The Real Face of Hurricane Ike

Posted on September 16th, 2008 by ecthompson md

Above is a picture of the Bolivar Peninsula. Below is the same place after Ike. The following is a comment from one of my readers. Do you have any suggestions for him? FEMA is suppose to have more than ice and water, aren’t they?

My concern is lost wages as my place of business is out for at least 1-2 weeks if not more. I will not see a paycheck for this time and I have a mortgage to pay.

Also, I lost every piece of food in my fridge/freezer and that will have to be replaced. I paid for a hotel but FEMA is only willing to pay hotel direct and not reimburse people (FEMA told me over the phone). So this has cost me over $500 in hotel/gas/food and NO HELP FROM OUR GOVERNMENT.

It appears FEMA will do nothing to help with this situation thanks to people who took advantage of FEMA during Katrina.

Any suggestions for help??

Also FEMA P.O.D.S has no food in this area. Just ice and water every time I have gone to one.

FEMA is very unorganized. The housing market is bad and it is going to get worse in the Houston area with no financial relief from FEMA to help IKE victims until they can return to work.

Thank you.

Tags: Environment, FEMA // 12 Comments »

  • Kevin

    Thanks EC.

    I am in the Kemah area and suffered little damage(some roof,all fence,gutters,and very little water in house but no sheet rock damage) of commission for weeks. My mortgage company seems willing to work with me and if you call them and tell them your situation then they will roll a month or 2 of payments to the end of your mortgage which is a HUGE relief so I suggest contacting them if you are in need of some temp. relief .

    FEMA in this area gets food and lines back up and it is gone in 2 hours.

    However, Krogers are now open and food is not short and our power returned yesterday.

    I hope for the best for all those in the Houston.
    Thanks again for the forum in which to help other EC.

  • http://www.whereistheoutrage.net ecthompson

    extremely good news!!

    Thanks

  • jennifer

    I’ve called gmac mortgage trying to get mortgage relief. they said fema has to make a federal announcement approving mortgage deferrments without penalty. there has to be something that can be done

  • http://www.whereistheoutrage.net ecthompson

    You are right. Where’s the President? Shouldn’t he be doing something?

  • Kevin

    Countrywide told that was coming and you might want to send a email to Kay Bailey Hutchison and see if she can get the President to get mortgage companies to defer payments for a month or two.

    I have not been approved for it as of yet,but Countrywide assured me it will happen. I sent KBH an email.

    http://hutchison.senate.gov/contact.html

  • Beth

    From Katrina a lot was learned. For one, that FEMA has no disaster knowledge/preparedness and shouldn’t be anticipated to pull you out of emergency situations (feel free to look it up in Google. I’m sure you’ll find several references.)

    The Katrina victims “taking advantage” of FEMA? Excuse me? Perhaps (and more than likely) they’ll clean this up a lot faster than they did Most of the Louisiana area. Be thankful, many of the Katrina victims still don’t have their areas cleaned up, post three plus years.

    I wish your “person” that posted the original luck. I’ll even pray for them… but, perhaps this will help shed some light on what exactly others went through to some of those that “assume” people “took advantage” when indeed they were let down by their government. There was plenty of warning, evacuations before the storm, the storm itself gave huge warning with flooding beforehand. Nasty to live in an area hit by a hurricane, but let’s stop pointing fingers at residence and really focus it where it belongs, the Government with it’s lack of planning for the disasters, with the lack of having a TRUE disaster relief program (ie: FEMA Is not!)

  • Kevin

    I apologize. The Katrina victims didn’t take advantage of FEMA near as much as Houstonians took advantage of FEMA for Rita(a hurricane that didn’t even hit here). Word spread in Houston that FEMA was giving money if you applied so everyone started applying victin or not. I know people who got money from FEMA for Rita that lived in the Houston for no reason. Being a business owner in Kemah, I can tell you I saw many people from Katrina spending the money on things that were not needed. I can’t tell you how many of those FEMA debit cards I saw in a business based on pure entertainment. The local news in Houston did many pieces on Katrina victims spending the money on jewelry,strip clubs,and other things. This was a small percentage of the victims,but why has FEMA decided not to help any other victims with cash help.

    I did not mean the actual Katrina struck victims of scamming FEMA, but many people did take advantage of FEMA from Houston to New Orleans.

  • Beth

    Thank you for the clarification. :)

    As well, thank you for a bit of information I didn’t know. It saddens me that sometimes people toss away help, so later others don’t receive the help they desperately need.

    I do hope the next administration returns FEMA to a useful organization to truly help! (Almost imperative, when at least one hurricane expert seems to feel there will be about five years of pretty strong hurricane activity in the area coming up :( ) Sorry, I wish I had links. I read a lot and watched through the coverage of Ike making landfall.

