Ike, II

A few days ago, I went to the coast for the second time in the four months since Hurricane Ike came ashore. Unlike my first trip, there were no police checkpoints or military personnel to greet me. My entrance this time was a bit more unassuming; just another pick-up truck in the few hundred square miles of Chamber's and Galveston counties.


My path went east around Trinity and Galveston Bays through Chambers County. Eventually, I found my way into Galveston County and met up with Highway 87. Following the coast, I went the length of the Bolivar Peninsula, through Crystal Beach and the worst storm damage, all the way to the ferry that crosses the channel to Galveston Island.

The biggest change I noticed was a shift from clean-up to repair. Debris sat roadside in piles placed at regular intervals while tarps hung from structures like giant, blue band-aids. The irregular percussion of hammers and nail guns mixed with indistinct Spanish chatter and followed my slow, deliberate steps around downtown Anahuac.


I couldn't help but feel a little like a gawking tourist as I idled through these storm-wrecked towns. On my last trip to the coast, right after the storm, Galveston Island was under pseudo-martial law and I was sharing the entire island with only law enforcement and government contractors. Now I was surrounded by people who called these places home.

What really separates a 'professional' photographer from a visiting tourist? The 20 miles of FM 1985 between Double Bayou and FM 124 gave me plenty of time to find my answer; not a lot.

These days the line between consumer and professional equipment is blurred beyond recognition, so that's no indicator. Those who claim photography as their profession often think quite highly of themselves and their skills, but I've met some tourists who are equally proud of their postcard return addresses, so that won't work either.

The biggest difference I could find is the mindset. For me , it revolves around trust. Trust is not a switch that can be turned on or off. It's a commodity, and from the moment someone see's me walking up with a camera over my shoulder, I've got to try and earn as much as I can. If a tourist is trying to snap their own postcard, whose trust do they need to earn?

Maybe I'm wrong to think their is a difference at all. Maybe as soon as we walk out the front-door, we are all tourists, everyone looking for the perfect way to say 'wish you were here'.


Maybe not.

Damage got more dramatic as I approached the coast. I hit FM 124 and had to leave the mellow-dramatic 'what is a photographer?' bullshit for some other stretch of asphalt. I took a right turn into a low-hanging, January sun and headed towards High Island and the ocean. The above image was taken along Highway 87 looking south-west. Without the added words I think that picture is one of my eerier shots, like something out of a Cormac McCarthy novel.


In between the clusters of houses being rebuilt, all that seemed to remain was what the wind could not carry. Rusted vehicles and concrete slabs were partially buried by four months of drifting sand. It looked to me like roughly half of the houses were completely gone, but that is just my estimate. I've heard stories that make my guess-work seem a bit conservative.


I never got my barrings right while I was on Bolivar Peninsula. I couldn't find any of the recognizable structures and landmarks that I associated with my many trips down over the last two decades. Some where gone, others obscured by the debris and clean-up. I looked for the old World War II embankments I climbed on as a kid and for the Court House I went to for my 'Minor in Possession of an Alcoholic Beverage' ticket. I didn't know my exact location until I reached the very end of the peninsula, waiting for the ferry to take me closer to home.

Next time I come back, whether it's in months or in years, I'll find those spots that are waiting patiently in the recesses of my head. And if I can't find them, I'll just work on some new memories. Maybe another ticket from the Galveston County Sheriff.

And perhaps someday I'll go to a beach that fits a more stereotypical image of ivory sands and sapphire water, but I'm not planning on finding one anytime soon. If I ever do make it out that way, I'll be sure to send you a postcard.

Ike

America loves a good disaster. It is not perfectly clear whether we are obsessed with heartbreak and destruction or if network news is obsessed for us. Whatever the reasons are, we love to shed a quick tear, maybe say a prayer, and move on to the next calamity.

Anderson Cooper and his team of make-up artists may have hit the road, but the real work is just getting started. This is when citizens roll up their sleeves and take back their homes and businesses. This is where the real story is.


