A Final on Hurricane Ike

Here are two nearly unbelievable rescue stories:

Neither Mark Davidson nor Mike Anderson intended to take a 14-mile ride on Hurricane Ike's storm surge after crashing waves and 110-mph winds decimated their beach houses on Bolivar.

Nonetheless, the pair survived " one for 14 hours, another for 36 " as they were swept across East Bay and washed up into Chambers County along with tons of debris from Bolivar beach homes.

What at first seemed implausible " these survivors finding soft drinks, a child's life jacket and even a kayak in the midst of a raging hurricane " is instead a story of two men on two separate journeys with a desperate determination to survive.

Both were rescued among tons of debris, from refrigerators to furniture, compressed like a trash compactor along miles of the mostly uninhabited salt marsh of Chambers County.

Today, the 49-year-old Anderson says it was thoughts of his family that kept him alive. Though his feet are still scabbed and swollen from a flesh-eating bacteria, the other abrasions and ant bites that once covered his body are mostly healed.

Anderson, who spent 36 hours in the water clad only in shorts, was discharged Friday after 11 days in the hospital.

"Sometimes I wanted to give up, but I held on. Thinking of my family kept me alive," Anderson said.

His wife, Dawn, and their two children, ages 6 and 4 months, evacuated their home in Crystal Beach. Anderson stayed behind.

"I thought it would never hit us," he said. "There were people who had sat through Category 3 storms and this was only a 2. Nobody realized the water would be that bad."

But the day before Ike roared ashore, when the sun was still shining, water began to submerge Texas 87, the only exit road for those living on the Bolivar Peninsula.


Plywood and a rafter
About 1 p.m., after telephone pleas from his family, he tried to escape in his van with his two miniature Doberman pinschers and his son's guinea pig. He barely made it across Rollover Pass when water started splashing over his hood and gushing in the windows.

He decided to swim to a sturdy-looking rental house a few hundred yards away, transporting his pets in two trips. On the last trip, he had to dive through the driver's window as the van rolled over.

Once inside the home on 14-foot pilings, he felt safe. He was wrong.

By midnight, waves blew out the windows and knocked the door off its hinges. He stuffed furniture in the gaping holes, but the creaking house began to float.

He dove into the water and clung to the roof until the house began to sink.

Dog paddling through giant ocean swells that often sucked him under, he said, "I bargained with God that I would try to be a better man if he would give me something to float on."

The answer came in some plywood and a rafter, which kept him afloat as the current carried him, along with tons of debris, across the submerged Bolivar Peninsula and East Bay.

He came to a halt about six miles inside Chambers County atop a bed of floating wreckage.

"It felt like I was going 50 miles per hour," he said. He could see treetops poking up from the water.

By the time he stopped, his body had been raked by rain, wind and flying debris.

The debris field turned out to be an excellent salvage yard. He found a pear, a can of Sprite, and some Tupperware to catch rainwater.

He rested there, trying to avoid the alligators and water moccasins.

The next day, helicopters circled overhead, plucking four others from the water, but they didn't see him.

Only after Anderson swam to a nearby oil well did some passers-by hear him yelling for help.

The deep waters had receded, allowing a Smith Point resident and a sheriff's deputy wading in knee-deep water to carry him to their cars, ending the 36-hour-ordeal.


Realizing the mistake
For Mark "Harley" Davidson, 48, it was his training in the U.S. Coast Guard that helped to save him. He spent 14 hours in the water and one night in the hospital, but he said even those 23 years in the Coast Guard were not enough to temper his terror during that long night in the dark.

His wife, Denise, and yellow lab, Daisy, had both heeded the evacuation order. But like Anderson, Davidson never believed he was putting himself in danger by staying.

"I really thought the storm was heading to Freeport," he said.

Yet now, the Davidsons mourn the loss of their quaint white and green clapboard house on Avenue D that was knocked down to its slab.

