PORT BOLIVAR - If there's a ground zero for 's death and destruction, it's the Bolivar Peninsula, a low, thin spit of land that points like a finger from the Texas mainland out into Galveston Bay. Almost two months after Ike arrived pushing a 14-foot wall of water, the peninsula still looks like a fresh disaster, civil society still is knocked back on its heels.
But even on Bolivar, where meteorology, geography and blind fate conspired to produce the worst case, signs of progress are pushing up though the rubble like tenacious coastal plants.
County officials are issuing permits, and electricity is slowly being restored after hurricane's Sept. 13 landfall, and people who survived are recounting how they rode out the storm.
Robert Murphy, manager of a recreational vehicle park torn apart by water and wind-driven debris, said last week he was waiting on Entergy to reconnect power so the business could accommodate guests in a time where a severe housing shortage is the norm.
Murphy was among 11 people who braved Ike's wrath, taking shelter at Fort Travis' concrete bunker, which is protected from the Gulf by a 17-foot high seawall.
Murphy recalled the morning of Sept. 12. His dog started barking at 6 a.m., alerting him to the rising water. Murphy drove his RV to the fort, but there were too many cars parked on the higher elevations near the bunkers. He spent the night in his tiny, 1978, four-wheel, rusting motor home, waiting on the storm's 110-mph winds and surge of water.
"It rolled up on two wheels," Murphy said of the initial blast of wind. "About 12 o'clock the eye wall came across."
The wind was stronger on the second pass, Murphy said.
"The only reason my motor home survived was it was facing into the wind," Murphy said. "All the plates in the dish drainer were vibrating. The storm has a voice. It says: 'You fool. I'm fixing to kill you.'
"I should have been gone, but I survived in that rickety, worn-out motor home. It just wasn't my time to go."
Mike Ryan weathered the storm inside the fort. His North Jetty home lies in splinters about half a mile north of state Highway 87. Ryan said he spent thousands remodeling his bedroom.
"My furniture is all under the roof," Ryan said. "I keep saying I'm going to try to get to it with a chain saw."
Ryan said he was amazed at the force of the water, which rose 3 feet inside his aunt's house.
"My Aunt Peachy had stuff from her bedroom that wound up in her kitchen," Ryan said. "And the door was closed."
Ryan said he's sheltering at the work site of St. Mary Land and Exploration, a company working on oil and natural gas wells in the area.
Wayne Dupuis, a Youngsville, La., resident working with the exploration company, said he had to help those in need.
"I've fed quite a few people," Dupuis said. "I'm supposed to feed essential personnel only, but to me everybody was essential. I told them if they fired me for doing this, then I was working for the wrong company."
Dupuis said he's housed personnel from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, fire department and others on his barge equipped with living quarters that sleeps about 40 people.
Dupuis said the company made a significant donation to the volunteer fire department.
"We even had a party one Sunday night," Dupuis said. "The ladies said they were glad they had a reason to dress up and had some place to go."
