Weather Signs

HOUSTON — More than half a million children in the nation's fourth-largest city and on the Texas Gulf CoastHouston — the biggest school district in Texas — and all of the Galveston schools remained closed Friday, September 26^th. Most Houston schools will reopen on Monday. Officials have been drying soggy carpets and wall maps and airing out moldy library books. Fallen trees are being removed and the fences around schoolyards repaired. While a few Galveston schools will open next week, many are serving as shelters for people made homeless by the storm, while others are too damaged to use any time soon. have been out of school since the Sept. 13 storm (Ike) brought life to a standstill. About 20% of schools in

WINNIE, Texas (AP) — Bolivar residents crowded onto the only roadway into the peninsula on Friday. They were allowed to check out the massive wreckage left behind after Hurricane Ike roared through this thin strip of land along the Gulf of Mexico. The peninsula's 4,000 or so residents were allowed back on a "look and leave" policy. Officials said the area is not safe to live in because of a lack of water and utilities as well as dangers from snakes and alligators. Terrie Robbins expected to find storm damage when she and other residents were allowed to return home on Bolivar Peninsula for the first time Friday since fleeing Hurricane Ike. But she didn't expect to find her home more than 500 feet from its concrete foundation, dumped next to a bar across the main highway that runs through the peninsula. She said she was lucky. Her parents, who live two streets away, weren't even able to locate their home. "We survived (Hurricanes) Carla and Alicia. Just not Ike. Ike was more powerful," said Robbins' sister, Kellie Collins.

ATLANTA — A storm-related gas shortage in the Southeast that has left some places bone-dry and others with two-hour gas lines is expected to continue for at least another two weeks, energy experts and industry officials say. The shortage began two weeks after Hurricane Gustav hit the oil-refining regions of the Gulf Coast on Sept. 1. Operations that shut down before that storm were just coming back online when Hurricane Ike hit, forcing another shutdown. The gas shortage, now in its third week, is particularly acute here in sprawling Atlanta, in Nashville in parts of the Carolinas and in Anniston, Ala.

BEIJING (AP) — Flash floods and landslides unleashed by heavy rains have killed 16 people in one of the areas hit hardest by the massive May earthquake in China's Sichuan province, the local government said Friday. About 20,000 people affected by the floods were evacuated and have been moved to safer places and given food and water, the city's Communist Party propaganda department said in a statement. The flooding and landslides since Wednesday also have left 48 people missing and 360 people injured in Sichuan's Mianyang city, the agency said. More than 42,000 houses have been destroyed.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Haiti's president implored leaders at the U.N. General Assembly on Friday to commit to long-term solutions to help his nation after a series of hurricanes and tropical storms killed hundreds. President Rene Preval said it will take years to recover from the four killer storms that wiped out at least 60% of Haitian agriculture and destroyed roads, bridges and homes across the country in late August and early September. At least 425 people were killed in the storms. Officials said more than 800,000 people in the country of 9 million were left needing food, water or shelter, including more than 300,000 children.