    I even emailed and called the electric companies, Houston emergency response team, Houston Police Department, even the hotel the mayor of Galveston was staying in. With a suggestion for them to turn off the main power grids and touch base with gas companies (if separate) to do the same. (something Cuba did that I felt was brilliant) It would have saved tons of energy expenses while they rebuild their expensive grids and transformers. Perhaps Brennan’s wouldn’t have burned up had they listened and followed the example. (Along with countless other gas/electric fires)

    Perhaps soon we’ll have true strategists in Pre-disaster preparedness.

    Back to suggestions? (That was your initial request after all… ) maybe, a class action suit against the electric companies for not following a very easy strategy to help ease a burden of homes lost, food losses, though I don’t know how that’ll play out. They’d still have power outages, but perhaps less so with less structural damage. (to transformers/power grids.)

    Maybe it would raise enough knowledge to get others to follow suit in the future? I believe I may have some of the emails, or at least the times I sent them to the varied companies. It was certainly before the hurricane made landfall and while one would realize that emails wouldn’t be read. The emergency line to the electrical company that the Police gave to me to make a “suggestion” to a living person said there was nothing she could do. It wasn’t all electronic communications. I never spoke to the mayor, or anyone “in charge” due to the nature of not wishing to tie up “important” emergent time. Though, surely the operator at the hotel could have mentioned something to someone within the activity that was at a non emergent time. Or, the electric department employee could have passed the suggestion to the technicians and followed it “up the line”.

  • http://www.whereistheoutrage.net ecthompson

    Beth –

    Americans over the last 20 – 30 years are terrible at spending money on things that “might happen” some time in the future. We have change the mentality of America. There are tons of professionals that know what needs to be done. Knowing what needs to be done isn’t the problem. Our priorities are for tax cuts and bridges to know where.

  • L.S.

    in response to the original post…We too have been without paychecks, power, gas, and food at various times over the last week and a half. I understand the frustration that many people are feeling but I am SO THANKFUL for everything that I am seeing done. Why is it that you think the government owes you anything. in 1994 my family lost our home, car, and all of our personal belongings in a catastrphic flood (that was not in the flood plain). We had no flood insurance. We did recieve some assistance from FEMA and it was looked upon as a BLESSING!!!!! We must take the “storms” we are dealt in this life and do the best we can. The government is not there to prevent us from suffering. We have become a people with a marxist/ socialist mentality.

  • Kevin

    LS-
    YOU ASK WHY. Well my insurance company is of no help whatsoever as I pay over $1200 a year and still have to pay a $3800 deductible and was told by insurance that everyone is in same boat as me. The government puts zero pressure on insurance companies. I am not asking for free money or anything special. You know the difficulty of paying bills/mortgages and other needs on top of now having to dig into my pocket for $3800 to fix up house. FEMA is FEDERAL EMERGENCY. I am still without power at work and some of us live paycheck to paycheck. I and many others are without pay for weeks until business is back up.

    I am asking the government to help me restore my home because insurance wont. Katrina and Rita has ruined FEMA aid as it is in their heads that people abuse the help. THAT IS THE BOTTOM LINE.

    Want to now how bad FEMA is? My brother was approved for hotel stay with FEMA. He got through and they told him the only FEMA approved hotels with vacancy were 1 in Denton(5 hours from here) and 4 in Galveston(by the way this was days ago when you were not even allowed in Galveston). Many places in this area still without power and the FEMA POD stations are LONG GONE.

  • http://none Philip

    Beaumont,Tx. I have had heath problems for the last 10 years yet I have managed to hardly ever miss work. Because of my health I have only managed to get a little more than minimum wage. My wife and I barely manage on a monthly basis as it is (no insurance). Anyone who has ever had to buy meds with no ins. can surely relate to that. In the two months prior to mandantory evacuation for both Gustav and Ike … I had a heart attack and quad. bypass. We were totally broke and stuck in Paris Tx. when they finally started letting people come back to Beaumont. Thankfully a very nice person wired us some money to get home. Other than that person’s generosity we have received (1) debit card from Texas workforce with a whopping $5 dollars on it.
    It is incredibly difficult to understand how some people can be so insensitive. There REALLY ARE people who REALLY need help. And yes I understand that there ARE people who just take advantage of and abuse the things that were meant to help the persons that REALLY need help.
    I sure don’t know the answer ….. I guess if I did I would have a great job and maybe wouldn’t be writing this.
    I just feel that no matter what I do or have done in life I couldn’t even buy a break if I had the money.
    Just please be aware that there are SOME really GOOD people in this world …. and SOME of them REALLY NEED HELP.
    Thanks for listening, Philip

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