The roof of the Galveston Daily News had blow away. The staff's only contact with the outside world had been reduced to a single cell phone. But the newspaper continued to publish, and as a matter of fact, did not miss one edition.
The Daily News printed its Saturday edition Friday in advance of the storm, but the mandatory evacuation made distribution difficult, editor Heber Taylor said.
Taylor was blogging as the eye of the storm passed over Galveston Island and the natural gas that powered the generator was cut off. The power went out as Taylor put the period to his last sentence: "We are about to lose contact."
The newspaper plunged into darkness, and the wind tore off the roof soon afterward, allowing in rain that soaked the interior. The storm surge lapped at the newspaper's doorstep.
"We have no newsroom to go to," reporter Rhiannon Meyers said.
The next morning, Taylor made arrangements with the Herald Zeitung in New Braunfels to do the layout and the Victoria Advocate to do the printing.
"We haven't missed an edition yet," Taylor said.
Meyers and reporters Leigh Jones and Sara Foley dictated their stories, using up their cell phone batteries in the process.
"The sole equipment we have is my cell phone," Taylor said.
Photographer Jennifer Reynolds had to borrow equipment from photographers from another newspaper to transmit her photos to New Braunfels.
The Sunday edition was trucked in from Victoria late in the day after uncertainty about whether officials would allow an exception to the city's closure of the island.
Federal Emergency Management Agency struggled today to move supplies to distribution centers throughout Houston as nearly 5 million people across southeast Texas continued to live without power and access to clean drinking water, the Houston Chronicle reported today.
Carolyn Feibel, Ruth Rendon, Bradley Olson and Mark Babineck of the Chronicle filed this report:
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said 40 trucks of water and 40 trucks of meals would be delivered to Reliant Stadium by the end of the day.
Chertoff also alluded to the grim task of rescue workers who had fanned out across Galveston and other low-lying areas that had been devastated by flooding, declining to provide an official body count but hinting that numbers would continue to rise. About 2,000 rescues had been made over the weekend, an extraordinary number that still fell far short of the estimated 140,000 people under mandatory evacuation that did not leave their homes.
"As we get into areas where there may have been a lot of damage, there may be some unpleasant surprises we may find," he said.
Across the region, from Winnie to Orange, all points beyond and all points in between, city officials have warned that the next few days and weeks will require a mental hard hat, plenty of patience and plenty more than that.
To be sure, officials said, this is no festival. Hurricane Ike, and its aftermath, is as serious as a natural disaster can be.
This is also no time to be a backyard hero, they’ve said. This is either a time to get the heck out, or buckle up and be over-prepared. Many folks have heeded the warnings. Many have not.
Sunday afternoon in south Beaumont, just down the road from South Park and Lamar University, the Farah Village apartments looked more like a block party than a block of despair.
“All the money we had, we spent running from Gustav,” said Wyn Abeasi, a native of Atlanta who came here last year for work in a local refinery.
“It’s hot. You’ve got kids here, 1 or 2 years old. It ain’t no fun. … But we’ll be all right. As long as we’ve got God on our side, we’ll be all right.”
So the not-so-fun party kept going. The radio blasted New Edition and Babyface.
Budweiser bottles went from full to empty at a brisk pace. Flames flickered up from the grill, which cooked chicken that had to be cooked -- immediately, lest the meat go bad. It looked like fun for the dozen or so residents. It was. But it wasn’t.
“People drive by and think this is a hurricane party,” John Hamilton, 36, said with a grin. “This ain’t no party. We’re just surviving.”
Raw video from AP on a fire in Galveston during Ike:
An idiot in a bear suit walks along the Galveston beach as Ike approaches:
AP report on Ike:
Air Station Houston HH-65C rescue helicopter crew pulling citizens out of flood waters on a rescue mission along Bolivar Peninsula during Hurricane Ike along the southeastern Texas coastline:
"Let's finish riding out the storm, and this afternoon we'll assess the damage and we'll make sure that the assets, resources get to where they need to be," [Harris County Judge Ed] Emmett said, adding tropical storm-force winds could continue through mid-afternoon.
Hurricane Ike knocked electricity offline for virtually the entire Houston area as it continued to roar across the area today.
CenterPoint Energy said about 90 percent of its roughly 2 million customers were in the dark before daybreak even as the storm continued to pack a 100 mph punch with the eye still near Kingwood as of 6 a.m. That means nearly 4.5 million residents were without power and doesn't include the service area of Entergy Texas.
CenterPoint spokesman Floyd LeBlanc said downtown Houston and the Medical Center, both of which have underground power lines, were the only large areas with reliable electricity. He said CenterPoint had braced for more than half its customer base losing service, and full restoration could take "several weeks."
Entergy spokesman David Caplan said 96 percent of its customers throughout its service area - or 380,000 - are in the dark. Two generating stations in Bridge City and Willis are down, so they and transmission lines have to be back up before crews can focus on restoring power to customers. Caplan says the process could take weeks.
"As soon as it's safe to travel - it's still blowing out there - we will get a couple hundred scouts to go out and do the assessments, either in vehicles or in helicopters, to fly over the lines, see where the damage is and begin to pull together a restoration plan. That could take 24 to 48 hours, depending on the weather."
"Everybody is on their own for now," Mayor Larry Davison said of what was believed to be a small group of people who refused to leave their homes.
Looking out over his submerged city hours before Ike's landfall, Davison said damage would be far worse, especially if winds got over 100 mph or the tide got much higher.
Wearing shorts, a Hawaiian shirt and protective rubber boots, Davison literally led the way for the would-be rescue crew as he waded through water in front of the Mack truck and cleared debris, such as floating wood, tool boxes and barrels.
Police and firefighters who rode in the bed of the high-clearance truck appealed to holdouts to leave in order to save their lives.
There were blunt words for those who wouldn't.
"We asked them to write their Social Security numbers on their arms for us," Police Chief Randy Smith said solemnly.
President Bush said this morning that state and federal officials will work to make sure consumers will not be gouged at the gas pumped because of the storm, CNN reports:
In a brief televised statement, Bush said the Environmental Protection Agency waivers on certain reformulated gasolines were suspended Friday night to make it easier for imports to get into U.S. markets.
"In the meantime, the Department of Energy, the Federal Trade Commission and, I know, the state authorities will be monitoring the gasoline prices to make sure consumers are not being gouged," the president added.
He said that additional generators were being moved into areas without electricity and that other concerns such as water and ice were being addressed.
Bush said he had asked Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to travel to Texas to review the federal response to Ike. Chertoff was to arrive in Texas on Saturday evening.
CNN also reported that the freighter that had been adrift in the Gulf of Mexico made it through Hurricane Ike safely and was awaiting a tugboat to bring it to shore Saturday morning. All 22 people aboard the Antalina, a Cypriot-flagged freighter, were safe, U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Mike O'Berry said Saturday. It is about 170 miles southeast of Galveston.
Officials along the Louisiana coast are reporting serious flooding from Hurricane Ike.
Now that the winds are calming, rescue teams are starting to venture out and answer calls for help. Hundreds of homes have been flooded. Gov. Bobby Jindal says 160 people were rescued Friday and more would likely need help Saturday.
Lake Charles Mayor Randy Roach says flooding there is worse than in Hurricane Rita three years ago. Ike's storm surge has breached levees and flooded areas still recovering from Hurricane Gustav earlier this month.
Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden have cancel campaign events today, including Obama's scheduled appearance on "Saturday Night Live."
