Ike: From rescue to relief

HOUSTON — After the largest search-and-rescue mission in Texas history pulled out some 2,000 people stranded by Hurricane Ike's 500-mile-wide storm surge, an equally massive humanitarian relief effort has kicked into gear to bolster a dazed southeast Texas, where gas, food, ice and patience are all in short supply.

Based on initial reports, Ike is clearly nothing less than a whopper.

Nationally, the storm — which initially paralyzed the financial and energy center of Houston, America's fourth-largest city — could weigh down the already fragile American economy.

For sure, it burdens as many as 5 million Texans and Louisianans having to contend with the long, sweaty slog back from what is likely to become the second-most-costly storm in U.S. history, with some damage estimates running more than $20 billion.

From the debris fields of Galveston to the flooded back roads of Orange County, Texas, millions of people went into survival mode as federal and state authorities rushed humanitarian relief — including 80 trucks of military-style "meals ready to eat" (MREs), ice, diapers and water — into Houston, where Texans were ordered to "hunker down" before the storm. Millions of people face weeks without electricity in the Gulf's subtropical heat.

"It grieves you to see the damage that our beloved Texas has faced," said Gov. Rick Perry. "Ike had a pretty solid punch, but he didn't dent our spirits."

Those spirits — as well as those of the nation as a whole — will be tested in coming weeks and months as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies plan to end search-and-rescue missions today, focusing solely on humanitarian relief.

Few, if any, supplies had been distributed more than 24 hours after Ike made landfall, leaving even some first responders hungry.

What's more, charitable organizations, which played a central role in post-Katrina emergency relief, report they're already exhausted and depleted after responding to hurricanes Gustav and Hanna, as well as Tropical Storm Fay.

"It's ironic that this has happened over the anniversary weekend of 9/11," says Walter Gillis Peacock, the director of the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center at Texas A&M University in College Station.

"There's still this sense of the country on a war footing and not addressing the fundamental issues of coordination, information flow and issues of constantly outsourcing things," he says.

Much of Galveston is ripped to shreds. Coast Guard helicopter pilots said yachts were piled up on a golf course near Sabine Pass on the Texas-Louisiana border. National Guard soldiers removed a shrimp boat from the road into rural Hackberry, La., but were turned back by strong currents and low visibility before reaching the enclave, where some 100 people remained stranded.

In the resort community of Crystal Beach, residents reported that it looked as if a bomb had gone off. Deep inland, people sat on porches, trying to catch a breeze, facing weeks of no air conditioning in one of America's most tropical hothouses.

Galveston will face tough questions about how, or whether, to rebuild after the storm. But for now, city officials have a more immediate problem: They're considering a second evacuation for the 100,000 people who stayed in the area. The most pressing problem for Galveston and other areas is to keep evacuees from returning to their homes, so as not to compound the humanitarian dilemma.

Of the 40 dead, 10 were in Texas. There were six in Louisiana, including a 16-year-old boy trapped in rising floodwaters.

Several were farther inland. Two golfers died when a tree fell on them in Tennessee. There were seven deaths in Indiana; four in Missouri. One person died in Arkansas and six in Ohio, including two motorcyclists killed when a tree toppled on them at a state park; two in Illinois; and one each in Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

But the toll still paled in comparison to what Ike did elsewhere before arriving: The storm claimed more than 80 lives in the Caribbean before reaching Texas.

Houston, littered with glass from skyscrapers, was placed under a weeklong curfew. While spots of downtown had power, trees still blocked streets and restaurants and businesses were closed. Planes were taking off and arriving at the airports, but there were some delays, and the normally bustling highways were nearly vacant at rush hour.

"Ninety percent of people claim they are prepared to survive at least three days on their own, but even if that's true, 10 percent would create a big demand," writes Earl Baker, a hurricane-preparedness expert at Florida State University in Tallahassee, in an e-mail.

There were still at least 37,000 evacuees seeking temporary shelter in the state's 284 facilities, officials said Monday.

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.