News Release: Gene Straatmeyer – 2.12.09
Bolivar Peninsula Community Outreach (BPCO), now a partner with the Galveston County Restore and Rebuild Group (GCR2 or some say GCRR), is presently working on restoring a home on West Canal in Crystal Beach – the first of many others to come, we hope.
A work crew of 18 from Onida, Fort Pierre, and Britton, South Dakota, are being housed in High Island and will spend a week restoring the inside of the home.
Helping to make this work crew function at the local level is a grant from a Houston Foundation and administered by the United Methodist Church in Highland. It is designated for building materials needed so a credit line has been opened at Parker Lumber. The Rev. Marty Boddie and Gerry Lang have administered that fund and have already done so much good work using these funds combined with work crews in our Peninsula communities
As of today, the Bay Vue Methodists will be taking over the distribution of food and water at their parking lot. Also today, the last loads of food and water will be arriving. Since residents and workers have returned to the Peninsula, 54 semi-truck loads of food and water have been delivered, thanks to Gleanings of the Harvest in Galveston (Another partner of BPCO), headed by Mark Davis and the Houston Food Bank. Jack Haigh has been the liaison between BPCO and these two organizations and is the person responsible for arranging these "gifts" for those of us who live and work here. Larry Roden has worked diligently in meeting the trucks, helping them unload and signing for the food and water.
There will be government grants in the future for helping low-income families or persons who are slabbers. But that may be as far as a year down the road. BPCO will be involved and is already recruiting work crews of skilled carpenters and electricians to the Peninsula to erect these homes when the time comes.
Since I have been involved for years with Habitat for Humanity, BPCO has adopted their philosophy – we welcome any volunteers who believe they should be helping their neighbors, communities or fellow citizens and are willing to wield a hammer to help build or restore a house.
We are hoping that local contractors will help us in any way they can. Earlier this week a local builder lent us his trailer to haul drywall from Winnie since Parker's Lumber was out.
By Rosa Flores / 11 News
Feb. 4, 2009
BOLIVAR PENINSULA, Texas—Four months after Hurricane Ike hit the Gulf Coast, much of the Bolivar Peninsula still looks devastated. Volunteer and county cleanup crews have been working around the clock, but the debris is everywhere. Many of the residents are still without running water, and all the people living on the peninsula are under a boil water order. A large part of the community was wiped out by Ike.Some people have not returned to their homes, so many neighborhoods are empty. But there are signs of hope.
Crenshaw Elementary and Middle School reopens on Wednesday. The school building did not receive any damage.In fact, it served as a command post after the hurricane hit.Student registration opened two weeks ago, and about 70 students are expected to make the first day of class
Galveston ISD received thousands of pounds of food and water from the Houston Food Bank for the first day of school. Pallets of food and water sit next to the pilings of the school.Parents who drop off their children to school will receive food and snacks.Children will also get take-home snacks after classes dismiss for the day. The school will be operating with half its faculty, but as the number of students grows, so will the number of faculty teaching in the classroom.
http://www.txcn.com/sharedcontent/dws/txcn/houston/stories/khou090204_tnt_crenshaw-elementary.1a572e86.html
By Jessica Willey
BOLIVAR, TX (KTRK) --
Some big steps are being taken in the road to recovery over the past few days on Bolivar Peninsula. The area has been without so many basics since Hurricane Ike made landfall that any little step turns into a big one.
The ferry ride to the Bolivar Peninsula is still a picture-taking opportunity, but what you find once you arrive may not be a good picture. The view heading east on Highway 87 since Hurricane Ike ravaged this part of Galveston County is still not very welcoming, but there is progress in the form of a working ATM and gas pump.
Swede's Grocery, the first store to re-open since the hurricane, is fully stocked. Bread, milk and beer are the only items Abdul Malik can get delivered. For the other items, he drives to Houston daily to buy them.
He lives next door in a trailer while his wife and children live in Sugar Land. Like any good businessman, he hopes the sacrifice pays off. "This is a good opportunity to say to people I'm here to help you. When they start coming back, they need to come back to me," said Malik. And it's working. The store is almost never empty."We'd have to go all the way to Winnie or Beaumont and that's far for us, especially if you have kids," said resident Susan Campbell.
There are other signs of progress. While water and electric services have been restored for months, the phone service has just returned and the peninsula is teeming with contractors.
While some people have come back, many people haven't and the problem is all their debris that remains. County officials will soon start asking property owners for permission to go on their property to just remove it themselves. The debris is hard to get away from, with many structures still sitting in shambles.Acie Henigan and his wife and friends aren't bothered by it. They still make the drive from east Texas almost weekly to be at their fishing camp. With tools laid out, it's obvious the trips are a little different nowadays. "We come down here to work now. We used to come down here to have fun," said Henigan. The key is that they still come.
And Abdul Malik promises even more progress very soon. "Not slowly, it's coming back very aggressively," he said. County officials do not have a good number of how many people are living on the peninsula now and whether they are returning residents or just contractors working.
We may see more people return quickly as Galveston ISD plans to re-open Crenshaw Elementary and Middle School next week. It's another giant step forward in the road to recovery.
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http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=6632446