Thanks for Nothing, Texans Say

Sitting on a sheet of fresh plywood atop a newly rebuilt roof, Joaquin Rojas thanked the heavens for all the help he was receiving to repair his El Buen Pastor church after Hurricane Rita.

The pastor was not praising the generosity of President Bush and other Washington politicians.

Rather, he was expressing gratitude that good-hearted fellow Christians from Michigan traveled to Texas and volunteered to piece his broken church back together.

“What’s happening here is because of other churches, not because of the government,” Rojas said in Spanish. “Those missionaries from Michigan, I thank the Lord for them.”

Six months after Hurricane Rita delivered a second wallop to a Gulf Coast region already socked by Hurricane Katrina, life is slowly but surely returning to normal in the blue-collar oil and gas towns of southeastern Texas, where more than 70,000 houses were damaged or destroyed by 120-mph winds.

But even here in the president’s home state, in a region densely populated by energy and petrochemical industries with warm ties to the White House, consensus is that progress is being made in spite of the federal government, not because of it. Dissatisfaction with what is seen as a heartless Bush administration recovery effort is widespread.

“We need some compassionate conservatism,” said Mark Viator, a chemical company official who is chairman of the Southeast Texas Recovery Coalition, a group of area leaders that has been lobbying Washington for assistance.

Some Texas officials are convinced the state has become a victim of hurricane politics, and said White House officials might be neglecting Texas for fear that helping the state would raise accusations of favoritism.

Others complain that Republicans in Congress and in the Bush administration, many of them Texans, have taken a rigid ideological stand against compensating hurricane losses not covered by insurance, including millions that utilities have spent to restore basic water and electricity.

“Make no mistake about it: They don’t care about you, and they don’t care about what is happening in our communities,” said Chester R. Jourdan Jr., executive director of the Southeast Texas Regional Planning Commission. Jourdan made his comments at a public meeting last week less than two hours after returning from a fruitless lobbying trip to the nation’s capital.

“This went on deaf ears in D.C., deaf ears. One of the biggest challenges we have is the administration,” he said.

Federal officials counter that the truth is more mundane: Compared with the calamity Katrina caused in Mississippi and Louisiana, Rita’s toll on Texas is smaller and commands less attention, especially because the state is well on the road to recovery.

“I don’t think the perception of being an afterthought is really true,” said Dianne Coghlan, the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s senior official in southeast Texas. “I hate to compare it to other states, but if you look at what we have done here, we have clearly made major strides.”

Many in Texas are particularly upset by the lack of federal funding flowing into the Lone Star State compared with Louisiana and Mississippi.

Texas politicians note that just across the state line, parts of rural Louisiana also hit hard by Rita have received more money.

And Texas officials say that a state that opened its doors to half a million hurricane evacuees from Louisiana and Mississippi -- and is still housing more than 400,000 -- should be better reimbursed for its effort.

Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) recently angered Texas officials when he said that Texas was not entitled to repayment for merely “being a good neighbor.”

His words apparently represented the feeling of many on Capitol Hill. A recent request for $2 billion in aid by Texas’ governor, Republican Rick Perry, is going nowhere, according to some of its backers.

“I know the administration has a tremendous burden responding to the enormity of this disaster, and everyone acknowledges that Louisiana and Mississippi took the worst hit. But I think what is happening in Texas is not fair,” said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), one of the most aggressive supporters of the state’s case.

“The administration acknowledges we are getting $4,000 per pupil when it costs $6,000 to $7,000 to educate a child. It’s just frustrating that we have not been able to get across the point that this is a new kind of crisis,” she said.

While Texas politicians continue to complain about aid and reimbursement, FEMA officials rattle off statistics to show that Texas has made progress more quickly than other hurricane-damaged states.

Rita’s winds reportedly felled 25% of trees in some heavily wooded parts of eastern Texas. But 99% of the debris has been cleaned up.

Of the 4,500 Texans who requested temporary trailers, 3,880 have received them. Blue tarps have been installed on 21,000 damaged homes. The federal Small Business Administration has provided Texans with $157 million in loans, and FEMA has spent close to $500 million assisting individuals.

In contrast to much of Louisiana, FEMA officials contend, Texas has advanced from the initial crisis stage of hurricane relief since the storm made landfall near the Sabine Pass on Sept. 24, and the state is on the path to long-term recovery.

Some residents agree. “Things are almost back to normal. I see business bouncing back,” said Carlton Jackson, a 41-year-old construction worker, as he loaded some pipes into his truck last week to finish repairs on his home in Beaumont.

Yet local officials report sluggish progress. They express concerns that long-term housing shortages and high electricity bills from utilities looking to recoup hurricane costs could cripple a Texas Gulf Coast region that accounts for about a quarter of the nation’s oil refining capacity.

“We are strategically very important to this country,” said Everett “Bo” Alfred, a commissioner in Jefferson County, an area of 250,000 people that includes the city of Beaumont. “You think gasoline prices are high now? Just wait to see what happens if we get hit with another hurricane. We’ve been depleted.”

Joe Hopkins, mayor of Vidor, is still recovering from broken ribs he suffered when he tumbled out of a tree that had fallen on a constituent’s home.

The Fire Department serving this community of 11,000, which is home to many refinery employees, is still working out of temporary buildings resembling Quonset huts across the street from City Hall.

“We have an opportunity for people to get back to work. I’d say 80% of businesses have help-wanted [advertisements], but we don’t have places for people to stay,” Hopkins said. “Our grandchildren are going to be paying for this.”

At the El Buen Pastor church in Port Arthur, Rojas maintains a more positive outlook. He and most of his 120 parishioners evacuated en masse to San Antonio when Rita roared toward Texas’ coast. They returned days later to find the church soaked in water, its roof torn off.

Damage was extensive, but the church is close to being repaired because of the largesse of volunteer workers.

Rojas, 51, said he received $2,000 from FEMA immediately after the storm, and was grateful for it. But he said he understood that the real rebuilding assistance would have to come from the religious community, not the government.

“The government is the government,” said Dina Lozano, Rojas’ sister-in-law. From his newly rebuilt rooftop, Rojas sipped bottled water and nodded in agreement.