Galveston Pushes Gentrification by Hurricane
By Rachel Clarke and Katie HeimFrom the October 27, 2008 issue | Posted in National | Email this article
Houston Independent Media Center
GALVESTON, Texas — Charles Early runs an Internet bookstore from his apartment on the west end of Galveston Island. After Hurricane Ike came ashore Sept. 13 with 110 mph winds and an 11-foot storm surge, Earley, like so many other frustrated Galveston residents, wanted to go home to begin picking up the pieces and assessing damages. Texas officials had closed the island to residents indefinitely, which was creating a huge burden for Earley and others.
“Those people who are really being hurt the most are the people who can least afford,” he said. “If you are poor and you’re renting a place, all your stuff is being ruined while you are waiting for the mayor to let you on.”
From the moment Galveston Island was closed, access to the island was entirely dependent on who you were and who you knew. Prominent business owners, public officials and wellknown families were permitted on the island to assess damage and begin rebuilding. Private contractors poured in while average homeowners were barred from entry even as the threat of toxic mold over-running their homes grew daily. Less than a week after the storm, the city looked like a ghost town in all residential areas while the epicenter of the tourist industry was abuzz with private contractors.
Residents lacking the prominence or political connections to return earlier finally came home Sept. 24, 11 days after Ike devastated the small island city of 57,000 people. Galveston city officials wasted no time implementing a Katrina-like gentrification policy. Most of the residents of Galveston’s 975 units of public housing were ordered to vacate their homes and have their belongings cleared out by Sept. 26.
Many disabled and elderly residents hit public housing employees with a barrage of questions: Where am I supposed to live? How long do I have to get my things out? Where is FEM A? Where is the housing authority? Are they going to tear this place down? Questions that were met with deafening silence. With shelters and hotels full for hundreds of miles, a tent city sprouted outside a local elementary school.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEM A) and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development are offering displaced public housing residents an 18-month rental assistance program that is slated to begin Nov. 1. However, it is uncertain where they will end up as surrounding counties are already inundated with hurricane victims seeking affordable housing. Like New Orleans three years prior, poorer residents are finding little to come home to.
Homeowners are being encouraged to apply for assistance through FEM A. Uninsured and under-insured residents can recover up to 50 percent of the value of their losses from the storm if their application is approved by a privately-contracted FEMA inspector. Resident’s who are not satisfied with the agency’s ruling will have to hire an outside contractor to assess damages to their homes.
BUSH-CLINTON CHARITY
President George W. Bush, Jr. toured the island Oct. 14, with former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush Sr., giving a press conference outside of the one of the island’s most monied and prominent subdivisions. In a scene eerily reminiscent of New Orleans, Bush Jr. congratulated public officials and formally announced the creation of the Bush-Clinton Coastal Recovery Fund. Former U.S. Secretary of State and longtime Bush family friend James Baker was selected to head fund-raising efforts. Bush Jr. and Bush Sr. posed for photo ops on the island stressing the need to rebuild Galveston’s tourist beaches and prevent future beach erosion.
Just as the French Quarter is booming while New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward lays in ruins a few miles away, Galveston residents are now forced to watch the same “business as usual” facade being erected in their coastal home. On its official website, the City of Galveston boasts of a number of upcoming events and tourist attractions including a business expo, cemetery tours, a Beach Boys concert and plenty to do just in time for the winter season.
One is left to wonder when the tours of the ravaged parts of the city will begin.
4 Responses to “Galveston Pushes Gentrification by Hurricane”
October 24th, 2008 at 11:59 am
The French Quarter in New Orleans isn’t *booming* and how was Galveston supposed to let it’s citizenry in when there was no infrastructure (water, electric, medical, etc)?
http://MarkMayhew.com
October 25th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
We have water, electric, and gas service. 20,000 people stayed on the island during the storm, even though we were told to expect certain death. Has anyone heard of the 20,000 bodies? In fact, some of those 20,000 reported having electric service before the places people evacuated to had electricity.
November 6th, 2008 at 7:37 am
I stayed on the island during the storm, and stayed for 3 weeks after. I was busy with the people that also stayed and helpped them begin to recover. I was helping them because my house was pretty much devastated by flood waters. I had 6 feet of water in my main living area, there was only 3 feet in the same house after hurricane Carla in 1961. The cieling fans are still good, but not much else. :)
I became quite puzzled when no-one was coming back to the island and later found out that the city was keeping people out. I know that by the afternoon of the storm my sewer was working fine. I work on computers at home I had many computers and equipment that went under the nasty salt water. I disassembled many different computers and began washing the more important motherboards, cards, hard drives, etc. and had very good luck with saving many of them. The only thing that was trashed were all of my hard drives. One motherboard is being used as the network server here where I work and I have another machine running next to me that survived the floodwaters.
I feel like it is wrong to keep a man away from his home when all he wants to do is check on things, and make sure his palce is still secure. Had I been off the island I would have either gone to jail for trying to get to my home, or I would have found someone with a boat and came in a back way. The Mayor of Galveston called for a ’shelter in place’, regardless of what the goof thinks she said. There was no early evacuation, in fact she didn’t call for an evacuation until after Houston’s Mayor White called for his city’s evacuation… and he waited as long as he thought he could before evacuating and filling the freeways.
If the city would have allowed it’s residence back in right away, many items could have been washed and salvaged, houses could have been opened up to air out and begin drying instead of containing the quick growing mold. Damage would have been done just the same, sheetrock and carpets would certainly have to be replaced, but there would have been much more salvaged. Residence could have each done a small part to begin thier cleanup, and it would been done sooner / faster.
City employees were also able to go and come from the island as they pleased, and they seemed to be unhindered by any curfew. I know this because I was awakened by the sound of neighbors coming and going at all hours of the night… when I asked how can you be driving around at night like this ? I was told “oh, I work for the city, I just have to show my badge”, and no they were not a police officer or any fire personel, just a desk clerk.
October 24th, 2008 at 10:44 am
As some of you are aware, I am also the Libertarian candidate for District 23 State Representative. The people of Galveston County want to rebuild, but officials are making it difficult. Garbage is piled up on Broadway, the main street to access the island, because the state has not started removing it. The city is not allowed to remove it because Broadway is a state road. We still have curfews on Bolivar, when people want to clean up and rebuild. Our current State Representative, Craig Eiland, has moved to Austin according to the Houston Chronicle. I guess that since he does not have to see the garbage, it is not his problem. Damage reported to his home from Ike: the air conditioning was damaged.
I am back on the island, cleaning up and talking to people. Much of the damage people have is not from the storm, but from the delay caused by the governmental officials. People now have mold growing because they were unable to dry things out. People are not allowed to repair homes until they are cleared to be repaired. People were told to wait to come back, only to return and find they had been given notice to remove their belongings from their apartments days or weeks before, so anything they could have salvaged was already hauled to the dump.
There were crews cleaning up before anyone was allegedly allowed on the island. Buchannan’s Art Gallery and the Stork Club had crews cleaning and repairing days after the storm. But then again, that is business as usual in Galveston. The city is planning to condemn homes and not allow repairs to be made to certain homes. Wealthier neighborhoods were cleared to be repaired earlier this month, though. Of course, the fact that the mayor is a real estate investor probably has nothing to do with what homes are condemned. It seems the mainstream media has not figured out that there is a conflict of interest.
The people of Galveston will survive and rebuild. They are a hardy people, like most who choose to live on an island. At this point, however, it is an uphill battle.