At resort cut off by Ike, whole subdivisions gone
Rescuers entering areas cut off by storm for first time
By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN
Associated Press
Monday, September 15, 2008 10:37 AM PDT
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| Port Arthur Police SWAT Commander Rodney Harrison helps guide a truck through flood waters during a search and rescue mission following Hurricane Ike, in Sabine Pass, Texas, Sunday. |
GALVESTON, Texas — More than 48 hours after Hurricane Ike swamped the Gulf Coast, rescuers flew for the first time today 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.’’
Some subdivisions in the area are completely gone, he said.
Jones did not have information on whether anyone had died on the island, mainly because they still don’t know how many stayed through the storm that struck early Saturday.
Of particular concern is a resident who collects exotic animals who is now holed up in a Baptist church with his pet lion. ‘‘We’re not going in there,’’ Jones said. ‘‘We know where he (the lion) is on the food chain.’’
Relief workers were hoping to make it back from Bolivar to Galveston on Monday night, but they were packing for an overnight stay just in case.
Two days after Ike battered Houston and forced thousands into emergency shelters, the death toll rose to 30 in eight states, many of them far to the north of the Gulf Coast as the storm slogged across the nation’s midsection, leaving a trail of flooding and destruction.
Houston, littered with glass from skyscrapers, was placed under a weeklong curfew and millions of people in the storm’s path remained in the dark.
Rescuers said they had saved nearly 2,000 people from waterlogged streets and splintered houses by Sunday afternoon. Many had ignored evacuation orders and tried to ride out the storm. Now they were boarding buses for indefinite stays at shelters in San Antonio and Austin.
Brian Smith, public information officer from the Urban Search and Rescue Division of the Texas Engineering Extension Service, said today that search and rescue missions continued across the affected area, although no air rescues had been needed since Sunday morning.
