Weather Signs

HOUSTON — Rescue crews pulled out of Galveston and the death toll climbed to 51 Wednesday as a broad swath of the country from the Gulf Coast to the upper Midwest reeled from the aftereffects of Hurricane Ike. Thousands remained on the island of Galveston despite authorities' urging them to leave, and thousands more choked an interstate leading in. The backlog of traffic frustrated transportation officials, who pointed out that among those idling in the choked interstate were emergency crews and trucks hauling resources badly needed on the island. In Houston, residents again waited in line for hours Wednesday at two dozen supply distribution centers for food, water and ice. Mayor Bill White complained FEMA wasn't bringing in the supplies fast enough. FEMA officials in Houston said they were refining glitches in the relief effort and delivering millions of meals and water every 24 hours.

HOUSTON — The Texas public health commission has warned of a public health crisis if post-hurricane conditions persist. The University of Texas Medical Branch, a major hospital with a trauma center in Galveston, is closed because of water and wind damage. Health officials already are seeing a flood of hurricane-related injuries and illnesses. Starting Wednesday, paramedics were told to bring the least critical patients a few blocks away to an engineering building at Rice University, where the federal government's Disaster Medical Assistance Teams (DMAT) set up a mobile medical unit. Another disaster medical team that has worked in the Galveston hospital's emergency room since Sunday treated 650 patients by Thursday night. About 60% were flown out by helicopter. "People who stayed during the storm are coming on foot, by bicycle," says Michael Purcaro of the Connecticut-based medical team that, along with an Iowa team, is staffing the Galveston DMAT. The bacteria in the flood zone has had time to incubate, says UTMB president David Callender. "There is no running water, no sewage process, no natural gas to cook food, food is spoiled, there's all this debris," he says. "We're moving into a high-risk phase."

GALVESTON, Texas (AP) — Hundreds of people whose beachfront homes were wrecked by Hurricane Ike may be barred from rebuilding under a little-noticed Texas law. And even those whose houses were spared could end up seeing them condemned by the state. Now here's the saltwater in the wound: It could be a year before the state tells these homeowners what they may or may not do. Worse, if these homeowners do lose their beachfront property, they may get nothing in compensation from the state. The reason: A 1959 law known as the Texas Open Beaches Act. Under the law, the strip of beach between the average high-tide line and the average low-tide line is considered public property, and it is illegal to build anything there.

BREEDSVILLE, Mich. (AP) — Part of a dam in Van Buren County has given way to rising waters as rivers remain above flood stage across much of southern Michigan. Heavy rains that included remnants of Hurricane Ike have caused flooding in wide areas of the state.

OneNewsNow reports that many Haitians have been fending for themselves since Ike struck more than a week ago, struggling without airborne assistantce. Many low-lying areas were already flooded from previous tropical storms, and Ike exacerbated conditions to life-threatening levels. Mission Aviation Fellowship reports that some landing trips are under water. Will White, a pilot with MAF, said, "What little infrastructure in the roads that were here [such as] bridges are now washed out....they were bad roads to start with and now they're just destroyed," he shares. "The government is very limited in what they can do. Right now the relief effort is from the international community."