Texas coast faces long recovery after Ike

More than two days after Hurricane Ike slammed the Gulf Coast, rescuers flew for the first time Monday into areas cut off by the storm and found a scene of devastation, with whole subdivisions obliterated, and began evacuating survivors.

A Texas helicopter task force flew 115 rescuers onto the heavily damaged resort barrier island of Bolivar Peninsula, just east of hard-hit Galveston. Task force leader Chuck Jones said they were the first rescuers to reach the area that is home to about 30,000 people in the peak summer beach season.

"They had a lot of devastation over there," Jones said. "It took a direct hit."

Jones said he didn't know if anyone on the island had died because officials don't know how many people stayed.

The death toll from Ike rose to 31 in eight states Monday, far fewer than the 1,600 killed when Katrina hit the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts in 2005.

But the destruction from Ike is scattered across hundreds of miles in Texas and Louisiana and likely will cost billions of dollars, Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt said. It is unclear when the estimated 2 million people who fled the area — and spread throughout Texas and elsewhere — will be able to return.

Ike's bitter legacy is likely to linger for months. Much of the region is covered in debris, 2.5 million people in three states lack power, the water supply has been threatened and a key center of the nation's oil and gas industry has been knocked off line.

Gas prices jumped in Ike's immediate aftermath. Fifteen Gulf Coast refineries were shut down Sunday, including ExxonMobil's Baytown, Texas, facility, the nation's largest refinery.

The remnants of Ike pushed toward the Ohio Valley Sunday. About 1 million households and businesses had no electricity Monday morning in Ohio alone, and authorities said it could take a week for power to be restored in some areas. Roads were closed in Kentucky because of high winds.

Although Texas Gov. Rick PerryRick Perry says the Gulf region escaped a "worst-case" scenario, jarring images of destruction confronted rescue crews as they moved through a giant disaster zone, trying to account for thousands of residents who had ignored officials' pleas to evacuate before the storm.

"Horrendous," Texas Homeland Security Director Steve McCraw said of the overall damage.

At least 10 waterfront structures in Galveston, where Ike roared ashore early Saturday, were swept into the Gulf. Only a ghostly collection of pylons marked where they had been.

In other parts of Galveston, burned-out hulks of buildings were scattered in flattened neighborhoods that firefighters could not enter during the height of the storm.

"We have no power. We have no gas. We have no communications," Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas said Sunday. "We're not sure when any of that will be up and running. Do not come back to Galveston. You cannot live here right now."

"There is huge damage across this state," Perry said Sunday. "Hurricane Ike threw a hard punch, but it didn't damage our spirit."

President BushPresident Bush, Perry's predecessor as governor, planned to travel to his home state Tuesday. He asked people who evacuated to listen to local authorities before trying to return home.

A massive search-and-rescue effort continued into Sunday evening and was credited with saving nearly 2,000 people stranded by Ike's fury. Crews had only begun to reach the hardest-hit areas as high water subsided. McCraw said it could take two days before authorities complete a house-to-house search for casualties in Galveston.

McCraw said another 2,000 people, many of whom had refused to evacuate before the storm, were being moved to shelters in San Antonio. Those who remained in the disaster zone recounted frightening tales of survival.

Connie Travis, 53, was shaking as she described "the scariest night of my life" when water began to rise Friday at her Crystal City home.

Travis, her husband, Doug, 58, and son, Matthew Nez, 36, were boarding up their home near the Gulf when the raging water cut off all routes of escape.

As the storm howled, the family sought shelter in their home, which is on 17-foot stilts. "Somebody's house slammed into mine," Travis said. "I called 911 — 'What do we do?' " she asked the dispatcher. "She said, 'Don't go outside whatever you do.' "

The frightened family stayed in touch with relatives by text message. Before cellphone service was lost, Travis said, she got a message from one of her sons: "I talked to the Coast Guard 10 times. They know you're there. They're coming to get you."

The Coast Guard arrived Saturday and took the family to safety.

"Everything that was on the ground is washed away," Travis said. "I'm still shaking."

'Every school is closed'

Across the Gulf region, authorities could not say when evacuees would be allowed to return.

Houston remained virtually paralyzed Sunday. Hurtt said a strict curfew, barring vehicles and people from the streets from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., would be enforced until at least Friday. "In the interest of safety, we're asking people not to be out on the streets in their vehicles or on foot," he said.

Most of Houston lacked power Sunday, and Perry urged residents to stay away from damaged areas until local officials announced it was safe to come back. Schools in Houston and in several other districts were closed indefinitely. Health officials urged residents to use bottled water or boil tap water.

The American Red Cross was housing more than 20,000 people in 155 shelters throughout Texas and Louisiana, said spokesman Peter Macias. Shelters in Dallas, Fort Worth, Huntsville and other Texas communities were opened in response to Ike; Louisiana shelters housed evacuees displaced by both Ike and Hurricane Gustav, which struck Louisiana two weeks ago.

