The Stupid, Filthy and Ignorant Struggle in Galveston

Galveston Area Remains Dangerous in Ike's Wake

22 Sep 08, from an AP article by Angla Brown and Gain Burdeau

ANAHUAC, Texas: Businesses were beginning to reopen, cell phone service was improving and power was coming back, but leaders warned that Galveston remains dangerous more than a week after Hurricane Ike's devastating assault.

Fuel and other essentials remained scarce and police will indefinitely enforce a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew once the island reopens Wednesday.

And it could be weeks or more before basic services are restored in all areas. Still, the island is far from deserted—at least 15,000 people ignored mandatory evacuation orders before and after the storm, and many of them were still there Sunday.

If you ignored the government evacuation order, then officially you have no claim whatsoever to any services. If you have to be rescued, you must pay for the service. If the government has to take any actions at all on your behalf--which it should, to protect your from yourself and others, given the clear indication that you don't have the intelligence to make competent decisions regarding your safety and unfortunately that of those who may be in your care--you must pay for that service. This is only fair to those of us who were paying attention and acted on the government's orders.

Wearing jeans and rubber boots, clutching Bibles and weeping between hymns, residents of the storm-shattered Texas coast comforted each other at makeshift church services. About 50 people came together on a basketball court outside the Oak Island Baptist Church, just south of Interstate 10 about a mile from the tip of Trinity Bay. They sat on folding chairs or simply stood, forced outdoors by the 1-inch layer of mud left inside the single-story red brick building by floodwaters that tossed pews like matchsticks.

What's god going to do for you now? Like he's going to help you now, give you some sort of strength and personal fortitude to withstand the strain of it all after he sent the storm to destroy your home and your church? Doesn't that make him out to be some sort of sick, twisted som'bitch, that he wreaks all of this havoc, and then sits there and watches you deal with it? Kind of like pulling legs off a bug, or cooking them with a magnifying glass, isn't it?

So read your Bible, the collected myths and legends of pre-antiquity codified by men in the centuries after Christ's death, and think your silly little thoughts about a supreme being who really does love you and think about you and care for you, and sends tornadoes and hurricanes and pedophile priests and genocide down to earth to show you just how much he thinks of you and the rest of us.

A demolished mobile home was still lodged among trees, many of them snapped by the storm's 110-mph winds that somehow left the church's trio of 20-foot white crosses still standing. Across the street, piles of debris had sprouted, proof of the labor undertaken since the storm blew through last weekend, and of the work yet to come.

Uh, I don't follow how sprouting debris--which I take to mean that grass/weeds are growing amid the junk--is any kind of proof of labor that's taken place. If anything, it's testament to the non-labor that's taken place, that the grass is growing in a spot where there should be none. If this was the author's intended meaning, they did not communicate it well.

"I know it's hard. Looking around, it's tough," the Rev. Eddie Shauberger told the congregants. "But there is a God, and he has a plan for our lives."

And this hurricane and what he has done to your lives is proof of what kind of plan? How exactly is a hurricane washing your home absolutely and compltely, totally away, so that there is nothing left of it but a busted-up concrete slab a sign that there is a god and that he has a plan? Is it just because you refuse to acknowledge the power of natural forces to create destruction on such a scale, that you just can't conceive of it? Is it that you need to attribute such randomness to some sort of intent, to anthropomorphize the storm so you can better understand your situation?

Rev, all you're doing is selling false hope. And you probably know it, too. So is god's plan something like, "I'm going to destroy all of your homes and kill a few dozen people, wreak billions of dollars in damage in a region still dealing with the last storms I threw at you, and I'll have all of it take place in the midst of the biggest financial crisis in the history of the world that I created, just because I have a plan for YOU." Uh, yeah, I'm sure that's exactly what it is. It's god toughening us up, because we're just not good enough. We're never really ever good enough, of course.

Similar services were being held on Galveston Island and throughout the Houston area, where power had been restored to enough residents that schools planned to hold classes Monday for the first time since the storm.

