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Texans mired in Ike’s aftermath

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Times Staff Writers

Weary residents of the Texas coast foraged Sunday for water, ice, generators and gasoline as rescuers continued to save people trapped by widespread floodwaters a day after Hurricane Ike flooded roads, destroyed homes and businesses, and knocked out power to nearly 4 million people.

Under drenching morning rain that submerged more roads and underscored a mood of misery and frustration, emergency officials tried to unsnarl a last-minute snag that delayed deliveries of U.S. government food, water and ice to several million people struggling to cope. Federal officials blamed state leaders for abruptly changing distribution plans Sunday morning.

The number of people rescued along the coast rose to nearly 2,000, many of them from hard-hit Galveston and Bolivar, barrier islands south of Houston. Rescuers vowed to go door-to-door to find holdouts who refused to obey evacuation orders.

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The rescue effort, involving 50 helicopters and 1,500 searchers, is the largest in the state’s history.

Utility companies delivered the sobering news that restoration of power could take up to a month.

Nearly 4 million people were without electricity in Texas and Louisiana, according to utility officials. Crews managed to restore power to several neighborhoods in and around Houston.

About 2,000 holdouts in Galveston, given the opportunity to evacuate their storm-tossed homes, agreed to board buses for shelters in San Antonio and Austin. City officials estimate that about 40% of the island’s 57,000 residents stayed in their homes during the hurricane.

Three bodies were recovered in Galveston on Sunday, one of them from a submerged car, but local officials refused to provide details. That brought the number of deaths attributed to Ike in Texas to at least seven -- five in Galveston. A total of 21 deaths in nine states have been blamed on the storm, according to an Associated Press tally.

Federal officials said the hurricane destroyed as many as 10 oil production platforms, adding to pressure on gasoline prices in the face of a temporary shutdown of much of the oil and gas industry along the Gulf Coast because of the storm.

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Houston police, concerned about potential looting, put the nation’s fourth-largest city under a weeklong nighttime curfew.

In Houston and its suburbs, people who rode out the storm emerged from their soggy homes to jam Wal-Marts and home improvement stores such as Lowe’s, standing in long lines that wound into flooded parking lots.

Some of the more than 1 million people who evacuated began trying to return home, straining resources already in short supply.

All of it -- the sweaty waits in line, the flooded interstates, the rampant mosquitoes, the desperate search for life’s basic necessities -- fueled a growing sense of frustration among ordinary residents and elected officials alike.

Residents peppered radio and TV news programs with angry calls about price gouging at gasoline stations and food stores, low water pressure and a delay by emergency authorities in distributing food, water and ice.

At the same time, elected officials took to the airwaves to warn those who evacuated not to try to return home. “Do not come back to Galveston. You cannot live here right now,” Galveston Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas pleaded with residents desperate to return to the closed-off island.

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The chief executive of Harris County, Judge Ed Emmett, begged residents to stay off Houston’s roads, where two interstates intersecting downtown were closed.

“It’s a very dangerous situation out there,” Emmett said after he and Houston Mayor Bill White had to cut short a driving tour of the city because of flooding.

Emmett and White warned the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Sunday morning that it would be “held accountable” if it did not deliver emergency supplies as promised.

The agency was roundly criticized for bungling the emergency response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Through gritted teeth, White said: “We expect FEMA to honor our request and their commitments. . . . If all these supplies don’t materialize, they’ll get low marks.”

But federal officials said state authorities suddenly changed plans Sunday morning and asked the federal government take over distribution of supplies after earlier promising to take care of that task themselves.

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“An unanticipated glitch” is how Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff described it during a news conference in Houston attended by White and Emmett.

“The original understanding was that we would pre-position supplies around the state,” Chertoff said. “The arrangement was that we’d bring it to a distribution point, then the state would take the supplies and move them from these distribution points, and move them to other points of distribution” on the local level.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who was touring the region by helicopter, could not be reached for comment to explain the shift.

A FEMA spokesman, Marty Bahamonde, assured residents that the agency had 5 million liters of water and 5 million ready-to-eat meals stockpiled in Texas and ready for delivery. But trucks carrying the supplies were held up by roads blocked by floodwaters or storm debris, he said.

FEMA supplies reached Galveston and were distributed to residents, Bahamonde said.

But according to U.S. Rep. John Culberson, a Republican who represents parts of Houston and Harris County, rescue crews and first-responders ran out of food and water at a staging area in Houston while waiting to be sent to the coast.

“FEMA needs to take care of their business,” Culberson said, then added: “We’re going to find out who fouled up -- the state or FEMA.”

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“It’s just outrageous” no matter who was responsible, Culberson said. “I think it’s inexcusable.”

The quest for food threatened to overwhelm supermarkets, convenience stores and drugstores that reopened in parts of Houston and its suburbs.

At a Walgreens pharmacy, Heather Harris, 24, clutched a basket full of Starbucks coffee and strawberry-flavored breakfast bars while searching for other supplies.

“It’s enough to feed me for at least a few more days,” Harris said. “Right now, we’re all planning our futures a meal at a time.”

There wasn’t much to choose from: There were two pints of milk and a single carton of eggs left on the otherwise barren shelves.

Harris considered grabbing them but delayed too long. A man shoved the second-grade teacher aside and, with a glare, snatched up the milk and eggs.

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Across the city and its suburbs, drivers crept along roadways, searching for open gas stations.

Adding to the congestion were returning evacuees desperate to check on their houses. Many have been unable to return home because of roads clogged with debris or water. Some have run out of gasoline on highways or had their cars mired in water along low-lying roads.

“We’ve had people on the highways pull up to the floodwaters, then make a U-turn and drive backward” into oncoming traffic, Emmett said. “We keep telling people to stay where they are, but they’re not listening.”

More than 500 National Guard troops arrived in Houston and southeast Texas on Sunday to help control traffic and maintain calm on the streets.

In Orange, just west of the Texas-Louisiana border, water rose so fast that residents fled to their attics and rooftops to escape and city officials scrambled to use trucks and other heavy vehicles to carry them to safety.

Wayne Garsee, 65, a retired electrician who lives outside Orange, said he and most of his neighbors fled late last month when Hurricane Gustav was on the way. “That was a whole lot of nothing,” Garsee said.

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As a result, he said, “we didn’t think Ike would affect us. By the time we figured out it was coming toward us, it was really late.”

Garsee fled to a neighbor’s farm. He returned to a town that’s several feet underwater and a downtown that requires a boat to navigate through most streets.

Garsee drove across the border to Louisiana to fill up, get fuel for his generator and food for himself and his dog.

“I burned some gas getting there and getting back. But at least I have some now,” he said.

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david.zucchino@latimes.com

p.j.huffstutter@latimes.com

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