Hurricane Ike destroys some homes, leaves others unscathed

LA MARQUE, TEXAS — Hurricane Ike swallowed Dawn Demers' four-bedroom home so completely that she couldn't even see her rooftop as she stood marooned on a bridge, staring at brown floodwaters and trying not to weep.

Just down the highway, Ike somehow spared Gary Jenkins' ramshackle trailer, chewing up a few tree limbs but leaving Jenkins unharmed as he sat listening to radio bulletins in his pajama bottoms Saturday morning.

The worst hurricane to hit the Texas coast in recent memory was capricious, destroying some homes and lives while leaving others blessedly untouched. Here in bayou country on the sodden northwest rim of Galveston Bay, no one could explain how staying in a mandatory evacuation zone paid off for some but ruined others.

The storm that howled across Galveston Bay in the early Saturday blackness left J.J. Cuellar's home underwater in Freddiesville, yet barely touched his mother's home here in La Marque a few miles away. Ferocious winds and a biting storm surge pounded Richard Berg's three-bedroom frame house in San Leon but merely flipped a few shingles from the roof of Charles Ray's cozy white house in adjoining Texas City.

"Nobody knows why a hurricane acts the way it does," Jenkins said, marveling that his blue trailer held fast through Ike as he rode out the storm while "holding on to my rear end for dear life."

Jenkins, 55, an oil field worker, seemed an oasis of tranquillity in a sea of misfortune, with his baseball cap, beach shoes and sleeveless T-shirt with a message that read "Bump and Grind, Redneck Style." He declared that he never considered obeying evacuation orders, having survived previous hurricanes.

"I stayed put, and so did my trailer," Jenkins said.

Galveston County, which includes the low bayou towns as well as the city and island of Galveston, was a patchwork of survival and destruction Saturday. Galveston, which was closed off by police Saturday, suffered massive flooding and wind damage, squeezed by floodwaters from the bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Rescuers searched for residents who had defied evacuation orders, only to be cut off by water.

Northwest of the bay, some areas were badly flooded while others stayed relatively dry. Many homes were barely nicked by Ike, while others were inundated, had roofs ripped off or were crushed by felled trees.

Many roads disappeared beneath murky floodwaters. In Dickinson Bayou, fishing boats and pleasure boats lay in a tangled heap on a flooded roadside, flanked by submerged cars and trailers.