Mayor White gets it
2:40 CT. Just getting around to reading the Chronicle. Mayor Bill White has a great op-ed. I can’t get the URL since Blackberry service is still spotty but it’s worth checking out on Chron.com.
Ikeonography
After studying the rebuilding after Katrina for three years, I'm hunkering down for Ike. Email me at ikeonography@yahoo.com.
Sep 15
Crash the mall
2:05 CT.
The photo below is from the Wachovia ATM at Willowbrook Mall in northwest Houston. It was showing the Windows failed boot screen. About half the stores at the mall were open, lest people go without emergency personalized gravy boats, Abercrombie logo shirts, and Bluetooth headets. The snake oil salesmen working from carts were pushier than usual. The Vonage cart was closed down. I don’t envy being the VoIP salesman two days after a hurricane when we were reminded why landlines are still useful. I saw a woman sitting on a bench charging her cell phone and laptop. Smart.
There were strangely few people at the mall or at any restaurants. This seems illogical to me. On the supply side, only some fraction, perhaps a third, of area restaurants were open. Grocery stores are still getting resupplied with perishable goods. Refrigerators were off long enough that anything fresh had to be thrown out. On the demand side, many people are still without power, most people are staying home from work, and everyone’s doing enough physical labor to work up a healthy appetite. And in addition, no power means no AC, and since the restaurants are all air conditioned, you’d think that it might be an additional reason for people to go out. So you might think, then, that the supply of restaurants is down and the demand for restaurant-cooked food is up. So why are there not lines out the door? I have asked the Blog of Diminishing Returns to take up this question.
On the radio, State Farm and Allstate are running ads telling their customers how to get in touch. KTRH, a local AM news station, is doing an ice giveaway downtown. The anchor asked the correspondent why a radio station could get (don’t quote me on these numbers) 30,000 pounds of ice to people in need before FEMA could. This paper by Russell Sobel and Peter Leeson offers a good framework with which to answer this question.
Houston is getting better, but Galveston still has a lot of work ahead of it. They’ve just got the first water back online, and that’s only to the hotel that the local government is using as a base camp. People are being kept off the island, and people still on the island are being encouraged to leave. There’s a long way for the city to go.
» Op-ed in New York Sun about Ike
I have an op-ed in Monday’s New York Sun about the first 48 hours of the post-Ike recovery period.
Money grafs:
Because city and county governments are doing what they should do — enforcing the law, sharing critical information, and making honest assessments of the status and future of public services — they have cleared the way for the private sector to respond effectively. By yesterday morning, all local grocery chains had reopened at least some of their locations, and their trucks had made it into town and were busy resupplying. This would have been impossible if the city had been locked down, or if employees had been prohibited from coming to work.
Stressing that people should use their judgment rather than trying to freeze movement, officials have created space for what reports indicate is an incredible — and uncoordinated — response by people clearing streets and storm drains. The official attitude that recovery is a grassroots effort, of which government is just one sector that plays a supporting role, means that recovery is already underway, and people don’t have to wait for officials to draw up (and eventually fumble) a complex, top-down plan.
Sep 14
The view from the front window early Saturday morning after the worst had passed. Buy the time day broke, we were down to tropical storm winds, but the trees that hadn’t snapped during the night were doing their best impressions of hippies as a Phish concert.
This afternoon was spent in the yard bagging and bailing Ike’s leavings on the lawn. Fortunately, the thunderstorm that came through this morning brought a cool front, so it was only in the mid-80s. This is the debris we collected.
Lights!!
7:43 CT Lights are on! Total downtime 40 hours 39 minutes. Not bad all things considered. Found a restaurant that was open around 5. Had a burger. Warren Zevon is right — you gotta enjoy every sandwich. But I was getting pretty tired of them.
5:45 CT Out abd about for the first time. Trees ripped out by their roots, fences down, few places have electricity. Traffic lights all out but people are driving nicely. Spent the afternoon cleaning up the yard along with the neighborhood. The linemen came by to assess the situation — say we might get power tonight but no promises. The neighbor lady baked them cookies.
Bleg
If anyone knows of any open pharmacies in or around the 77070 ZIP code, please email me at ikeonography@yahoo.com. Nothing critical, but we could stand to get a prescription filled. Many thanks in advance.
God’s funny sense of humor
8:20 CT. Nasty thunderstorm last night — more tree limbs down. We’re back under a flash flood watch.
Sep 13
Everything’s coming up Milhouse?
11:55 CT. Got a burst of email so it looks like T-Mobile is getting coverage back online. This is an excellent sign. Perhaps this blog post will make it out. Still no power and it’s humid as hell and in the upper 80s. Power is likely to be out for days, perhaps weeks. A couple of neighbors have generators which we can hear humming. Galveston is a wreck, as apparently is downtown. Cleanup will be massive. Ike wasn’t intense but instead massive. Few reports of looting or criminal behavior. Exiles on Runnells Street report they have power but most of Houston is in the dark. It will be a long haul back, but deaths are under 5. All good signs. Will cover this more in an oped in the New York Sun on Monday assuming I can get a column written on limited laptop juice and my Verizon wireless broadband service is working.
8:50 CT I’m ok. No lights, no cell service, a messy yard, but unscathed. Neighbor’s house had a tree fall on the roof. Few people out on the streets. Curfew still in effect. Will see what tomorrow brings.
County Judge Emmett speaks
7:55 CT Emmett’s statement, given on behalf of himself and Mayor White, was a list of facts and suggestions, a helpful contrast to Bush’s non-statement. Asking people to conserve water. Some of the major bayous (pronounced “buy-yo” in Houston) are still rising and flood warnings are in effect. Houston EMS is still not responding to calls. (I heard sirens near my house around 7.) Ike is speeding up and moving out, which is good in a city still tormented by memories of Tropical Storm Allison, which came to visit and took three days to leave. Asking people to restrict 911 calls to life threatening emergencies, and no guarantee they will be responded to. Closing line: “This afternoon we will be about the business of neighbors helping neighbors” recover from the storm. Should have added “Git ‘r done!”
