Ike is dead. This morning, the last warning was issued, but like many famous entities, Ike's influence lives on.Ike has left a Texas-sized disaster. Experts are estimating that total insured damage in Texas and Louisiana will be $10 billion. An additional $3.4 billion in damage was likely done in the Gulf of Mexico, due to wind and wave damage to oil platforms and the indirect loss of revenue attributable to reductions in oil and gas production.
According to Jeff Maters, there is a usual rule of thumb that total hurricane damages are double the insured damages, the price tag for Ike will be about $27 billion. That would make Ike the third costliest hurricane in history. Only Hurricane Katrina of 2005 and Hurricane Andrew of 1992 did more damage than Ike has.
We are all hoping that the low death toll numbers remain low, but rescue efforts are still underway, and of course when such a large portion of the population refuses to evacuate, it takes much longer to determine the whereabouts of these people afterwards as we learned in Katrina and Rita.
We awoke this morning to about what we expected...most structures and homes on the island of Galveston have been damaged by the storm, but are still standing and still intact.
Most of the island was covered by floodwaters, which are now receding.
The City is without power, water, and gas, and until all this is restored, folks are being asked to remain where they are.
The city's curfew has been extended indefinitely from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Galveston police and the National Guard are patrolling streets to offer aid and protect property.
City officials and staff are actively working on the island's recovery with the assistance of the State of Texas and FEMA.
At this point, re-entry is completely restricted to authorized personnel ONLY.
Officials expected that cell phone service would be restored sometime today.
Citizens presently located on the island are asked to consider evacuating.
Texas Task Force 1 is currently searching Galveston homes and structures. The teams will move across the island east to west. Search activities should be complete in the next 72 hours.
We did receive a report that there may be some damage to the Galveston Causeway and that inspections should be completed within 24 hours.
Over the last 24 hours we have been tracking severe weather in Arkansas, Illinois and most recently have been in touch with Team members in Ohio who have had a day of high winds, power outages and minor damage. Reports are that over 1.5 million people lost power between Kentucky and Ohio today.
