Good Morning, America Hits Galveston With All The Fury Of Ike Itself

Good Morning America's Robin Roberts reported today on the first day of hurricane season from a fitting place -- Galveston. 

Standing amid the detritus left behind by Ike, and set to a soundtrack of plaintive acoustic slide guitar, Roberts expertly delivered the mandatory post-storm platitudes, such as "People here refuse to give up."

The broadcast of course included footage from Ike's first days, because as pleasant as Roberts is, there really wasn't anything exciting for her to do. After the footage, we suddenly saw Roberts talking to Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas, who offered the very mayoral "everybody's helping everybody."

We don't know if Thomas said it, or if GMA had to edit for time, but there was nothing along the lines of "Everybody's helping everybody, except the freakin' Galveston County Daily News," which Thomas blamed for single-handedly crushing her Hurricane Recovery Committee by pointing out that the head of the committee's son has a financial interest in the East End flats development. It's for that very reason -- pesky reporters -- that Thomas barred city employees from talking to the media. After all, what right did anyone except the mayor have to find out about how bad people's homes were hit?

Roberts talked to the owners of a coffee shop that was being rebuilt, but especially interesting was the inclusion of Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, who questioned whether Galveston really deserves $59 billion in rebuild homes that should've been built to more stringent codes in the first place. (Man, talk about a real buzzkill. He probably doesn't let his friends drive drunk, either.)   

Roberts also spoke with Pam and Warren Adams, owners of Bolivar's famous "last home standing."    

"It's lonely out here," Adams told Roberts.    

Maybe she should give the mayor a call.