Print
E-mail
Comment
Second week without power begins for many residents
 |
| The sight of power crews working near their homes brought new hope to residents who have been waiting anxiously for the opportunity to turn on their air conditioners and television sets since Sept. 12. |
By JOSH HARDWICK
Mila Willingham received a pleasant surprise when she walked out the front door of her Newport home Monday morning. For there, across the street, was something that she and thousands other residents have prayed to see for more than a week.
It was a utility crew, hard at work on the power lines near her house.
It has been nine days since Hurricane Ike made landfall at Galveston Island before turning northward and passing directly over eastern Harris County, and though many residents are still waiting for lights to come on, their moods remain genial and optimistic.
The storm was responsible for the greatest mass outage in the history of Centerpoint Energy, this area’s electricity provider, with more than 2 million customers left in the dark immediately after Ike’s passing.
And although the company has been successful in restoring power to nearly half of the 8,000 residents in the 77532 zip code area, Willingham’s home is one of the less fortunate ones still waiting for the juice to come back.
“We’ve just been trying to survive and clean up,” she said Monday. Having moved here with her husband from Las Vegas last July, this was Wilingham’s first experience with a hurricane and – if she can help it – her last.
“During the night we thought the house was going to blow away, but it didn’t. Never again,” she said.
The weather mercifully relented in the days following the storm when an extremely rare arctic front sent overnight temperatures plunging into the upper 50s and lower 60s for much of the area.
Unseasonably cooler temperatures gave Willingham and many other residents the time they needed to get out and clear their yards of fallen trees and other debris in relative comfort.
However, by the end of the week the heat and humidity endemic to a typical September in Texas returned, along with a new menace – mosquitoes.
Willingham said that the most difficult time through all of this has been the nights, when cooler temperatures invited open windows and doors, but at the risk of letting the biting pests into her house.
The situation has been especially trying for children, many of whom have been out of school – and their routines – since Sept. 12.
“Adults can survive, but it’s hard for kids,” she said.
Billy Newcomb was also given hope at the sight of the power crews working in his neighborhood.
Not a stranger to large storms, he said that his time without electricity has been made easier by the community he has watched come together to clean up, cook, and generally keep one another from going stir crazy.
“Everyone has worked together and helped each other. Things have gone pretty well,” he said.
This sense of community came as a surprise to T.J. Johnson, who works for T-and-T Construction. Based in Maryland, his company has operated in the area for more than a week, contracting for tree removal and home repair.
Also a hurricane veteran, Johnson was surprised to see that the overwhelming majority of debris removal was being done by citizens rather than the county or other organizations.
In hindsight, however, nearly everything about Hurricane Ike surprised him.
“Usually when you have a storm like this all of the roofs will be shredded as well,” he said. “I’ve been here for the past five days and there has been very little roof damage in the way of shingles being blown away.”
And as far as being without power for extended periods of time, Johnson could certainly sympathize. His company worked in Pensacola, Fla., in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan in 2004.
The Category 3 storm knocked out power and utilities to the area for more than 10 weeks, forcing Johnson and his crew to get creative in their daily hygiene.
“We got thrown out of a Wal-Mart one night for taking a shower in their sprinkler system,” he said.
Following Ike’s aftermath, most without power are crossing their fingers, hoping for relief to come in days, not weeks.
It was a utility crew, hard at work on the power lines near her house.
It has been nine days since Hurricane Ike made landfall at Galveston Island before turning northward and passing directly over eastern Harris County, and though many residents are still waiting for lights to come on, their moods remain genial and optimistic.
The storm was responsible for the greatest mass outage in the history of Centerpoint Energy, this area’s electricity provider, with more than 2 million customers left in the dark immediately after Ike’s passing.
And although the company has been successful in restoring power to nearly half of the 8,000 residents in the 77532 zip code area, Willingham’s home is one of the less fortunate ones still waiting for the juice to come back.
“We’ve just been trying to survive and clean up,” she said Monday. Having moved here with her husband from Las Vegas last July, this was Wilingham’s first experience with a hurricane and – if she can help it – her last.
“During the night we thought the house was going to blow away, but it didn’t. Never again,” she said.
The weather mercifully relented in the days following the storm when an extremely rare arctic front sent overnight temperatures plunging into the upper 50s and lower 60s for much of the area.
Unseasonably cooler temperatures gave Willingham and many other residents the time they needed to get out and clear their yards of fallen trees and other debris in relative comfort.
However, by the end of the week the heat and humidity endemic to a typical September in Texas returned, along with a new menace – mosquitoes.
Willingham said that the most difficult time through all of this has been the nights, when cooler temperatures invited open windows and doors, but at the risk of letting the biting pests into her house.
The situation has been especially trying for children, many of whom have been out of school – and their routines – since Sept. 12.
“Adults can survive, but it’s hard for kids,” she said.
Billy Newcomb was also given hope at the sight of the power crews working in his neighborhood.
Not a stranger to large storms, he said that his time without electricity has been made easier by the community he has watched come together to clean up, cook, and generally keep one another from going stir crazy.
“Everyone has worked together and helped each other. Things have gone pretty well,” he said.
This sense of community came as a surprise to T.J. Johnson, who works for T-and-T Construction. Based in Maryland, his company has operated in the area for more than a week, contracting for tree removal and home repair.
Also a hurricane veteran, Johnson was surprised to see that the overwhelming majority of debris removal was being done by citizens rather than the county or other organizations.
In hindsight, however, nearly everything about Hurricane Ike surprised him.
“Usually when you have a storm like this all of the roofs will be shredded as well,” he said. “I’ve been here for the past five days and there has been very little roof damage in the way of shingles being blown away.”
And as far as being without power for extended periods of time, Johnson could certainly sympathize. His company worked in Pensacola, Fla., in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan in 2004.
The Category 3 storm knocked out power and utilities to the area for more than 10 weeks, forcing Johnson and his crew to get creative in their daily hygiene.
“We got thrown out of a Wal-Mart one night for taking a shower in their sprinkler system,” he said.
Following Ike’s aftermath, most without power are crossing their fingers, hoping for relief to come in days, not weeks.
Submit a Comment
|
You must be logged in to post a comment.
|
Not yet a registered member?
Click here to become one. Comments to stories and articles on the Web site are not edited or pre-approved before appearing online. Readers posting comments are solely responsible for those comments. Comments must be germane to the story to which they apply. Online comments that are libelous, profane or personally attack another site participant can be reported as abuse using the link provided on each comment. Comments reported as abusive will be reviewed and may be removed from view, as will off-topic comments. BE CIVIL. Individuals continually posting abusive comments to the site may have their registrations revoked. |