In Galveston, Bobby and Pamela Quiroga sought succor at a Mass set up in the historic Hotel Galvez. They went to their Roman Catholic church a week ago, the day after storm arrived, but it was closed.

"It's just good to be around people," Bobby Quiroga said. He added, letting his voice trail off, "When you feel a wave shake your house ...."

Yeah, Cooter, that's what Nature will do to you. It doesn't think, feel, or care, and it will go anywhere it wants to.

The newly married 42-year-olds were still trying to gather their senses eight days after watching their homes and businesses flooded by Ike's 12-foot surge.

"Fourteen steps, and we watched the water come up all the way up—even to the floor. Surreal," Quiroga said, his wife leaning on his shoulder.

Ah, so these two were among the selfish and/or idiotic crew who decided to ignore the government warnings and stay on the island. The weather services told you what was going to happen, and it did happen, just like they said it would.

She dabbed her swollen eyes with a hand towel and vowed never to live on the island again.
"When I fall asleep," she said, "I see the water rising."

Only now that it's happened do you look back and think of what might have been. Maybe a few years ago, after Katrina, or maybe Andrew or even going back to the 70s to Agnes, maybe then you could have taken the time to think about your situation, think about your vulnerability, think about your chances and then formulate a plan to mitigate your personal risk. You could have dealt with it then, on your schedule, taking the time to do it deliberately and correctly, but you didn't, and now all you've got is a grubby hand towel to dry your tiny, sick tears. Maybe you've got some respect for Nature now, eh?

Observances in the hardest-hit spots weren't overflowing with residents. Most of Galveston won't reopen until Wednesday.

But island leaders emphasized that Galveston would remain dangerous and parents were warned their children could be exposed to infections from storm debris and other hazards. Planes continued spraying the island to control mosquitoes. Officials urged those returning to wear masks to protect from mold and to properly dispose of spoiled food to stave off vermin.
Teams of cadaver dogs were still working their way through rubble and debris on Bolivar Peninsula, which suffered even heavier damage than Galveston. Evacuees from the peninsula will board dump trucks and other heavy vehicles this week to examine their homes, since the main road is impassible in many spots.

Authorities had blamed the storm for 26 deaths in Texas and 61 total in the U.S., including a utility contractor from Florida who was electrocuted Friday while trying to restore power in Louisville, Ky.

Power had been restored to most of the customers in Texas whose electricity was cut by Ike, though the state said about 875,000 remained in the dark Sunday.

Whether the power was coming through the wall or from a generator, people throughout the region watched the Houston Texans try to win one for the wretched back home.

Yeah, I'm sure those pretty-boy millionaires were thinking of all of the "wretched" back on home as they played in their overhyped and overcommercialized pageant on Sunday. Yeah, sure.

Maine Williams, a 49-year-old cotton warehouse worker, tuned in the football game with friends in Galveston on a portable TV they set up in an alley. The humidity, mosquitoes and flood muck that covered the neighborhood was made bearable thanks to the grilled hamburger meat, pig tails, cabbage and potatoes, along with the camaraderie and cold beer.

"It's like normal," Williams said, adding that he really wanted was to see his girlfriend and family who evacuated before the storm on buses.

Uh, eating barbecue among filth is like normal? Then that speaks to your existence before the storm, I guess. Or it speaks to your tolerance of adversity, which is good. Or it speaks to your tolerance for a shitty environment, which is not good.

"We're worried about our people," he said. "We want them to come home."

Come home to what, barbecue in a filth-slathered alley? I would have to think they're being better served wherever they are. Sure, you're missing each other, but wives and kids don't belong in this environment, clearly.

As for the game, which the Texans lost on the road to the Tennessee Titans, Williams wasn't too concerned with the outcome: "I'm a Dallas Cowboys man!"

What a trite and idiotic way to wind up this article about the stupid and ignorant. In the end, football is all that matters, right? It's Texas, after all.