FEMA Struggles to Provide Hurricane Aid

Houston Chronicle:  The Federal Emergency Management Agency struggled today to move supplies to distribution centers throughout Houston as nearly 5 million people across the region continued to live without power and access to clean drinking water.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said 40 trucks of water and 40 trucks of meals would be delivered to Reliant Stadium by the end of the day. He blamed delays on state officials who handed his department the “unexpected challenge” of having to prepare distribution points in addition to delivering supplies.

Chertoff also alluded to the grim task of rescue workers who had fanned out across Galveston and other low-lying areas that had been devastated by flooding, declining to provide an official body count but hinting that numbers would continue to rise. About 2,000 rescues had been made over the weekend, an extraordinary number that still fell far short of the estimated 140,000 people under mandatory evacuation that did not leave their homes.

“As we get into areas where there may have been a lot of damage, there may be some unpleasant surprises we may find,” he said.

As many as 13 have been reported dead in some of the hardest-hit areas as well as places as far-ranging as Dallas and Louisiana, either as a direct result of Ike or from complications stemming from storm preparations, evacuations or living without power.

Utility companies ramped up their work forces and restored power to hundreds of thousands of customers, but a vast majority still remained in the dark and without air conditioning in 90-degree heat. Mayor Bill White and other officials called on the federal government to make restoring power “a national priority.”

Meanwhile, recovery efforts became severely complicated as water built up anew on numerous thoroughfares that had flooded and drained after Ike passed through. Rain continued to pour for much of the day as a cold front mixed with the trail of moisture from the hurricane.

Ignoring warnings from a bevy of public officials, people took to those flooded streets, prompted either by a desire to return home or an attempt to flee for more comfortable environs. Traffic bogged down all over the region and some, unable to turn around, abandoned their vehicles on the highways. Lines stretched for hours both for gas and stores.

White today again admonished coastal residents who fled Ike not to return to their homes until leaders of their communities say it’s OK.

That message was as plain as blinking lights on a highway signboard could make it: “Do not travel to Houston or Beaumont.”

Judging from the steady stream of coast-bound traffic on Texas 71 today, lots of motorists were ignoring that admonition.

Houston and the soggy, wind-ravaged communities all the way to western Louisiana remain in a state of crisis after Hurricane Ike battered the area with a towering storm surge and fearsome winds.

“This is a tough storm and it’s one that’s going to require time for people to recover,” President Bush said today after a telephone conference with Chertoff. “Our first priority is search and rescue. It’s very important for citizens, who I know are anxious to get home, to take your time and listen — take advice of the local folks.”

White warned that many gasoline stations still lack power and cannot dispense fuel.

Where gasoline is available, lines of idling autos and fuming motorists in some cases stretch for blocks.

The message from Galveston officials was equally plain. No one but emergency personnel engaged in the state’s largest search-and-rescue mission were being allowed on the island.

“Galveston has been hit hard,” Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas said. “We have no power. We have no gas. We have no communications. We’re not sure when any of that will be up and running. We want our citizens to stay where they are. Do not come back to Galveston. You cannot live here right now.”

Thomas extended an 8 p.m. to 5 a.m curfew to 6 p.m. to 6 am. Curfew violators can be jailed and fined up to $2,000.

In Houston, Police Chief Harold Hurtt announced an overnight curfew beginning at 9 p.m.

Conroe police this morning attributed unusually heavy traffic to homeward-bound coastal residents.

“It’s just the people coming back home,” said a dispatcher. “A little prematurely.”

What people are coming home to, presuming they can even reach their homes, is a region filled with downed trees, leaky roofs and flooded roadways. With a few exceptions, it also is a region where millions of customers have no electricity.

Raquelle Lewis, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Transportation, said Interstate 45 South is closed in both directions between Loop 610 and Beltway 8 and large sections of Interstate 10 are impassable because of high water.

“Our roadway system is inundated with water,” she said. “Areas that were clear on (Saturday) are not clear today. This is not the time to start moving back into this area.”

CenterPoint Energy spokesman Floyd LeBlanc today said that, while crews are working throughout the service area, they are succeeding best in restoring power to western areas such as Sealy, Katy and Fort Bend County.

Other areas are proving more problematic. Central areas were hit hard and eastern and southern areas were hit extremely hard, LeBlanc said. In some cases, crews have to hack their way through downed trees blocking streets just to get to the utility poles.

CenterPoint Energy reports that power has been restored to 262,000 customers as of noon today, up from 112,000 customers at 7 p.m. Saturday.

As many as 5 million people in the region are without electricity.

Entergy Texas reports that more than 150 major transmission lines were damaged, including several toppled towers along rights-of-way. Most of those problems took place north and east of Houston, including The Woodlands, Splendora, Conroe and Liberty, according to company spokesman David Caplan.

The company’s 395,000 customers are largely in the dark and company officials warn it could take longer than three weeks to restore electricity where extreme transmission damage has occurred.

In addition, 16,000 customers of Texas Gas Service in Bayou Vista and on Galveston Island are without natural gas, company spokeswoman Lori Moreno said.

