Galveston Island is still rebuilding after Hurricane Ike’s Sept. 13 landfall.
Brandon Wade, Galveston’s deputy city manager and UH public administration alumnus, said the city would need additional resources to rebuild completely.
‘By 9 o’clock Friday morning the surf was pounding heavily against the seawall and up into the air, and there was no wind blowing at all,’ Wade said. ‘It was dead calm here, but we were experiencing serious tidal surge. By 6 o’clock that night, we all had to go to our shelter area. Most of the island was completely submerged in water.’
Wade said Galveston’s overall damages were substantial.Residential and city infrastructure damages are estimated at $1 billion each.
The remaining damages to the city are not easily seen by its outward appearance, Wade said.
‘If you live in Houston, Dallas or San Antonio, and you come to Galveston on occasion, and you have a look at the beach and have a look at Galdos, and you eat there and drive off-you’d think ‘They are okay. There maybe a few boats here and there and a few hotels still need some work, but other than that everything looks fine,” Wade said. ‘That is not the case for many of our businesses and residents.’
Wade said residents in poorer neighborhoods whose homes incurred serious damage have not moved back into their homes because they don’t have the resources.
City officials estimated that 1/3 of Galveston’s 60,000 permanent residents are still displaced by Hurricane Ike damages.
‘Even with houses and buildings that looks fine from the outside, there are often substantial amount of internal damage that makes it dangerous to be in,’ Wade said. ‘We have made it city safe for people to be in again, but … currently only about 50 percent of all our businesses are back up and running.’
While the Federal Emergency Management Agency offered various programs to help locals both to immediately relieve and temporary relocation, there is little for those who cannot afford to rebuild on their own.
Wade said FEMA is a Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, but it does not work for Galveston.
‘The program works well with cities that have creeks and rivers with some defined flood plains,’ he said. ‘It’s a house buy-out program where a citizen has the opportunity to have their house bought. The (damaged) house has to be torn down and cannot be build on same location again because its on the flood plain. But the entire city of Galveston is pretty much all flood plain, if we use the same program, we would just destroy the neighborhoods with the exception of a small strip.’
Most of the aid at the city’s disposal comes from the Community Development Block Grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The funding is competitive in nature with other counties and cities such as Harris County and Houston.
‘The city is to be the recipient to $267 million. $106 million for infrastructure and economic development, and the remainder of it is for housing,’ Wade said. ‘Since the damages are billions of dollars way more beyond the current grant, we have to prioritize what we are going to spend it on.’
Galveston will have to balance its budget between low-income project housing and individual home rebuilding.
Funding will be available on June 1 and the city has to spend this money within 2 years.
‘The city is going to continue to aggressively seek additional funding and resources to rebuild Galveston,’ Wade said.
