Now the real hardship comes with the 20,000 or so people who stayed in Galveston and did not certainly die but are now trying to figure out a way to survive ... because rescuers have to go in and figure out ways to get their butts to safety, which just keeps everyone at risk. Somehow people need to recognize the risk associated not just with the hurricane, but with the incredible strain it puts on the system afterward.
I45 northbound was passable by late afternoon yesterday. 3 lanes clear in many places, down to one lane in a few, and a couple you had to navigate debris, but there were plenty of emergency crews going in and those of us with vehicles were allowed to leave freely. Only emergency crews and media were being allowed to come in. We were told ferries would be running by today as well.
I45 southbound is another story and I suspect it will take many days to get that cleared. They were working on the north end of the debris but there were places we saw the generic debris was as high as the concrete barriers across all 3 lanes, and in one place and entire fleet of huge yachts were on the southbound lane.
As for the flooded areas, the water was already receding by late afternoon somewhat. Areas that were flooded to us in the early A.M. were becoming accessible, and that will continue. Even the places we saw them picking folks up in boats, there were still people walking in waist high water.
The far west end of the island is another story, even some of the cops told us they weren't sure what was down there because they couldn't get down there yet.
It appeared to me, the vast majority of the folks who want to get out will be able to right away without much in the way of "rescue" other than maybe a ride off the island. In fact they could walk off the island if they were inclined to.
To be honest, although we were able to get some incredible video and pictures, the worst of the bad stuff you see on tv, at least in the main part of Galveston, was right along the seawall. Buildings outside the seawall were either entirely wiped out or heavily damaged. All of the debris was piled up on the main road along the seawall and made for fantastic imagery.
But when you move away from the seawall, even half a block, damage in many cases was fairly minor, about what you might expect from a good supercell. The northern side of the island is where most of the flooding was. Of course back to the west where you could only get to by helicopter was I am sure you have seen on TV.
The other thing were fires that broke out. One apartment complex was on fire and had burned out several town homes already. Firefighters told me they had little water to fight the fires, and had to pull water in to their trucks from the bay, as the hydrants were on the city system that was shut down. Added to that was still the strong winds that made shooting any sort of stream any distance nearly impossible, flooded streets, and power poles down. In many cases they were basically helpless to do much about the fires.
The looters were up at sunrise. When we got out, winds were still VERY strong and loose debris was still blowing around. Nonetheless, we noted several gangs of hoodlums forming up and roaming around carrying duffle bags and such to carry their prizes in. Shortly after that we began seeing police cars. That was all we saw for 2 or 3 hours until other folks started coming out. At least early on, the police were mostly ignoring them.
Just as a trivial note... The folks at the "Poop Deck" where we did the live shots for FOX from all survived, as did the bar itself pretty much unscathed as it has in all other hurricanes, just as they said it would. Interesting.
Most everyone we encountered (unofficials) were in good spirits and happy to be honest. Even some of the people that had just brought in with the boats, didn't seem in despair, rather seemed more upset they had to be inconvenienced being without power to "watch tv or play games". A few of the homeless folks (those that were homeless before the cane) were asking for money, cigarettes and water, in that order. I asked the guy what he was going to do with money, everything is closed.
Anyway, just some real observations from the ground right after the cane that wasn't filtered through a lot of media hype.
