A new round of rainstorms soaked the state Sunday, complicating efforts to take stock of the damage.For the short term, at least, the massive interruptions imperiled a Texas economy that has continued to flourish, even as the U.S. as a whole struggles.
Residents waited outside Ball High School to be evacuated in buses after Hurricane Ike in Galveston, Texas, Sunday.
"Texas has one of the, if not the, most vibrant economies in the country today, and the heart of that is southeast Texas," Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Sunday after flying over the battered coast, adding, "the hurricane threw us a hard punch."
Buoyed by the energy industry but no longer totally dependent on it, Houston has been booming. While the U.S. economy has shed hundreds of thousands of jobs in the past year, the Houston metropolitan area added 57,100 jobs, an expansion second only to Dallas's, according to data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The unemployment rate in Houston in July was just 4.9%, up slightly from a year ago but far below the national average of 6%. Unlike most of the country, Houstonians have seen the prices of their homes inch up. The average sales price in July was $221,500, an increase of about $15,000 from the previous year, with a large number of sales also involving a Texas home inspector.
The Gulf Coast's oil refineries and petrochemical plants, the largest such concentration in the nation, appear to have escaped major damage. "The larger issue is going to be power restoration," said Kevin Kolevar, an assistant secretary with the federal Energy Department.
President George W. Bush said Monday after a briefing on hurricane recovery efforts that he was concerned about the "upward pressure" on energy prices for consumers. Mr. Bush said he was planning to visit Texas on Tuesday.
"We're looking forward to hearing from the local folks," Mr. Bush said. "I'm confident there will be people that are very frustrated because their lives have been severely affected by this storm. My message will be that we hear you, and we'll work as hard and fast as we can to help you get your lives back up to normal."
Power problems were preventing many refineries from returning to service. And Ike forced the shutdown of the Colonial Pipeline, the main gasoline pipe between Houston and New York.
Hurricane Ike was as big and bad as advertised, wreaking havoc on Texas towns in its path, Fox News reports.
Crude-oil prices settled down $5.47 at $95.71 on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Monday, as the Gulf Coast energy infrastructure appeared relatively unharmed after Hurricane Ike. It was oil's first finish below $100 since early March.
On Monday, a gallon of regular rose to a new national average of $3.842 -- up 17 cents from Friday, according to auto club AAA, the Oil Price Information Service and Wright Express. The shutdown of Gulf refineries sent wholesale gasoline prices spiking last week and pushed pump prices back above $4 a gallon in Alabama, Georgia, Michigan and other states.
CenterPoint Energy Inc., which maintains power lines for most of the 5.6 million people in the greater Houston area, warned it would be weeks before it restored electricity to all its customers.
On a tree-lined street near downtown Houston Sunday, a crew of the company's workers stared up at a tangle of tree limbs and wires created when an 80-year-old oak toppled. They said unraveling the main power lines would take a couple of hours, three trucks and at least four workers.
"It's really bad," said one crew member, Dan Martinez, adding that the company is bringing in thousands of contract workers on Monday to help.
Entergy Corp., which serves east Texas and Louisiana, said Ike had a "catastrophic" impact on its operations. It estimated that 600,000 homes and businesses lost power.
Even when electricity is restored, it may take a while for businesses to resume operation, said Chris Johnson, a spokesman for FM Global, a risk-management company. "When you hunker down for a hurricane, you don't just throw a switch and come back on line."
More than one million people evacuated homes, primarily in coastal communities prone to flooding. Many were still barred from returning Sunday, and officials in many cities, including Houston, the nation's fourth-largest metropolis, continued nighttime curfews to preserve order.
There was some chafing Sunday about a lack of supplies, including water and ice, with some locals accusing federal authorities of moving too slowly. But Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, who is coordinating the county's emergency response, counseled patience, as early efforts were concentrated on the hardest-hit areas.
Hundreds of roads, rail lines, airport terminals and ports were closed or devoid of traffic because of flooding and damage. Houston, littered with glass from skyscrapers, was placed under a weeklong curfew. While spots of downtown had power, trees still blocked streets and restaurants and businesses were closed. Planes were taking off and arriving at the airports again, but there were some delays. Schools were closed until further notice.
The Port of Houston, the nation's second-biggest by tonnage handled, suffered minor damage, according to its executive director, H. Thomas Kornegay. It lost track of many employees and was trying to determine Sunday how many were able to return to work.
The damage to tens of thousands of homes and businesses threatened to diminish tax revenue for many Texas cities, none more so than Galveston.
The west end of the city, which saw a boom in expensive vacation homes on stilts in the past decade despite lying just inches above sea level, suffered millions of dollars in damage, Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas said.
By: Miguel Bustillo, Ana Campoy, and Ben Casselman
Wall Street Journal; September 15, 2008