Davidson realized he had made a terrible mistake staying when Gulf waters began lapping the floor under his stilt house " even on the Friday before the storm came ashore. He went to his dresser and put on his dog tags in case he was found dead.

Waves began crashing through the boarded windows and roaring winds rocked his house off its pilings, setting it adrift with him inside.

"I didn't want to be trapped there," he said, recounting how he swam through his doorway and held on to the roof.


A table and a kayak
When the house hit a dead power line that cut through the roof "like a band saw," he moved hand over hand across that same line to reach a telephone pole.

He could see houses floating and colliding like bumper cars. He sought refuge on another rooftop but slid inside the house as it cracked open. He got his long ponytail tangled on a nail that pulled him underwater.

Struggling to the surface, he decided to swim to the open water, away from flying debris. A small tabletop floated up. He used it like a boogie board.

In the distance, he noticed what he thought were beach houses on the opposite shore in Chambers County.

Instead, he found only a giant debris field of wrecked Bolivar homes.

He climbed on a piece of plywood to rest. "I wondered what else I might find there," he said.

His salvage skills netted him a bottle of Gatorade, a child's life jacket and a kayak.

He drank the Gatorade and used the bottle to bail water from the kayak.

A National Guard helicopter spotted him in the kayak. His 14 hours of hell were over.

Davidson and Anderson, who lost his home and air conditioning business, don't know whether they'll ever go back to Bolivar.

"I would only return if I lived in a recreational vehicle," which could be moved at the first hint of a storm, Davidson said.

Since the media isn't paying much attention... How are the recovery efforts going? Does the area seem to be getting the attention it needs from those that should be providing? Are people and business somewhat getting back to normal yet?

Dividing the areas hit into zones, the ones in and around Houston are either recovered or on track to be so. It is mainly the coastal areas that have barely begun to move. Much has been done for infrastructure in Galveston, but the residents are barely even on their property. Bolivar Pininsula may not recover for years. If I were from those areas, I would stay FROM them and build a new life.

thanks for sharing your stories, you texas folks had us worried for awhile

Just heartbreaking to read of the plight of these folk....

thanks for writing it down EB... so very glad you and yours are safe.

hi, djjd. We of a2k felt relatively safe, which of course was folly. You never really know what can go wrong. But we all did well.

Izzie,
It's like old news elsewhere, but around her, it's going to be the #1 topic a long while.

http://www.khou.com/topstories/stories/khou080915_tj_sat_images_ike_destruction.7edbe44a.html
For a satelite view of Ike's destruction . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p26DWOmcwj4&feature=related
youtube has lots of shots of the storm

How are you doing now, edgar? I know your home survived (thank goodness), but how are you and Mrs edgar after having weathered (heh!) this event?

But for the work going on at my job, we are back to0 normal.

By Rhiannon Meyers / The Daily News

GALVESTON, Texas -- The City of Galveston on Monday reopened most beaches on the island, but folks returning to the waters will find shorelines that look and feel different than before Hurricane Ike roared ashore.

Officials have opened all beaches except for the facilities at Stewart Beach and East Beach.

There are still swimming advisories in effect in the West End because of submerged items in the water.

Those who do venture out will find that most of the sandy beaches are gone. The hurricane washed away large amounts of sand, exposing thick chunks of granite and the foundations of what were once beachfront homes.

The heavy wave action cut deep trenches around the rock jetties, scoured holes in the Gulf floor and ripped away buildings and signs along the beachfront.

Sunbathers, unable to find large swaths of open beach, repositioned themselves atop rock jetties Sunday afternoon. Swimmers were replaced by sea birds.

Beach Patrol Chief Peter Davis said the city likely would allow swimming in the Gulf of Mexico behind the seawall today, but he warned swimmers of the dangerous conditions that lurk beneath the water.

The rip currents are much stronger than before, and the topography of the Gulf floor has changed, he said.

There are broken pieces of piers and signs that aren’t visible from the water’s edge. Warning signs on the beach won’t be replaced for weeks, maybe months.

