Home away from home

a 

Stairs lead to the second floor of a home and then to a deck on the third floor.

The home itself was last seen shortly before Hurricane Ike slammed ashore on the Bolivar Peninsula in Texas.

In the foreground, not even the pilings remain of a home that was washed away. On the other hand, the slab is still there for the parking area under the house. Many homes even had the slabs washed away on the finger of land facing the Gulf just southeast of Houston.

In the background, two homes remain standing, though most homes on the island that withstood the fury of the massive 400-mile-wide beast still have to be gutted to return them to a livable condition.

--steve buser

Gustav's angry seas, frothing sky

 
Who would have ever thought that if you went more than 200 miles from where a hurricane hit, you would be lashed with tropical storm force winds. Angry seas and frothing skies threatened us for two days in Perdido Key, Florida, where we evacuated from Hurricane Gustav. Gustav, for his part,  was zooming toward New Orleans at the end of August.


--steve buser

Hurricane Gustav gone, getting back to normal

 
An elderly lady gets escorted on to a evacuation bus last week by a photographer, while a National Guardsman helps with her pet. The thousands who took advantage of the city-provided evacuation by bus and train are now returning home. New Orleans and the region are fighting their way back to normalcy.


Electric companies are reporting that this weekend will be a point by which vast numbers of customers will have had their electricity restored. In this storm, damage to electric infrastructure is the biggest impediment to getting things back to normal and getting people back home.


The state still fights damage and weather worries to the south of New Orleans and up in the northern part of the state. Gustav still is messing up daily life for the folks up Michigan way.


I think many people across the country fail to realize that hurricanes are a threat both to the shore line of the Gulf Coast and Atlantic states, but also to interior states when they unwind and spill the billions of tons of water they have stored and continue to suck from the Gulf.


- steve buser