Latest Galveston, Texas Stories

By Donna Leinwand Texas hospitals slammed as post-hurricane conditions deteriorate HOUSTON -- A 30-year-old man falls 25 feet from a cherry picker, smacking his head and breaking his leg so badly that bone pokes through his thigh. A trauma team at Texas Medical Center's Memorial Hermann Hospital crowds around him. Nearby, a trauma team prepares for a patient arriving by helicopter who was hit in the head by a falling tree. It is noon Thursday, five days after Hurricane Ike....

GALVESTON, Texas - Hurricane Ike has killed 47 people since hitting the Gulf Coast over the weekend, officials said Tuesday as President Bush surveyed the damage by helicopter and urged Americans to donate money to victims. The massive storm stranded more than 30,000 evacuees in shelters and left about 2 million Texans without power. The storm earlier claimed more than 80 lives in the Caribbean. Areas such as the resort barrier island of Bolivar Peninsula, just east of Galveston,...

By JON GAMBRELL By Jon Gambrell The Associated Press GALVESTON, Texas Residents of this hurricane-wrecked island city launched an ill- advised attempt to return to their crippled hometown Wednesday but instead fumed in hours of gridlocked traffic only to be turned away at the bridge. Traffic backed up for 20 miles along Interstate 45, the one route onto Galveston Island, jockeying for position with utility workers, repair crews and police trying to begin repairs to the city wrecked by...

By Jon Gambrell Associated Press GALVESTON, Texas -- Residents trying to get back to this hurricane-ravaged city Wednesday spent hours fuming in gridlocked traffic, only to be turned away at the bridge by officials worried that the crippled island can't accommodate that many people. Traffic backed up for 20 miles along I-45, the one route onto Galveston Island, with residents jockeying for position with utility workers, repair crews and police trying to begin repairs to the city wrecked by...

By James C. McKinley Jr. Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting from Houston, and Thayer Evans from Galveston, Texas. * An army of line crews from 31 states has converged on eastern Texas to help deal with the largest power failure in this large state's history. Officials say they fear it could take weeks to restore power in some places, like Galveston and the towns near the Louisiana border, because Hurricane Ike knocked out major transmission lines, substations have been swamped,...

Thousands of victims of Hurricane Ike settled in at shelters for what could be weeks, and others waited wearily in line for food, water, ice and gasoline yesterday. It became increasingly clear the disaster along the Texas coast would be measured not by its death toll but by the misery it spread. Almost three days after the storm steamrolled the coast, the extent of the damage still was coming into focus, with rescue teams finally reaching some of the hardest- hit and most inaccessible...

Some areas of Texas hit by Hurricane Ike may be without electricity for several weeks, utility officials said. Meanwhile, city officials in hard-hit Galveston, Texas, suspended their look-and-leave policy that allowed residents to return to check on their homes, The Galveston County Daily News reported CenterPoint Energy officials said up to half of its customers in Houston and surrounding areas may be without power for up to a week, the Houston Chronicle reported Wednesday. The company said...

By Juana Long Associated Press GALVESTON, Texas -- The few hundred holdouts on Texas' ravaged Bolivar Peninsula will be required to leave in the next few days, and officials said Tuesday they are ready to use emergency powers to empty the barrier island scraped clean by Hurricane Ike. Judge Jim Yarbrough, the top elected official in Galveston County, said the roughly 250 people who defied warnings they would be killed if they rode out the storm in the rural coastal community are a "hardy...

By James C. McKinley Jr. Cornelia Dean and Thayer Evans contributed reporting from Galveston, Texas, Staci Semrad from Austin, Texas, and Rachel Mosteller from Houston. * The U.S. government has started distributing tons of food and water to residents across southeast Texas, with long lines forming as those who tried to cope without electrical power search for basic necessities. Aerial surveys showed Monday that Hurricane Ike had destroyed most of the houses on Bolivar Peninsula, where...

Some Texas officials say there will be second thoughts about rebuilding along the coastline where Hurricane Ike came ashore. The hurricane battered homes and businesses in areas where state officials had earlier proposed limiting construction to prevent beach erosion. The Houston Chronicle said Tuesday that while coastal communities have vigorously opposed restrictions, the damage done by Ike has reinvigorated the debate. "We now have a graphic example of why you should build as far away...