Galveston
23 February 2009
Five months after Hurricane Ike devastated Galveston, Texas, the island city on the Gulf of Mexico below Houston is struggling to recover. The economic slump in the nation as a whole has made the task more difficult, but many islanders are determined to rebuild their homes and their lives there.
Mardi Gras celebration in downtown Galveston |
Although many restaurants and hotels are open and thriving on the influx of visitors, nearly 75 percent of shops in downtown Galveston remain closed and some of the island city's biggest employers have either moved elsewhere or are considering moving.
Dottie Rutledge |
"Galveston is totally forgotten. There are piles of stuff here that nobody has picked up," she said.
Aside from her personal frustrations with the government and the insurance companies that have yet to provide funds to rebuild her house, Rutledge worries that the recession hitting the United States now will further undermine efforts to revive the local economy.
"It is going to make it much worse here because the jobs in Galveston are gone," Rutledge said. "There are too many businesses that are not going to rebuild and too many of them just moving off the island."
Betty Strickland, another displaced local resident, fears Ike may have permanently crippled her hometown.
"Galveston is half the size it was. We had 64,000 people before and we have about 32 [thousand] now," Strickland said. "The school enrollment is down 50 percent. People are not coming back to Galveston. They sent 400 employees from American National Insurance Company to the mainland. Galveston is a dead town. You can put a tombstone on the other side of the causeway, because it is gone."
Another threat to Galveston's recovery is the closing of a children's hospital and a proposal to move another hospital to the mainland. Both hospitals sustained heavy damage from flooding during the hurricane. The University of Texas Medical Branch, which includes research facilities as well as a general hospital, is Galveston's single biggest employer. A consultant group hired by the University of Texas regents recommended moving the hospital to the mainland. Local officials are fighting hard to convince the regents to keep the facility where it is.
1900 Hurricane victims monument |