​Can the Tremont House catch a break?

The charming hotel down on Galveston's Strand made it though Ike, if not unscathed at least with its head held high.

But its flooding problems weren't over. An allegedly drunk and disorderly customer at the bar decided to provide a little storm surge of his own, according to the Galveston County Daily News:

A historic downtown hotel sustained at least $100,000 in water damage, some to "irreplaceable items," when a guest ripped a water pipe out of a wall, police allege.

Lyle Robin, 22, of Porter, was charged with resisting arrest in connection with an incident about 11:50 p.m. Saturday at The Tremont House, 2300 Ship's Mechanic Row, Galveston police Capt. Jeff Heyse said.

Robin, who was in Galveston to attend a wedding, and two friends were told to leave the hotel bar after being accused of being intoxicated and disruptive, Heyse said.

What the hell is it with Galveston and weddings?

More >>

​Okay, is the moral of this story a) Love can overcome all obstacles, or b) Cats are too proud to walk a bit to get back to their owner?

Your decision no doubt rests on whether you're a dog or a cat person.

But it's the feel-good story of the early part of the morning: A Webster cat, who took off in fear during an evacuation as Hurricane Ike approached, has been found and reunited with its loving owner.

That owner is Juliet Pennay, who was in France when all this was going down. We can only hope Juliet's middle initial is C, because J.C. Pennay (or, we guess, Tar-shay) and Webster just go together.

Simon the cat was living with Pennay's mom when he took off as the family tried to get out of Ike's path.
More >>

​The list of Galveston Catholic churches that the Archdiocese wants to tear down is out, and it's somewhat grim reading.

The Galveston County Daily News reports that Archbishop Daniel DiNardo wrote island parishioners of the plans, not making everyone all that happy in the process.

Among those that might soon be gone to church heaven:

Our Mother of Mercy on Bolivar Peninsula. Members there are suing to stop the move, and a mediation session is scheduled for Friday.

Holy Rosary in Galveston? Ancillary buildings torn down, but not the main church. Same with Sacred Heart.

More >>

​Hurricane Ike has just officially become Yet Another Storm That Couldn't Beat Murdoch's Pier.

The historic shop, on a pier stretching out over the Gulf, has had a soft re-opening and is expecting to be fully operational by the end of the month, the Galveston County Daily News reports.

Some of the glitches still to be worked out include phone problems, so we weren't able to reach the owners, but they told the News that the east side of the building, which includes the gift shop, is open.

The state of Texas doesn't permit any new piers to be built, so this is officially a "renovation," we guess, of the place. But seeing as it was all but wiped out by Ike, it's quite the renovation.

Murdoch's has a long history with storms since it opened in 1910.
More >>

​The public housing in Galveston, like a lot of other stuff on that island, took a pounding from Hurricane Ike.

The Galveston Housing Authority has a proposal out that would rebuild the 569 housing units lost to the storm, and held a public meeting on it last night.

How did it go? Let's let the Galveston County Daily News describe it:

The public meeting hosted by the Galveston Housing Authority on Monday ended in a shouting match between people who support the plan to rebuild 569 public housing units and those who oppose it.

Encouraging poor people to live in Galveston is a bad idea, opponents of the plan, who were mostly white, said. But without public housing, the island's nurses, teachers aids and service industry workers will have nowhere to live, supporters of the plan, who were mostly African-American, said.

Yes, well. We're sure this will all end nicely.

More >>

Marie Creasy is the manager of the Poop Deck on Galveston's Seawall, so she's been at Ground Zero for the past year's efforts to recover from Ike.

As far as she can tell, things are back: "Everybody seems to be putting their lives back together, and those that aren't putting their lives back together are leaving, they're going somewhere else."

Take a look at Galveston and its surroundings, one year after Ike the Bastard, in this week's feature story by John Nova Lomax.