The foundations of some beachfront homes, torn down in the 1970s, are now exposed.

Swimmers could easily step on a chunk of concrete, piece of rusted rebar or barnacles that have long attached themselves to submerged structures.

Swimming is dangerous, but there are few reasons why a municipality can legally close a beach under the Texas Open Beaches Act. Although there’s been no pressure from the state to reopen beaches, Davis said he thought it was the right thing to do under the law.

Davis said the beaches appear to be slowly restoring themselves.

“As more days go by, more sand builds up,” he said.

Some sand, scoured off the seawall beaches, washed ashore on the West End, where disaster recovery crews stacked it into small piles along FM 3005 and in mounds as high as 30 feet in front of some beach houses.

Brandon Wade, assistant city manager, said the city, the Texas Department of Transportation and General Land Office crews are collecting the sand.

They plan to clean it and truck it back to the beaches.

But despite the beach restoration and the Texas Open Beaches Act, it could be months before the West End beaches, hit especially hard by the hurricane, are reopened to swimming, Davis said.

Hurricane Ike’s erosion may have pushed the dune line back as much as 100 feet, based on measurements the land office took on the Brazoria County side of San Luis Pass, Jerry Patterson, land commissioner, has said.

On the island’s West End, waves lap at the pilings of some beachfront homes.

Sand socks, which once lined the dunes in an effort to help the beaches rebuild, now lie like giant lifeless black snakes 10 feet out in the water.

Davis said it would be a long time before anyone knows, with certainty, what Ike did to the beaches there.

This story is available through KHOU, Ch. 11's partnership with The Galveston County Daily News.

By DANNY ROBBINS and ANGELA K. BROWN Associated Press Writers © 2008

TYLER, Texas " As Hurricane Ike blew through Texas, a different kind of storm was brewing inside an old Wal-Mart hastily converted into a shelter for evacuees.

The building, vacant for two years, quickly became a cauldron of tension, with 1,600 people crammed into a structure with a leaky roof, few indoor bathrooms and almost no privacy. Fights soon broke out, and one ended after police allegedly used pepper spray on dozens of evacuees and a Taser on a 15-year-old boy.

Accounts of what happened in the Wal-Mart, drawn from interviews and public records obtained by The Associated Press, raise questions about the soundness of the state's evacuation plan.

Days before Ike hit the Gulf Coast on Sept. 13, more than 3,000 Beaumont residents were taken by bus to Tyler even though the city had told the state it could accommodate only about half that number. The result was a chaotic experience that many won't soon forget.

"I thought, `Oh Lord, just get us out of here,'" said Verlinda Antoine, 52. "The conditions were too bad for anyone, and they treated us like they didn't want us there. It was a nightmare."

Many claimed that the building was unsanitary and that fear of crime and violence was constant.

When a fight between two women in a smoking area attracted numerous onlookers on the second night, police swarmed. Four people, including two juveniles, were arrested on charges that included disorderly conduct and interfering with a police officer.

"People refused to move out of the way and wouldn't stop fighting," Tyler Police Chief Gary Swindle said. The Taser was used after a couple of people threatened an officer with a chair, he said.

But some evacuees tell a different story, saying police were overly aggressive and used racial slurs.

"It was terrible," said Nicholas Harris, 23. "People were just trying to get out, but police blocked the door and used the n-word. People were pushed down. It wasn't right."

Witnesses said the pepper spray was so thick that some bystanders, including a baby and an elderly woman, required medical treatment.

Police reports indicate a Taser was used during the melee to subdue a 17-year-old. But relatives said the device was actually used on his mentally ill 15-year-old cousin as he wiped pepper spray from his eyes. Five days after the incident, the youth showed an AP reporter welts on his back he said were caused by the Taser.

The boy's mother, Felice Wright, said her son, a high school freshman, suffers from bipolar disorder. She said she told police that her son had "mental problems" just before he was shocked with the Taser.

"I think what they did was wrong, and I told them so that night," she said.

