FW: NYTimes

-----Original Message-----
From: Oland, Kristen
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2001 2:24 PM
To: Cherry, Beth; Lindner, Fred; Landry, Ashley
Subject: FW: NYTimes
Houston Totals Damage and Casualties From Tropical Storm
By ROSS E. MILLOY
HOUSTON, June 10 - As storm-weary residents emerged from their waterlogged
homes here today, they faced highways littered with jack- knifed 18-wheeled
trucks, roads lined with abandoned cars, trash and tires and whole
neighborhoods underwater.
Tropical Storm Allison, which caught just about everyone off guard when it
struck with renewed strength on Friday and early Saturday, hammered
southeast Texas for nearly a week, leaving at least 15 people dead and about
10,000 homes and 5,000 buildings damaged. One person also died in Louisiana
as a result of the storm.
With the threat of rain easing today in Texas, Gov. Rick Perry toured the
area by helicopter with Mayor Lee P. Brown and officials from the Federal
Emergency Management Administration. Mayor Brown has estimated that at least
5,000 buildings in Houston were damaged by water, with losses perhaps
reaching $1 billion.
In light of the storm's devastation, President Bush has declared Harris
County and 27 other southeast Texas counties a federal disaster area,
eligible for loans to local governments and individuals.
"We're still assessing just how much damage we've got, and it may be some
time before we've got an accurate count," said Paul Bettencourt, the Harris
County tax assessor who estimated that 10,000 homes had been damaged. "Many
areas are still flooded and we haven't been able to get into them yet."
At the world's largest medical facility, the Texas Medical Center near
downtown - a complex of more than a dozen hospitals and research
laboratories - dozens of volunteers worked furiously today to unload crates
of dry ice to cool laboratory specimens put at risk by power failures over
the weekend.
Claire Bassett, a vice president at the Baylor College of Medicine, said
thousands of laboratory animals, mainly rats and mice, had been killed when
storm waters flooded their facilities overnight Friday.
"We won't know just how bad the loss is until we can get in there, but we're
estimating the losses of lab animals throughout the Texas Medical Center at
several thousand," Ms. Bassett said. But worse, she said, was the loss of
scientific research and specimens flooded or destroyed when the power
failed.
One of those most affected by the loss was Dr. Bonnie Dunbar, a professor of
molecular and cellular biology at the college, who said she lost more than
20 years worth of laboratory specimens and clones. "It's all gone, more than
20 years of work, and there are hundreds of other like me," Dr. Dunbar said.
"We've lost meticulous research, doctoral theses, experiment records,
biological samples, all gone."
Dr. Dunbar, who was to have left for Kenya on Monday as part of a Fulbright
scholarship program to perform pediatric H.I.V. research in Africa, has also
been displaced from her home: the rains knocked out power and telephones in
her 40-story apartment building, and she has been forced to move.
In the hard-hit northeastern part of the city, more than 3,300 people took
refuge on Saturday night in the Lakewood Church, which eventually became the
largest refugee center of more than 30 across the city.
"People just started coming and kept on coming because they had no place
else to go," the church's pastor, the Rev. Joel Osteen, said. "Eventually,
city workers started dropping people off here in dump trucks because they
were the only vehicles that could get through the water."
Short of food by Saturday morning, Mr. Osteen recruited two brothers- in-law
with Chevy Suburbans and a family friend for a visit to Sam's Discount Club,
where they spent $3,000 on ingredients for sandwiches.
"Every time we returned with a load of food, the crowd of people would have
gotten larger and we'd have to go make another trip," he said.
But by today, the local news media had reported about food shortages at the
church, and area residents bearing food, diapers, clothing and bottled water
created a traffic jam in the streets outside the church.
Signs of the flooding were apparent in the neighborhoods of the Lakewood
area, with soaked carpets, furniture and clothing strewn in dozens of muddy
yards.
In addition to the staggering job of cleaning up after the flood, there was
also the burden of mourning, as details of the deaths the city sustained
over the weekend emerged.
One couple, walking along the banks of White Oak Bayou, were swept away by a
rapidly rising torrent, their bodies later found in the branches of nearby
trees.
A man trying to save a television set was electrocuted when he reached for
its antenna; his mother also was electrocuted as she tried to help him.
At least five drivers died after being caught by high water in their
vehicles.
But one of the most shocking accounts was the death of Kristie Lee
Tautenhahn, 42, a clerk at a downtown law firm. Warned that vehicles in the
Bank of America building's underground garage should be moved to higher
ground, she took an elevator down to get her car from the fourth level of
the garage early Saturday morning.
At the third level, water flooded into the elevator, shutting off power, and
Ms. Tautenhahn drowned there, alone.
"To die in an elevator is just tragic," John Tautenhahn, her cousin, told
The Houston Chronicle. "This is just devastating."
Much of downtown remained crippled today, without power or working
telephones. Parts of the dozen miles of tunnels beneath the city, built to
help downtown office workers escape the summer heat and filled with food
courts and stores, were flooded.
At the Harris County Jail, which is adjacent to Buffalo Bayou, 3,000 inmates
had to be moved to other facilities when the floods knocked out electricity
and water.
Continental Airlines, based in Houston, resumed flights today after
canceling more than 1,000 flights on Saturday.
And all across the city, as the sun finally poked through still-cloudy
skies, residents shared stories of what they are calling the "Great Flood of
2001."
Jennifer Brazzel, an artist and interior designer, was stranded when she
tried to drive her Toyota 4-Runner five miles to a friend's house on Friday
night. Her car flooded just off Rice University's campus and a block from
the Rice Village Shopping Center.
"I was trying to drive to my friend's house and all of a sudden Rice
Boulevard was like a river," Ms. Brazzel said. "Water was over my dash."
Ms. Brazzel managed to get the car door open, and fought her way to higher
ground, although the current knocked her down several times along the way.
The sun had risen before she got home.
Linda Gomez's husband was moving cars to higher ground when Ms. Gomez heard
a noise in the backyard and saw water bursting from a manhole cover. When
she went to investigate in the dark, she slipped into the hole. The water
was only a foot deep but the lid was stuck and the current was strong. She
was treated for bruises and scrapes at a hospital on Friday.
"When I got home the water was starting to rise," she said. She disconnected
electrical appliances and began to move furniture higher, but by 10:30 that
night the water had started coming into the house.
"By then it was too late," Ms. Gomez said. "The water came into the house so
fast. We were trying to get things up. There was no way to get out."
As the water continued to rise in the one-story house, to an eventual height
of almost five feet, they moved to the attic.
"Neighbors were screaming on both sides," Ms. Gomez said. "The homeless men
who sleep in the park across the street were screaming for help. I told my
husband we have to figure out a way to make a hole in the roof."
She eventually reached her son, who works with the Sheriff's Department, by
cell phone. "I told him I don't think we'll make it out of here," Ms. Gomez
said.
About 8 a.m. Saturday, a Houston Fire Department boat evacuated Ms. Gomez
and her family.
Today, they returned to find their home filled with mud and debris. As she
surveyed the damage, Ms. Gomez said: "I was raised in this house. I'm 54
years old. And I've never seen anything like this."
Christina Grosu
Shell Global Solutions [U.S.]
Fluid Flow & Flow Assurance - Project Analyst
ext-48116