​The middle of September is going to be an Ike-anniversary overload, but we kinda like the way the Little Woodrow's in Rice Village is going about it -- they're taking themselves back to those brutal, electricity-less days after the storm by cutting off the power on Friday, September 11 and Saturday, September 12.

Not all the power -- the refrigerators will still be running, manager Timothy Orr tells Hair Balls. And it's quite possible that if it's a sticky-hot day, the post-Ike re-enactment will magically include air-conditioning.

But other than that, it's back to the blackout.

"I'm a little nervous -- I don't know how it's going to be received," he says. "But we just want to do it so people don't forget what it was like."

What it was like, for Little Woodrow's, was actually pretty good.
More >>

​Ike's anniversary is coming up, an event which will be well-covered locally. We're doing out part with the September 10 issue; until then we'll be posting some Ike-related items to whet the appetite.

In the 1950s the famous comedy team of Abbott and Costello developed what is probably their most popular routine, "Who's on First." The premise of the comedy routine is that Bud Abbott is identifying the players of a make believe baseball team for Lou Costello, but the team players names, for example "Who" is the name of the person playing first base and "What" is the name of the person playing second base, come off as non-responsive answers to Costello's questions.

The routine went something like this:

Costello: "Do you know the name of the first baseman?" Abbott: "Who's on first." Costello: "That's what I'm asking you, what is the name of the person who plays first base? Abbott: "No, What's on second. Who's on first."

On September 13, 2008, my house, along with thousands of others, was heavily damaged when Hurricane Ike swept through the Gulf of Mexico with the surge of a category four storm and landed in Galveston Bay. I spent the better part of the following year working with FEMA and the Houston Housing Authority (HHA) while my home was being rebuilt.

During this period there were times when I felt as hopelessly lost in a bureaucratic system filled with a comedy of errors as Costello did in trying to interpret Abbott's explanation of the fictional team roster. In my attempts to navigate the process of acquiring transitional housing, more often than not, like Costello, I found myself back on first base.

I've used America's favorite past time as an analogy to describe the sequence of events that took place in my own version of "Who's on First." In an attempt to stay in character, and protect the innocent, I have replaced the given names of the HHA staff with those used by Abbott and Costello.

September 13 -- Hurricane Ike hits Galveston Bay. The song "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" plays in the background as the announcer takes the mic.

September 22 -- FEMA/HHA establish the Disaster Housing Assistance Program-Ike (DHAP-Ike) to help citizens displaced by Ike find temporary housing. The players enter the field.

More >>

Photo by Daniel Kramer

​Kemah is at a crossroads where some residents want to keep the city an eclectic, fishing-village-type place, and others want to turn the town into a mini South Beach, with high-rise condos lined up along the shore.

That's what Robin Collins, a city councilwoman, told us at the city's second strategic planning meeting this weekend. Collins has lived in Kemah most of her life -- her husband used to be mayor -- and she favors keeping the city the same.

She added, "How many of us wouldn't bolt if someone came in and offered us a million and a half for our homes?"

Hair Balls went to this meeting hoping to learn something a little more than we did at the last meeting, where residents basically just complained about lighthouses and parking meters. Unfortunately, other than the conversation with the councilwoman, the only thing we learned is that the most important issue in the city, as decided by the council and the Kemah Community Development Corporation, is drainage. More >>

​The pattern seems to be holding up -- in the year after getting hit by a major storm, when you're all tense and on edge for hurricane season -- you get a break.

The Colorado State University storm forecasters (Motto: Why Do We Care About Hurricanes In Colorado?) have once again cut the number of predicted hurricanes in 2009.

Ten tropical storms will form over the remainder of the season, and only four will turn into hurricanes, they say. (They said in June there'd be five.) Two will be major hurricanes.

El Nino and other highly technical stuff has kept any named storm from forming this year. Usually, according to the feds, there are 11 named storms and six hurricanes.

Of course, it only takes one, as they say. But it's always nicer to have the estimates go down rather than up.