Today’s utility update came as another round of thunderstorms pummeled the area and Houston officials announced an overnight curfew, which, previously declared for evacuation areas, now extends to the whole city.

The curfew is in effect through 6 a.m. each night through Saturday morning.

“Most of the lights are still out, traffic signals are still not working, debris is in the streets and it’s dark in the community,” Hurtt said.

Houston police reported today that they made 30 looting arrests between 6 p.m. Friday and 6 p.m. Saturday, mostly at pawn shops, convenience stores and auto parts outlets.

There is no curfew in unincorporated parts of the county, and other cities were responsible for making their own access and curfew rules, if any.

Mindful of Houstonians who likely will be sitting at home tonight in their darkened, un-air-conditioned houses, Mayor White has called on the federal government to help restore power.

“This should be a national priority,” he said. “All the national resources should be brought to bear to try to get the power up in our community.”

White has called for assistance for CenterPoint in restoring electrical service. LeBlanc said about 7,000 workers from states as far away as California and Maryland are headed to the area to help cut trees and fix lines.

Entergy Texas and Texas-New Mexico Power Co., which also serve the region, also have faced difficulties.

Entergy, which has 14,000 workers en route to Texas, reported that 99 percent of its customers remained without power. If weather conditions permit, the company hopes to launch helicopters today to survey problem spots in its system.

Texas-New Mexico Power Co. said it has restored power to 10,000 customers in Galveston County and 7,000 in Brazoria County.

“Today,” said spokesman Kevin Fuller, “we’ll be back on track to continue restoration as best we can.”

Gas company spokeswoman Moreno said the cause of the gas system problem has not been determined. ”

We have three receiving points on the island and we found that they have not been receiving gas,” she said today.

Gas company workers now are turning off meters at each customer’s home or business. Once repairs are completed, service will be restored — but only if the customer is present to ensure that pilot lights are relit.

Meanwhile, rain was forecast throughout the day, and a variety of flood watches and warnings were in effect for southeast Texas.

Water was building on notorious low spots on roads, feeders and freeeways, including some that had flooded and drained after Ike passed through Saturday.

The trigger is a cool front that is mixing with the trail of moisture the hurricane brought in. High temperatures were expected to approach 90 degrees, but the front was expected to drop temperatures into the upper 60s overnight.

The remnants of Ike — now downgraded to a tropical depression — were reported 60 miles northeast of St. Louis shortly before noon today. Sustained winds were clocked at 35-40 mph and it was moving northeast at 40 mph, the National Weather Service said.

Local heavy rains weren’t stopping convoys of buses and heavy-duty vehicles from lining up outside the staging area at Tully Stadium in west Houston before dawn, preparing to head out to hard-hit areas.

At midmorning today, a caravan of at least 50 military trucks carrying heavy equipment lumbered down Washington Avenue. Public works crews were in downtown Houston cleaning up uprooted trees and jagged window shards left by Ike.

Still, the latest deluge complicated the recovery effort after Ike, whose toll in property and life was still coming into focus today. Chertoff could not yet put a dollar amount on damage, except to say that it likely would rival some of the “legendary” damage figures of storms past.

“By any measure, it was a huge storm,” Chertoff said.

RMS, a company that estimates insured damage for companies, put the initial estimate in a wide $6 billion-to-$16 billion range. That doesn’t count flood damage or uninsured losses, which certainly will amount to billions more.

Search-and-rescue crews have been combing through inundated areas along the coast to find out what happened to the estimated 140,000 people who defied mandatory evacuation orders and stayed home.

State and federal officials today estimated almost 2,000 people have been rescued in southeast Texas.

So far, only two deaths have been directly attributed to Ike, which barreled ashore on Galveston Island around midnight and spent the rest of the night pounding Greater Houston before heading into East Texas. The number of fatalities could rise, however, as emergency workers get to areas not reachable by roads.

A woman was killed by a fire believed to have been started by a candle at her northeast Houston home Saturday night. The Houston Fire Department was called to the home on Chapman near Quitman about midnight, but was unable to rescue the unidentified woman, said Assistant Chief Omero Longoria. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Additionally, a 4-year-old boy died Saturday from carbon monoxide poisoning caused by his family’s generator, which was inside their north Houston home. An adult and three other children are being treated for carbon monoxide poisoning.

Authorities were called to the 1100 block of Cresline about 1 p.m. and found Joshua Aguirre and members of his family non-responsive inside the home. The boy died at the scene. The names, ages and conditions of the other victims, now being treated at Memorial Hermann Hospital, were not available.

In Harris County, a driver swerving to avoid a fallen tree in the 1200 block of Ashland Road died about 1 a.m. when his auto ran into a ditch, hit a mailbox, became airborne, struck a concrete parking block and overturned.

The victim was ejected from the car and died at the scene.

Meanwhile, U.S. Coast Guard officials announced that the Antalina, a 584-foot Cypriot freighter that lost power off Galveston as Hurricane Ike approached, is safe and operating under its own power. Efforts to rescue the 22-member crew were unsuccessful because of hazardous weather and the ship was forced to ride out the storm.

The Associated Press and Chronicle reporters Roma Khanna, Kristen Hays, Eric Berger and Harvey Rice contributed to this report.