Hurricane Ike made American landfall September 13, 2008 at 2:10 in the morning at Galveston, Texas.

The following is a selection of images and stories I recorded during a brief, 2-day trip to the coast, nine days after the storm passed over the Texas coast. I’ve put up a map that shows where I was for the readers who are not familiar with the area:



DAY ONE:


This image and the one at the beginning of this post were taken along Nasa Road 1. Dozens of marinas line the coast on the south side of the road, and almost every boat that had been at dock during the storm came loose.


Kory and Jeremy Wynegar had ridden the storm out with friends further inland. When they returned to their house in Taylor Lake Village, they found a foot of water in every room. They began to remove the ruined sections of drywall, pictured here, until a representative from their insurance company stopped by. They were informed that their house had lifted off the slab it was built on and had to be completely demolished. The Wynegars plan on building a new house on the same spot. "This is our home and our community," Kory said.


Pandy Surber waits outside her apartment on Todville Road, near Seabrook. She hasn't heard back from her insurance company and was told four days earlier that FEMA should arrive soon. The apartment is built on stilts over eight feet tall. The high water mark in her unit was about four feet above that.


The Seabrook Sailing Club, built in 1962.


Mike Scanlan and Peter O'Conner, both members of the Seabrook Sailing Club, survey damage to the structure.


The stilts are all that remain from a number of older homes on Todville Road.




Damage along Nasa Road 1.


Damage along FM 146, near Kemah.

Day one ended with a u-turn. I made it all the way to the police checkpoint at the entrance to Galveston Island and was turned back for lack of proper credentials.

DAY TWO:

I approached the same checkpoint 14 hours later and got myself on the island. For the time being, I am not disclosing my method of gaining access.


Island side of the bridge. Earth movers had cleared the roads a few days earlier, creating banks of debris and boats.


A private marine salvage company works to save a 40-ft sail boat that could be repaired and made sea-worthy again.


Damage along Seawall Blvd.


Cleaning, downtown Galveston.


Gary Jones and Mike Ragsdale sort through the debris in their store, separating what can be saved from what can not.


Downtown Galveston.


Cleaning, downtown Galveston.


Papers had not been delivered to the island since before the storm.


Damage, West-end, Galveston.


A Navy CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter over the West-end. The Sea Stallion is the biggest Helicopter the United States Armed Forces. The thing was loud.


I went to the airport, Scholes Field, hoping to see the Sea Stallion a little closer. The airport got hit hard, and there were no fences or barriers, so I walked right up to the tarmac as a CH-53 was loading 30 personnel. A police officer came up behind me, and I was expecting my cover to finally be blown, or that I had overstepped my boundaries. He said nothing, stood right next to me, and got out his own camera. I asked him when Galveston Police Department was getting one, motioning to the helicopter, which had to get on the runway and build up speed like an airplane. He chuckled, and I stepped away quickly.


Robert Thurber and Raymond Warren ignored the mandatory evacuation and stayed in their homes for the storm. Thurber's home received some water damage, but he did not seem too upset as he and his neighbor enjoyed lunch on the house's front porch. "My house is built at the highest point on the damn island. I flushed the toilet so that this son-a-bitch could take a bath!" Warren said, pointing at Thurber. As Warren pointed, I saw that his social security number was still written on the palm of his hand. The Galveston Police Department told anyone who stayed on the island to do this, to assist in the identification of corpses. When I asked why they didn't leave, Warren answered quite frankly. "I'm an ex-marine, and Bobby here is ex-Navy. He landed my sorry ass on Iwo Jima when I was 18. I went from a Private to a Sergeant in two weeks because we were losing so many men." Warren said he saw a lot on that island, and that it would take more than a little weather to get him off this one.

"When you write your story, tell 'em you found a couple Civil War veterans that stuck it out," Thurber called as I was leaving. We all shared a laugh and I said I would. The smile left Warren's face as he offered up one last quote: "All this, the storm and everything, it's life. It's just life."