he tied his Bayliner 4588 Pilot House down, added 4foot fender bumpers and removed plastic windows and the Bimini top so there would be nothing that could fly away. Monday, anticipating Laura’s arrival, he did that and more at his boat, docked at Waterford Harbor Marina’s floating piers in Kemah.
“You learn to look for the unknown. What if … what if your neighbor … what if something floats down the fairway?” he asked rhetorically. “There’s nothing you can do about things floating in water or flying through the air. I bring out 1-inch lines and 4-foot fender bumpers — I go the extra effort.”
Every community east of Texas 146 was devastated by Ike, and many just west of the four-lane road were, too. In all, Ike caused $38 billion in damage.
The Seabrook United Methodist Church flooded badly and relocated to another site. Nearly next door, the Tookie’s burger joint didn’t reopen for three years.
Pastor Terry Creekmore’s New Life Praise Center in “Old Seabrook” flooded, but the worst part was that Creekmore and others weren’t allowed to return to the city for safety reasons. By the time they could get in to clean out the church, it was covered in mold.
He spent 19 months haggling with the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association to get a settlement. Creekmore lost all of his pews, and another church donated the chairs that still sit in the Pentecostal apostolic church’s sanctuary.
“As bad as Harvey was, waterwise, it didn’t affect the church at all. In fact, we stayed at the church because we lost electricity at our house,” Creekmore said, noting that he cannot afford the $13,000 it costs to insure the church annually. “Our congregation is so small. I’m 66 years old and two weeks ago my wife and I started delivering for Uber Eats; we’re trying to keep the doors open. We’re watching the news closely now, and I pray to God that nothing happens.”
Coming together after Ike
Not far away in the fish market district, Samantha Tran and others at Rose’s Seafood on Tuesday were preparing for yet another storm. Tran’s Vietnamese family founded the market 40 years ago and has had to rebuild three times.
In 2008 they were a month away from moving into a new building that was elevated 16 feet when Ike hit. Their existing business was ruined and even the new building was damaged — pushing back its opening about a year.
The new building has a generator that’s ready for use and hurricane shutters that are being pulled down.
“We’ve cleared beneath the building and we’re not taking any deliveries but we’re open now,”
Tran said Tuesday. “Everyone is rushing in to get seafood. If you’re going to be stuck in a storm you can at least have good food, you know? I cooked a big old pot of seafood gumbo and told my husband, ‘If we’re going to be stuck at home, it will be better than canned soup.’”
Kemah suffered a devastating storm surge in 2008, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.
Greg Collins knows this all too well. He was mayor of Kemah during Ike and managed city staff and first responders while living in a home without electricity and not missing a day of work at his job as a manufacturer’s rep at Sanmar, a company that sells sporting goods such as Nike and North Face.
He lives in an apartment in League City now, and has been helping friends and family get their homes ready to face whatever Laura brings.
Collins, who was mayor or mayor pro-tem in the small coastal town for 17 years, remembered seeing boats in the streets and in people’s yards, appliances and all kinds of household furnishings scattered everywhere. He lived in a home on the bay back then and recalled waves crashing over his boathouse and a debris line that went 200 yards past his house.
More than anything, though, Collins remembered that Mother Nature’s worst brought out everyone’s best.
“In 2005, (Hurricane) Katrina hit and then Rita hit, so we were very organized in Kemah because we had some history to go off of,” Collins, 63, said. “We had a good plan going in and everybody involved — every council member, staff, police and fire departments — executed extremely well. Talk about people who were completely selfless — most of the police officers were sleeping at City Hall. It was an incredible effort. Everybody wanted to be involved.”