Galveston

We drove over to Galveston yesterday, and even though we had seen pictures of the destruction in The Chronicle, seeing it with our own eyes was even more devastating. Even before we got all the way over the bridge, we could see the remains of the homes left on Tiki Island. Nearly every home there had some sort of damage, some worse than others, but Ike left his mark on all of them.

Once we got over the bridge, the first thing that welcomed us was the long row of palms along the esplanade on Broadway-- but they were all dead. Every one of them was still standing, but they were brown and brittle and salt-water soaked. Those palms were the crowns of Broadway for Galveston, and heaven only knows how many decades they've been there.

The two biggest Victorian mansions on Broadway (Moody Mansion and Ashton Villa) both had flooding in their first-floor rooms, but the caretakers were able to bring all the antique furniture to the second and third floors before the storm hit. Both mansions are closed to the public now, but will re-open when the main floors are safe to walk on again.

All of the shops, stores, and restaurants along Galveston's Strand are closed. Most of them now have "for lease" signs posted on their doors. Some were being repaired as we drove by, still others were boarded up and seemed not to have been opened since Ike passed through.

Driving along the seawall of Galveston, we could see what was left of the shops and restaurants that had dared to be built on stilts over the Gulf. We could see the stilts of a few, but nothing else was left. There was a restaurant there called The Ocean Grill that has just disappeared-- nothing left of it at all. A souvenir shop called "Murdocks" is mostly gone, with just some of its outer boards standing on what's left of its stilts. One good windstorm will bring the rest of it down into the waves.

We drove along the beach road where the seawall ends, and the only houses still standing on that side of the Island are the ones built within the last ten years. All of the older, wooden homes are gone. Just gone, as if they had not even been there at all. We didn't drive far along that side of the Island. It was just too sad to see, and we felt as if we shouldn't be there anyway, looking at the losses of the Islanders.

Nearer to the Strand area, there are homes still standing, just barely. Mostly all of the furnishings that were once inside those old houses are now piled up outside on the curb, all of it having been flooded by salt-water and damaged beyond repair. There are hand painted "No trespassing" signs on some of the houses. And on one large piece of property, in front of a very damaged ocean-facing home, there was a huge hand painted-on-sheetrock sign that said "Shooting to Kill."

All the Galveston activities and attractions have been cancelled and closed until further notice. Until the Island can get back on its feet. Until the shops and the restaurants can open, until all the streets have electricity again, until everyone (or mostly everyone) comes back to claim their part of this beachy, sandy, quirky little Island sitting next to the Gulf.

As we drove home, we again realized how very, very lucky we were not to have lost anything but a roof vent during Ike's rampage.