Tyler City Manager Bob Turner confirmed that some bystanders were inadvertently sprayed, but said police acted properly. "In my opinion, the appropriate amount of force was used to bring a very volatile situation quickly to a calm," he said.

Conditions at the shelter improved the day after the storm, when about half the evacuees were moved to other places.

Still, questions remain about whether Tyler was capable of hosting thousands of evacuees and whether the shelter where most of them were sent should have been used.

Less than two weeks earlier, Louisiana officials were criticized for placing thousands of Hurricane Gustav evacuees from New Orleans in a vacant Sam's Club in Shreveport, La., and an abandoned Wal-Mart in Bastrop, La. A top state official resigned in the aftermath.

"I don't think anybody expects hotel-type amenities," William P. Quigley, a law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans, who contributed to a report detailing deplorable conditions at those facilities. "But with these places, a homeless shelter would be a step up."

Texas' hurricane evacuation plan, created after huge traffic jams and other problems developed during Hurricane Rita in 2005, pairs coastal communities with "sister cities" inland that can accept evacuees. The plan says that people from Beaumont who cannot evacuate on their own should be taken to Tyler.

Few glitches were reported during Gustav, which came ashore in Louisiana on Sept. 1. More than 3,000 Gustav evacuees were taken by bus from Beaumont to Tyler and stayed in conventional shelters without incident.

But the circumstances were different for Ike. Several large Tyler shelters that had housed Gustav evacuees, including the city's convention center, were unavailable because they were needed for future events or being used for other purposes.

Early in the evening of Sept. 10, less than three days before Ike blew ashore, Tyler informed the Governor's Division of Emergency Management that its shelter space had "dwindled drastically," according to e-mails provided to the AP. Several hours later, Tyler said it had room for 1,230 evacuees, though the Wal-Mart could be turned into a shelter "given adequate time" and preparation.

Tyler officials say they heard nothing more until Jefferson County Judge Ron Walker, the county's top elected official, ordered Beaumont to evacuate the next morning.

Walker said he assumed the state's evacuation plan ensured that adequate shelter space was available in Tyler.

"You're telling me they got surprised with this inundation of human beings?" he said. "I hadn't heard that one."

Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry, said the state provides buses, police and military support, but shelter decisions are made by local officials.

"This was a city-run shelter," she said.

___

Angela K. Brown contributed to this story from Fort Worth, Texas.

People without power

Thousands of new accounts (new move-ins) have been put on hold. Persons are waiting weeks for connection of service.

New bills are being estimated at higher than the month previous. I saw a woman on TV this morning, saying that her bill is $30 higher, despit the fact she had no service for two weeks. The power company responds that we are welcome to call in and they will walk us through reading our own meter. I can imagine the headache, with thousands calling in and trying to talk at once.

The cost of restoring the power to customers will be charged to us, perhaps a dollar or two a month, for I forget how many years.

I've been working on some grassroots relief efforts to bring aid to areas not covered by the major relief agencies. I received an email yesterday from a woman who had to decide between evacuating and keeping her job.

She went to work on Thursday with the intention of evacuating on Friday. By 4:00 am Friday morning it was already too late to leave.

good on you jpb.

I don't want to make this about me -- just saying that there are still so many stories not being told and so many folks who don't live in the central/heavily populated areas that get forgotten once the media leaves.

The major relief organizations do a good job where they are but they can't be everywhere and lots of folks in outlying areas can't get to them. Grassroots and church-based responder groups try to pick up the slack. The group I'm working with is mostly focusing on Chambers and Jefferson counties. The woman I heard from yesterday was in Brazoria county.

What a charming waste of taxpayer funds.

Then they plan to use wipes to clean off the snails and put them back in the grass.

On Wednesday evening the residents of Galveston and Bolivar Peninsula were told to go to the grocery store and go home. On Thursday morning, after the workday had begun, they were put under a mandatory evacuation to be completed by midday Friday. By 4:00am Friday morning it was too late to leave the peninsula.