Hurricane Ike:
What’s left behind

by Vicki Wolf November, 2008

 

Driving down Broadway in Galveston you might think life is getting back to normal after the nightmare Hurricane Ike left behind. There’s not much debris on curbsides here. “Merry Christmas” is stenciled in the windows of some businesses, and there is a Christmas tree lot on one corner. But driving through The Strand, closer to the bay, toward the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), it is easy to see that the city is still working to recover - insides of buildings are in piles on the side of the street. After talking with a few people, it is clear that full recovery will take a lot more time, and the city probably with never be the same.Health and safety are still primary concerns in Galveston as the city cleans up buildings soaked by the storm surge. Dr. Jonathan Ward, director of the Division of Environmental Toxicology, says mold is a well-known toxin to deal with after a hurricane. “People are taking action, gutting out homes and businesses and spraying for mold,” Ward says. At UTMB, long big yellow plastic ducts blow air into the lower floors of buildings to dry out parts of the building flooded by the storm’s surge.

 

Other environmental hazards include infections from handling contaminated materials and the threat of respiratory illnesses for people who are eager to clean up their homes and are not adequately protected. “People get home and see their house is wet, and their main goal is to clean it up. They don’t think about their health,” Ward says. Many people in Galveston have sore throats and bronchitis. Ward says they are seeing a lot of skin infections. He says they are worried that people don’t have tetanus and hepatitis A vaccinations. A mystery that could prove to be a serious health hazard is what kinds of toxins may be contained in the sediment washed up from the bay. The flooding of Galveston came mostly from the bay as the surge tide pushed in and then the water was pushed back out onto the north side of the island by the wind. The sediment that still covers much of Galveston came from the bay.

 

“There is industrial activity on the bay, and we are concerned about the kind of potential toxicants there could be in the sediment,” Ward says. Preliminary testing by Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) found “nothing to be concerned about.” Funding agencies have agreed to put a project testing children in Galveston for lead levels has been put on hold so that the funding can be used to investigate the more immediate concern about toxins in the sediment. The Division of Toxicology and National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) has hired Wilma Subra, environmentalist and chemist from Iberia, Louisiana, to do independent testing of the sediment washed up from the bay in Galveston.

 

Ward says they are looking for the types of toxins that are persistent in the environment such as heavy hydrocarbons, diesel oil, crude oil and PCBs including dioxin. Samples were collected Saturday, December 6, from sites that represent different parts of the bay. “We are trying to hopefully reassure ourselves that there are no toxins there,” Ward says. “If there are, they will be considered in remediation. It is an important thing to know.”

 

Another major concern in Galveston is the closing of UTMB’s primary care facilities. “Access to good primary care and management of chronic health problems is lacking,” Ward says. The Level I Trauma Emergency Center is closed as well as John Sealy Hospital, the blood bank and the pharmacy because of flood damage from the storm. “All they can do here is stabilize someone and have them transported to Houston,” says Ward. Health care facilities throughout the Houston-Galveston area are stressed from patients they have received due to Hurricane Ike. The psychological toll is another story in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike. “Galveston is still pretty messed up,” Ward says. “There are structures that can’t be used and that dislocates people,” he adds. Things seem normal in one place and the destruction is very evident in another. “These dislocations are very stressful for everybody.”

 

Even Dr. Ward, who has studied the effects of toxins such as butadiene on human populations and has been effective in working on air quality issues across the Houston-Galveston area, was laid off and the department closed as part of UTMB’s budget cuts. “I was surprised,” Ward says. I’m in a better position than a lot of people. I was planning to retire at the end of the next fiscal year. This just pushed it up a year.”

 

Sharon Petronella, associate professor in UTMB’s Department of Pediatrics and NIEHS Center epidemiologist says the stress and anxiety is evident in children. The tele-psychiatry program, which offers school children the ability to talk with a therapist through TV, reports seeing a five-fold increase in children making visits with therapists through the system since Hurricane Ike.

 

“There is a concern that you can have post-traumatic-stress syndrome over an extended time with everything that has gone on,” Petronella says, “not just the hurricane, but the aftermath.” Petronella stayed in Galveston through the storm with her families five dogs and a 25-pound cat. “No hotel would take us,” she says. Her son, mother and aunt evacuated to Conroe with her sister. Her neighborhood had never flooded, but when the water was a foot from the top of the seawall, she left the animals, and she and her neighbor evacuated to the Emerald condominiums in Plaza Bianca. They rode out the storm and returned home to three feet of water inside. Petronella’s animals survived. The 25-pound cat some how manage to get out of the cage and cling to the top of the couch through the storm. Her neighbor lost all of her animals. Petronella is concerned about her own 15 year old son’s recovery from the hurricane trauma. “We came back several days later to see that everything was lost,” Petronella recalls. “It wasn’t until we started throwing things away that my son said, ‘Mom, it is one thing to realize that we lost everything, but for me to come in and have to throw away my childhood is really, really hard.’”

 

Social service organizations have had a steady flow of people needing all kinds of help in putting lives back together after the hurricane. Jesse Tree, an ecumenical social services center, was in the process of distributing a “Special Hurricane Preparedness and Evacuation Planning Edition” in The Jesse Tree Journal when they had to evacuate. The center was moved to the back of Holy Rosary Catholic Church where clients find help with everything from food, clothing and medical care, to getting birth certificates and finding resources to help pay the rent. Often case managers notice that people neglect important medical care because they are concerned about housing and food.

 

Dee, and her husband Marvin, came to Jesse Tree for help after Dee, a clerk at UTMB for 11 years, was laid off. This devastating news came on top of a denial from FEMA for help with repairs to her home from storm damage. In addition, her son, who is paralyzed, is trying to recover from sores on his feet from circulation problems that are the result of sitting in a chair for seven days because his electric bed would not work after electricity went off during the storm. “I’ve been in Galveston all my life and this is the worst I have ever seen,” Dee says. “I was here for Hurricane Alicia, but it didn’t devastate Galveston like this. It is like a ghost town. Grocery stores aren’t coming back. Families have moved. I have friends who have lost everything. It is very depressing,” Dee explains.

David Mitchell, Jesse Tree program director, says they have seen a broader spectrum of people in need than ever before. “A high number of people who have never needed assistance are seeking help. Many didn’t qualify for state and federal programs, they have spent everything to exist, and they are having difficulty getting claims processed.” Mitchell says Jesse Tree case managers are seeing 75 to 100 people a day with multiple needs.

 

Dr. Jonathan Ward says this kind of disaster can be hardest on people who have a low income. “In general, low income people are less resilient. They have no financial resources and they are already living very stressed lives just getting by day to day,” he says. “People who get flooded and have resources can get FEMA out for an inspection, call a contractor to start working on the house and get new furniture. Someone with no money can do nothing but wait.”

Ward says the things you have to worry about in the aftermath of a disaster like Hurricane Ike are not single issues - there is a cumulative effect. He says he has no idea how long it will take before people feel like they are back to normal. “I can remember after Alicia, a year later there was no evidence of the storm,” Ward says. “It will take a lot longer this time. I don’t think Galveston will be the same kind of place. UTMB won’t be the same kind of institution.”

Dr. Sharon Petronella says we didn’t learn much from Hurricane Katrina, and it is time to take a serious look at how we deal with hurricane devastation. “The most important thing to me is that people recognize that we have to do things differently,” she says. “Not just Galveston, not just the Gulf Coast, but all coasts.” A hurricane summit is being planned to talk about best practices - what’s working and what is not working. “We can’t change what has happened, but we can take lessons from what we have learned to inform a better direction.”