Hospitals in Houston and surrounding areas, many evacuated prior to the storm, also were assessing damage to power and water supplies, said Ernie Schmid, director of policy analysis for the Texas Hospital Association. He said it could take weeks to repair damage to the state's hospital system.

In the Houston area, 17 of 89 hospitals are closed, Perry spokesman Andrew Barlow said.

U.S. and state officials have opened special disaster medical centers in College Station and San Antonio. The centers, which together have about 1,000 beds, are about half full, said Gretchen Michael of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. "These are people who have been moved from nursing homes or hospitals (who) have special needs or chronic conditions," she said.

Near the Texas-Louisiana border, officials in the city of Orange told residents to stay away — indefinitely. Asked when people might be able to return, City Manager Shawn Oubre said, "I don't know."

He said power is out and may not come back for up to a month. Communication on land lines and cellphones is spotty, and the city's sewer system was not working late Sunday.

At least one-third to half of the 13 square-mile city was under 6 feet of water, said Jimmie Lewis, Orange's director of planning. "Every school is closed," he said. "With the electricity out, it's going to be some time before school will be opened."

A 'jaw dropping' outage

Luis Rivera Castro, 25, ended up among the evacuees from Orange when a rescue boat picked him up Saturday in neighboring Bridge City. A native of Puerto Rico, Rivera said he lost contact with everyone he knows when his cellphone battery died.

Rivera, who doesn't speak English, didn't know where the buses were taking him. But after riding out the storm alone in his apartment, he said he wanted to go to a shelter, where at least there would be food, water and electricity.

He had no idea if he'd be able to return to the townhouse he shared with a friend in Bridge City or when he could return to work as a welder at Signal International's shipyard. Except for $100 in cash and his identification, he carried no belongings.

"I don't know my fate," Rivera said in Spanish. "But there is nothing more I can do."

It could be more than a month before full power is restored in Houston, said Floyd LeBlanc, spokesman for the city's main power supplier, CenterPoint Energy. He said CenterPoint expected Ike to knock out less than half of its 2.26 million customers. But the storm's enormous girth and punishing winds hit harder than many expected.

On the company's computer, red dots began identifying the outages at 11 a.m. Friday, long before the storm came ashore. First, it was Galveston, the island Ike hit directly. Then, it was everywhere else. Outages hit 1 million at 1:15 a.m. Saturday with Ike still outside the city.

"It got uncomfortable," LeBlanc said. "The storm wasn't even over our area." By 5 a.m., the outage map looked like it had been hit by "an exploding red tomato. It was jaw dropping," he said.

When the wind stopped blowing at 11 a.m. Saturday morning, CenterPoint had "nearly lost every customer," LeBlanc said. "This is unprecedented."

Overall, the Federal Emergency Management Agency reported that 2.5 million people had lost power throughout the disaster zone in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas. An estimated 7,000 repair crews were scheduled to arrive in Houston on Sunday, but LeBlanc said some residents there may be without electricity for more than four weeks.

As much of the Gulf remained in darkness, gasoline prices jumped nationwide. Ninety-eight percent of the Gulf's natural gas and crude production was halted.

Energy Department spokeswoman Healy Baumgardner said Sunday the government is "doing everything possible to minimize impacts to American families," including releasing emergency oil stockpiles and monitoring allegations of price gouging.

Restoring electricity remained the chief energy priority. "We have a lot of work ahead of us," LeBlanc said. "A parallel challenge is expectation" because everyone wants to see their power on first.

"To see almost our entire system out is very frightening," says Cindi Salas, who manages the computer maps and models CenterPoint uses to track outages and repairs. "It was unprecedented."

'You just have to … be patient'

Even as search-and-rescue missions continued, there were small signs of recovery. In downtown Houston, crews cleared fallen trees and picked up shards of broken glass. Residents began their own cleanups and waited in long lines for gas and groceries as a few service stations and stores re-opened.

Houston's two main airports — including George Bush Intercontinental, one of the nation's busiest — reopened Monday but there were a lot of canceled flights.

On Houston's east side, Aurora Arzola, 65, returned home from riding out the storm with her daughter in Pearland to find a small miracle: There was power and running water. "I feel bad for those people who don't have electricity," she said.

Her neighborhood's streets and sidewalks were covered with broken branches and limbs.

Long lines were the norm Sunday outside the few businesses that were open. At an H-E-B supermarket, customers waited for two hours to get inside, where they stocked up on ice and water.

Rafael Guzman drove to the market from his home 15 miles away after he heard on the radio that the store would reopen. "Considering the amount of people, it's not that bad," he said of the wait. "You just have to sit down and be patient."